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marginal electricity eco source indicator

indicate the eco source of electricity marginally generational
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People bang on at great length about climate change, resource depletion, and renewable eco-friendly sustainable power.

In real life the electricity grid is all connected and is fed by many different sources including fossil fuel power plants, nuclear things and windmills and solar panels.

Live data is available to tell you how much power is being drawn from the grid right now, and how much is being fed into the grid by different generators. (see links for examples)

However these are very techy and while they are good for nerds who want to make it their hobby to watch the pretty graphs, they are not useful for affecting consumer behaviour, and neither are they useful for bragging at your posh dinner parties about how eco-conscious you are.

Proposed is a universal standard system which bundles the sources into "carbon neutral" and "fossil fuel powered".

When the system is running such that any extra demand (e.g. switching on a kettle or plugging in an electric car to charge it) is met by increasing the output of a fossil fuel plant (e.g. a natural gas burning station), the system broadcasts a "fossil" signal. When any extra demand is to be met by increasing the output of windmills or solar panels, the system broadcasts a "renewable" signal.

Now inside your house every plug socket is fitted with two little light-uppable logos. They can have frosted white fronts so that they don't show unless they are illuminated. One of them is in the shape of a skull and it lights up red when the system is broadcasting the "fossil" signal. The other is in the shape of a leaf and lights up green when the system is broadcasting the "renewable" signal.

Now you can take responsibility for your own destruction of the ecosystem. "Would you like a cup of tea dear?" "No thanks, the red skull is lit up. Hang on for a few hours, the leaf should appear at some point this evening because its quite windy"

pocmloc, Oct 01 2024

https://gridwatch.co.uk/ [pocmloc, Oct 01 2024]

https://powerledger...t-you-need-to-know/ [pocmloc, Oct 01 2024]

Interesting discussion way back when. Certified_20Green_2...Recharge_20Stations
[doctorremulac3, Oct 01 2024]

[link]






       I feel like attempting to actually predict the effects of adding household source to the grid is doomed to be inherently misleading, given the complexities of how the grid balances loads in real time. Rapid changes in load are usually necessarily controlled by small inefficient generators that can adjust capacity quickly, because the high-efficiency generators are also often the slowest to respond and require a more predictive/anticipatory control scheme. What power sources will need to be brought to bear in response to any given change in load is highly dependent on the magnitude of the changes, how rapidly they change, and how long the changes persist, which can't be known without also knowing in advance exactly what the homeowner plans to plug in and how long they intend to run it for.   

       That said, I think a simple indicator of the *current* generation profile is easy and is a reasonable substitute for an actual prediction. One can assume any typical household use will on average just mean "more of what's currently happening". So that's fine and perfectly in line with what you propose.
5th Earth, Oct 01 2024
  

       Check out the link for a related idea and how the conversation turns from the science of the idea into incredibly puerile and vulgar humor in record time.   

       Ahh memories. Good times, miss ya Max.
doctorremulac3, Oct 01 2024
  

       In an interconnected grid, the last watt of extra power consumed at the margin is always going to be the least green of all the billions of watts in use at any given moment. So this would be showing permanent red skull until the decarbonisation of the grid was almost complete.
pertinax, Oct 02 2024
  
      
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