In message
, at
04:32:18 on Thu, 28 May 2009, Mizter T remarked:
Hence night storage heaters and hot water boilers with timers (a
principle that can extend to other appliances e.g. washing machines
and dishwashers).

This is a classic example of market failure. Why should I run around
putting all those things on timers, with all the inconvenience of taking
2 days to wash clothes [wash at 2am one day, dry at 2am the next day],
just to return my bill to the level it used to be before!!

Also, this uSwitch webpage suggests that it can make sense if one's
night-time energy consumption is "roughly 20%" as opposed to a third
as you suggested:

1/3 is a sexier fraction than 1/5

http://www.uswitch.com/gas-electricity/economy-7/

Still, you're quite right to say that it could well prove to be a
false economy.

Although the rates could be adjusted.

Nonetheless the principle could be utilised for car charging, either
through on-street charge points or fed by the car owner's domestic
electricity supply

If the rates are calculated properly.

- of course charging a car from one's domestic
supply entails being able to park the car more or less next to one's
home, and dealing with getting the cable across the pavement as well
(these problems don't apply with a driveway or garage of course).

It'll make the fight for a parking space exactly outside your own house
much fiercer!

Nearby-ish to where I live there's someone who has one of these G-Wiz
electric cars - they seem to be able to park it outside their house
most of the time (it's a quiet dead-end street) and the cable they use
across the pavement (which doesn't get a lot of traffic) is one of
those arrangements with a rubbery mat so it lies flat and appears to
largely mitigate the trip factor, but I'm not sure it'd be so workable
if the pavement was a somewhat more popular walking route.

I wonder if there are any rules about that kind of thing. For example,
the car isn't directly earthed, so what if there's a fault somewhere?
--
Roland Perry