A government agency in Germany announced plans to remotely limit home heating and charging of electric cars under a new scheme.
Germany’s Federal Network Agency, a watchdog that regulates electricity and gas in the country, said the plan would allow the power grid operators to remotely limit people’s use of heat pumps and electric car chargers next winter without the user’s consent.
The plans, set to be in place by January 2024, will give energy grid operators the power to artificially curb electricity demand if consumption outstrips supply. [emphasis, links added]
Die Welt reported that the plans had been drawn up in the wake of the German energy grid being put under more strain due to the increasing use of electric car chargers and people using supposed ‘environmentally friendly’ electricity-intense heat pumps in their homes.
The increased demand cannot be caught up with increased supply, meaning the government believes that remote consumption restrictions are the only solution.
The agency reportedly says that the public would require an “acceptance of necessary comfort restrictions” to implement remote-controlled energy grid operators.
Although there is currently no evidence that such devices could be remotely switched off completely, the Federal Network Agency aims to make it mandatory that such devices can be remotely limited to as low as 3.7 kilowatts to enable what they call “peak smoothing.”
Restricting movement
Such limitations would effectively cripple the effectiveness of many devices, making it take as long as three hours to charge electric cars, [with only enough juice] for them to travel up to 50 kilometers, according to Die Welt.
The measures will likely be in place by the middle of next winter when Germany will probably see even worse energy issues.
Meanwhile, the EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, and the International Energy Agency warned the country faces a massive gas shortfall in the tens of billions of cubic meters next year.
Read rest at The Daily Fetched
This whole campaign against fossil Fuels is based upon Junk Science and politics of the Keep it in the Ground devest in Fossil Fuels Nitwits
nfw.
Some years ago I bought a townhouse in Orange County CA near a beach, it was outfitted with central AC which is unusual in that area due to the cool temperate climate. However, one summer it did get unusually hot for a few weeks, temps in the 90F+ range for those weeks and we needed to try the air conditioning. Lo and behold, the condenser wouldn’t start up even though the air handler fan was running. Called an HVAC tech who informed me that there was an economy module installed in the power circuit to the condenser, this was a special program with SoCal Edison to have control over HVAC units at the utility’s discretion. The tech asked if I was a subscriber to the program – which I was not – and then proceeded to rewire my power input to bypass the Edison module. Apparently the prior owner had gone in for the program, and when he disconnected his account, Edison never discontinued the controller, it was working in the background without my knowledge. Having lived with a utility (or govt) controlled electric supply, I’d choose not to have that ever again.
They encouraged customers to buy heat pumps and EV’s. It’s no surprise to me that they engineered the ability to ration electricity to these suckers. Socialism and rationing go hand in hand. Canada’s health care system is a prime example.