Inspired by this Mastodon account, I programmed an ESP8266 microcontroller to act as a traffic light, indicating the current electricity mix. Check it out on Codeberg! It uses an API from the Fraunhofer Institute and the parts cost around 5€. In my shared flat we use it as an indicator on when to run demanding devices, like the washing machine.
That is what I was implying as well. If it’s open source, it doesn’t mean it’s free (as in freedom). Make it free (as in freedom), which would imply that it doesn’t have to cost anything, if you have the knowhow.
By saying that it cost around 5€ I meant that the material to build this cost me around 5€. I would happily set them up for free if one gave me the material for free, but the microcontroller and so on do cost some money.
The API and (of course) the source code are free (as in freedom, being AGPL licensed). And since I did my best to document it well and provide easy to follow instructions in the README, I do think I managed to make it free as in freedom.
I get that one may be interested in using electricity when it’s green(er); but I am curious…is there an ongoing reason or incentive to use energy during a “Green” phase as compared to a “Yellow” or “Red” phase that I am missing?
Or is this simply a fun passion project because one wishes to choose to only use green(er) energy than most do?
In my understanding a problem often is that electricity isn’t used when renewable electricity sources can provide it. One solution to this is storing it, another (complementary) one is to adjust the usage to times when there is a lot of renewable energy available. This especially makes sense for big consumers (like factories), but a lot of washing machines also sum up to a lot of electricity demand. So we have to adjust to mainly use electricity when it’s available via renewable sources, and this thing can hopefully help with that.
Automatic delay and time adjustment should be standard for consumer devices and electric car charging that consume lot of energy, and don’t need to be activated immediately.
For years and even decades, it’s been possible to setup water heaters to activate during low-rate electricity hours, and store the hot water for later.
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