Which devices are boosting your electricity bill?

[DamonHD]

7 hours ago, oldkettle said:

You might want to check the user guide of your dishwasher. The way they usually work (which is also true for washing machines) is faster wash takes more energy, not less, which kind of makes sense: who'd want to use other modes otherwise? On ours Eco mode is 3h15mins (who cares if it runs at night). 

FWIW on mine the 30m quick wash uses almost exactly the same energy as the ECO wash (which is an hour of wash and rinse, then two hours slowly drying!) at 0.8kWh:

 

http://www.earth.org.uk/note-on-Zanussi-ZDS2010-freestanding-slimline-dishwasher-REVIEW.html#performance

 

Other washes use double that energy.

 

Damon

 

PS. I do run the rinse to keep food from sticking and things from getting smelly while waiting for the machine to fill up.  That uses tiny amounts of energy, maybe 1/20th that of a wash, but it does use 5l of water.

[oldkettle]

23 minutes ago, DamonHD said:

FWIW on mine the 30m quick wash uses almost exactly the same energy as the ECO wash (which is an hour of wash and rinse, then two hours slowly drying!) at 0.8kWh:

And as expected, quick wash runs at a higher temperature. 

I personally only use it when we actually need dishes quickly as the result is not guaranteed. 

[DamonHD]

11 hours ago, oldkettle said:

And as expected, quick wash runs at a higher temperature. 

I personally only use it when we actually need dishes quickly as the result is not guaranteed. 

Yes, agreed.

 

(Or if we have patchy sunshine so I want to be more confident that I can get more of the load covered by our PV.)

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[Ferdinand]

One surprise for me is the extent to which spin speed makes a difference.

 

My usual spin is 1400rpm - I find that if I use a wash with 1200rpm the drying time is significantly longer. That may be because my indoor drying setup is marginal compared to eg a place with MVHR.

F

[ProDave]

Thought it worth adding my electricity use findings:

 

Absolute base load, while away on holiday. Just Mvhr, Treatment plant and one sky HD box left on to record some stuff = 4.4kWh / day

 

A similar test to above, away for a week, but this time also a second Freezer left on, and a few tv's on stnadby 6.5kWh / day.  So second freezer and standby tv's using 2.1kWh / day.

 

Normal usage with us in the house = 10.4kWh per day.  So everything we "use" (over and above the background load above) is using 3.9kWh /day

 

I regard this usage as "high" probably because the electricity used to power "stuff exceeds the electricity used to heat the house and hot water.

 

Worth noting that these holiday background tests were in the summer, so the real background usage will be more but most of the daytime background use will have come from the solar PV, this is just a measure of what was imported, which would have been mostly at night.

[SteamyTea]

Why don't more people on here use an energy monitor and logger.

Would take all the guesswork out if it.

[Ferdinand]

40 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Why don't more people on here use an energy monitor and logger.

Would take all the guesswork out if it.

 

I have one which I use when tuning (Meter readings and OWL and digital plug monitor), but not something I do all the time.

 

Insufficiently dedicated for that.

[SteamyTea]

8 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

Insufficiently dedicated for that.

And energy is too cheap to change habits/goods.

[Ferdinand]

15 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

And energy is too cheap to change habits/goods.

 

No - but more that once one has the low hanging fruit and decent practices in place it is subject to a law of diminishing returns. So occasional checks is sufficient for say 80-90% of potential gains.

Edited August 13, 2020 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

52 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Why don't more people on here use an energy monitor and logger.

Would take all the guesswork out if it.

Let me know what is a DECENT energy monitor.

 

I bought a cheap one from ebay and it is pathetic, it cannot tell the difference between what is being imported and exported, and the pulsed nature of the immersion power from the solar PV diverter really upsets it and makes it a random number generator.

 

About the only thing it can do is tell me how much we are using at night.

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, ProDave said:

Let me know what is a DECENT energy monitor.

Well my CurrentCost, coupled to an RPI is good, shame they don't make them anymore. A few on eBay though.

I have seen a project to make one that reads the LED pulses on a meter, that should cope with PV as you can put a sensor on each meter (I assume that the the LED still goes on permanently when exporting.

 

[ProDave]

2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Well my CurrentCost, coupled to an RPI is good, shame they don't make them anymore. A few on eBay though.

I have seen a project to make one that reads the LED pulses on a meter, that should cope with PV as you can put a sensor on each meter (I assume that the the LED still goes on permanently when exporting.

 

Generation meter is some distance away and almost impossible to hard wire anything to it.

 

Import meter is also remote from the house but I have a twisted pair cable to the meter box.

 

I can't see anything that measures the flashes of the impulse light will do much, my import meter is one that just goes solid red if anything at all is exporting which happens quite often when generating.

 

I bought the cheap thing I did as it was wireless and will display in watts being used or pence per hour and thought it would be hand to have in the house to see how much say the dishwasher was using, but it has prove totally useless for that unless you put the dishwasher on when there is no PV generations.  It does not even just show the net import or export, which would be a small number, it gets really bothered by the pulsed nature of the immersion diverter and gives random large numbers.

[DamonHD]

A plain current clamp meter whoever fancy and expensive (a) cannot tell the direction of flow and (b) compensate for voltage changes and (c) entirely compensate for non-resistive loads.

 

A deliberate side-effect of my Enphase AC Battery install is pretty good metering that deals with all of that.  Not in perfect agreement with supply meters for example, but close.

 

http://www.earth.org.uk/Enphase-AC-Battery-REVIEW.html

 

Rgds

 

Damon

[SteamyTea]

6 hours ago, ProDave said:

Generation meter is some distance away and almost impossible to hard wire anything to it.

Can't do anything about that, except develop a wireless solution, like I currently use.

 

6 hours ago, ProDave said:

I can't see anything that measures the flashes of the impulse light will do much, my import meter is one that just goes solid red if anything at all is exporting which happens quite often when generating.

So when your import meter is constantly lit, and your export meter is flashing, you know that you are self generating and exporting.

When you are importing and generating, both will flash.

 

Sound like a third meter, with a CT clamp may be needed.

Many years ago I rigged up two meters with 7 clamps to work out the flows on a 3 phase PV system, matched the usage, imports and exports very well.  As Damon says, not perfect, but pretty good.

[ProDave]

I already have a meter built into my solar PV dump controller. that is constantly measuring generation and house consumption and I have a centre zero meter that shows if it's importing or exporting, but that meter is up in the plant room.  I bought the cheap generic meter as i hoped it would be a wireless solution but it proved useless.

[AliG]

@ProDave it must be all the meters that are boosting your electricity consumption!

[markharro]

I am not sure you do have the record AliG....17,000Kwh must equate to a bill of between £2000-3000 pa? We share some similarities - we live in Edinburgh, own a Tesla and my daughter has a (paddling) pool. Now where we differ - our house is ramshackle, freezing and damp and much smaller I'd guess at around 95m2. At the moment we have no solar and the car is charged via public chargers. Our electric storage heating runs pretty much constantly as does a woodstove from about now until March. I would wager we are paying about the same for our electricity as you. Having said that if all goes to plan we are hoping to transit to the other extreme (passivhaus) which should help a little!

[newhome]

3 hours ago, markharro said:

Our electric storage heating runs pretty much constantly

 

Ouch! My heating is all electric (no gas here) and I have no PV and a broken ST system that I can't get anyone to fix. I use just over 12000 Kwh per year but it would cost lots more if I heated the whole house (I only heat the rooms that I actually use as the house is really too large for me). I also have a PHEV but since lockdown I've worked from home constantly so it get used much less than before. What sort of tariff are you on? 

 

[Cpd]

3 hours ago, markharro said:

our house is ramshackle, freezing and damp and much smaller

 

3 hours ago, markharro said:

I would wager we are paying about the same for our electricity as you.

 

yup...... this is me as well though I have two supplies to two Main Consumer Units and three separate dwellings..... in total five adults and three children on site and at least two guests for four months solid  over summer. average electric Bill per year is £2500. I think given that I also have a cabin that I rent out over summer where guests don’t try to save electric ..... my yearly bill is not as bad as it could be.... hopefully as the buildings become insulated and dry the bills will fall..... I keep telling myself it can only get better....... 

[markharro]

4 hours ago, newhome said:

 

Ouch! My heating is all electric (no gas here) and I have no PV and a broken ST system that I can't get anyone to fix. I use just over 12000 Kwh per year but it would cost lots more if I heated the whole house (I only heat the rooms that I actually use as the house is really too large for me). I also have a PHEV but since lockdown I've worked from home constantly so it get used much less than before. What sort of tariff are you on? 

 

We are with Bulb. I have thought about switching to Octopus but we dont have a smart meter and I am hoping that this may be the last winter we will have to endure in the current house.

[newhome]

1 minute ago, markharro said:

We are with Bulb. I have thought about switching to Octopus but we dont have a smart meter and I am hoping that this may be the last winter we will have to endure in the current house.

 

What rate are you getting? There is a 12.59p rate with EDF for EV owners. I've just moved to it (or will have once they complete the transfer). I couldn't switch to Octopus as I don't have a smart meter either (none available for my set up yet) but once I can have a smart meter I will switch again. 

 

https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/ev_rate_card_go_electric_nov_21.pdf