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Meter Readings Panic and Electricity Costs


canalsiderenovation

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2 hours ago, PeterW said:

I would be looking at -5°C High and 10°C low, and 35/42 as the values. 

 

So @PeterW the pic that says 201* you would put at 10 and -5 and the pic that says 202* you would put at 35/42?

 

 

1 hour ago, AliG said:

Considering those settings I would just set the Water Law setting to -3C which would theoretically give a maximum flow of 42C and set your thermostat at 21C and see what happens.

 

@AliG This is the main one I had set at -5 to change change to -3? Our room thermostats are all set to 19 degrees but it is a bit cooler than I'd like but I'll perhaps leave them here just to see what impact it has.

 

1 hour ago, AliG said:

or maybe you have treated yourself to an 85inch TV over Christmas

 

We did get a 55 inch TV ?

 

We are being a bit more savvy now with electric and if we can get the solar connected in the next week or two that may help. 

 

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6 minutes ago, canalsiderenovation said:

We are being a bit more savvy now with electric and if we can get the solar connected in the next week or two that may help. 

Assuming it is working properly, my 5kw PV system has generated 11kWh is the last 6 weeks, but generates 3-3500 a year. So they are as good as useless for offsetting high electricity usage from an ASHP in the winter. Their electricity generation is almost the exact inverse of heat requirement.

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9 minutes ago, canalsiderenovation said:
3 hours ago, PeterW said:

I would be looking at -5°C High and 10°C low, and 35/42 as the values. 

 

So @PeterW the pic that says 201* you would put at 10 and -5 and the pic that says 202* you would put at 35/42?

 

 

1 hour ago, AliG said:

Considering those settings I would just set the Water Law setting to -3C which would theoretically give a maximum flow of 42C and set your thermostat at 21C and see what happens.

 

@AliG This is the main one I had set at -5 to change change to -3? Our room thermostats are all set to 19 degrees but it is a bit cooler than I'd like but I'll perhaps leave them here just to see what impact it has.

-3 would be the same as setting it to 34 and 42 (-3 from the current 37/45 setting) so it is just a less faff way to do the same thing.

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10 minutes ago, AliG said:

my 5kw PV system has generated 11kWh is the last 6 weeks, but generates 3-3500 a year

I would expect 1,500 kWh a year more than you are getting.

And 11 kWh in 6 weeks recently points to something wrong.

Have you checked it against PV-GIS estimates?

Edited by SteamyTea
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2 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

And 11 kWh in 6 weeks recently points to something wrong.

It was just fixed 6 weeks ago so I need to go check that it is all switched back on correctly.

 

Gives me an excuse to get back into the loft to seal up the top of my pipe boxes

Edited by AliG
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50 minutes ago, AliG said:

Assuming it is working properly, my 5kw PV system has generated 11kWh is the last 6 weeks, but generates 3-3500 a year. So they are as good as useless for offsetting high electricity usage from an ASHP in the winter. Their electricity generation is almost the exact inverse of heat requirement.

 

Not to help with the running of the ASHP but 'other' electrical things and diverting any excess to the immersion.

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Seems yesterday the energy consumption of the ASHP went down. I'm now obsessed on this function!

 

16108867415943807666909710791497.thumb.jpg.8503134b4fdb32619d06d7425439dba1.jpg

 

And this is the setting we have set on the water law now which I changed yesterday.

 

16108868054907297765626408610677.thumb.jpg.5fa0bd4b6ae43ff0152fa15d845dcafe.jpg

 

I also did what @PeterW suggested and changed the  201* settings to 10 and -5.

 

We have turned the room thermostats up to 20.5 degrees though as 19 was a bit chilly for us.

 

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Ok right I need to check something. I took a meter reading on 7 January and it was 09359 and on 15 January it was 09945 it suggests we used 586 units of electricity during that time. 

 

Using the heat pump energy consumption setting I've found our daily kWh usage from that period. Granted on 7th and 15th that kWh on the heat pump is for a 24 hour period but in total it is 572kwh for those time periods (see bar charts below).

 

If our total units of electricity used was around 586 for the 8 days (acknowledging I don't know what time of day it was on 7th I took the intial meter reading and was lunchtime on 15th when I took the subsequent meter reading) it suggests that our 'other' energy use was likely to be minimal. Does this sound right?

 

When I rung Alto they were quite dismissive on the energy use of the heat pump and suggested we were likely using a lot of other energy elsewhere but this seems to contradict that point.

 

IMG_20210117_172632.thumb.jpg.3c91f159f8c0bdceab515e096e62ec22.jpg

 

 

IMG_20210117_172641.thumb.jpg.4cc25aef98ffb88a8d76efc5cc02495e.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

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On 15/01/2021 at 13:03, Thedreamer said:

That's seems like a lot of electricity.

 

We usually have a temperature of 19-20 degrees. Best thing to do is to reduce temperature and then monitor the change.

 

We are in a 3 bedroom all electricity house (but just have heat pump for hot water) and our usage is 10-11 units in the summer and around 13 units in the winter.

 

Just did a meter reading slightly higher than I said before actually 16 units a day used in the last month. 

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9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

All the 'other stuff' in my house i.e. fridge, cooking, computer, lighting etc, uses about 2 kWh/day.

 

That probably sounds about right then for our 'other stuff'.

 

8 minutes ago, TonyT said:

I’m not sure what Ringing Alto would achieve?

 

For a start asking them re the flow rate settings. 

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I think it is best to just monitor it day by day now that you have made changes. 

 

When I go through this kind of exercise I try and take a reading at the same time each day for a couple of days each time I change the settings.

 

It might be the initial getting up to temperature as it seemed very high for a few days then dropped closer to what would be expected. I once calculated the weight of our house and the amount of heat required to get it up to temperature if it had been left and it is a lot. The slab holds a lot of heat.

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Ok I know you are all probably sick of me now. I don't quite know why I'm posting this but just for my own sanity at least it's out of my head.

 

Alto have just rung. Apparently the energy usage screen on the heat pump isn't accurate and is only an estimation! I think this may be a bit of BS 

(but if someone tells me I'm wrong I stand to be corrected) but I'll monitor that but our figures suggest it isn't and is surprisingly accurate.

 

They were quite dismissive about the flow rate temperature and indicated it will take longer to heat up so electricity use will be the same but based on the conversation on here and what I've read I think this is something I'm going to monitor and it's set at -3 as I think @AliG suggested so the flow temperature is slightly lower now

 

Since we took the meter reading of the heat pump and immersion on Friday and again at 3:30pm today we have used a total of 101.74kwh split between 6.96 on immersion and 94.78 on the heat pump.

 

Our total meter reading since Friday lunch and just now suggests we have used 122 units of electricity in total. Allowing for 101.74 on the heat pump that means we have used 20 units of electricity which when we used dishwasher and washing machine, dryer over the weekend as well as charging chain saws, hedge cutters etc since we were gardening seems pretty low and fits with what I thought our general usage was.

 

I've also been on to Octopus about their tarrifs and Octopus Go and Go Faster as their day rate is cheaper than any other fix we can get and then any other cheap rate they can offer at night (or other times with Go Faster) will help us as we can time appliances etc and our electrician is coming this week to finally sort the solar too.

 

This is literally taking over my life.....

 

 

Edited by canalsiderenovation
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4 minutes ago, TonyT said:

What about getting a few electricity meters fitted to the heat pump, immersion so you have accurate data?

 

It’s an easy job for an electrician, meters can be purchased for £25 upwards.

 

I think that's what we have already. That's how I've been able to seperate out the usage.

 

End two - blur light is immersion and one to right of it is heat pump.

16109904985855226968197955788967.jpg

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21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Buy this.  You can even add a cheap RPi logger to it.

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Current-Cost-Real-time-Energy-Monitor-CC128-ENVI/324444722680

Is it a smart meter thingy that tracks energy use? Sorry idiot question but what is it exactly? 

 

We think we have a smart meter but haven't got the energy use thing.

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1 hour ago, canalsiderenovation said:

Is it a smart meter thingy that tracks energy use? Sorry idiot question but what is it exactly

It is an energy monitor.  Similar to the internal display you get with a smart meter.

But you can clamp it onto any live wire and read the power used and the energy accumulated.

You may need to find a live wire that goes to your ASHP (in the consumer unit maybe) and then can you see what it is using at any time, and what it has used in the previous day, week, 30 days.

 

Quite useful as you can spot things that may have gone wrong.  I noticed my usage go up drastically, it was my fridge being permanently on.

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57 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

It is an energy monitor.  Similar to the internal display you get with a smart meter.

But you can clamp it onto any live wire and read the power used and the energy accumulated.

You may need to find a live wire that goes to your ASHP (in the consumer unit maybe) and then can you see what it is using at any time, and what it has used in the previous day, week, 30 days.

 

Quite useful as you can spot things that may have gone wrong.  I noticed my usage go up drastically, it was my fridge being permanently on.

 

Thank you. I'll definitely look into this. Let's see what this week brings and we have a clearer picture of what our heat pump is costing now we have adjusted those flow settings. We have already seen our usage half in kWh over the last two days - if indeed the Samsung energy use screen is correct.

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I just can't get my head around this.

 

Yesterday (Monday) I took the meter readings of the heat pump and immersion so we were able to calculate we had used, since the same time on Friday 6.96kwh on the immersion and 94.78kwh on the heat pump over the 3 days.

 

Strangely now at 24 hours since I took the readings yesterday I've taken a reading again on the heat pump and immersion and we have used 8kwh on the immersion since 3:30pm yesterday versus 6.96kwh on the immersion over Friday-Monday.

 

Confused because I haven't actually changed anything since yesterday so I don't know why the immersion has used more in one 24 hour period than a 72 hour period over the weekend when we had baths etc. Any ideas anyone @AliG?

 

On the plus on the 4 days since the readings I took on Friday I have a bit of a clearer picture now of our use which I can say over 4 days is seperated out as follows.

 

Total units 162 between 3:30pm Friday and 3:30pm Tuesday, of which:

 

115 units is the heat pump

15 units is immersion

32 units of 'other' electricity use

 

Averaging out our usage over 4 days just for the heat pump/immersion seems to come in at 32.5 kWh which is still more than others but recognise we don't have our EWI. Do you have a ASHP @Thedreamer as your usage seems to be far lower.

 

 

Edited by canalsiderenovation
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7 minutes ago, canalsiderenovation said:

Do you have solar to only be using 2kwh

No.  I am just careful. I use minimum lighting, no TV, sensible use of washing machine, never use the tumble dryer, cheap laptop that only uses 8W when on.

And it is kWh.

 

This week is going to be an exception as I have been using a 2 kW steamer to get paint off my porch walls.  My day usage is probably up by 10 to 12 kWh/day.

 

Re your inconsistent immersion usage.  Has the legonella cycle come on during the weekend (just turn it off).  Have you used more or less DHW without really realising it.

 

Don't know, without looking, but my external temperatures have gone from 0°C to 12°C in the last week.

Edited by SteamyTea
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