Ecodan standby power consumption

[MikeSharp01]

Just now, SteamyTea said:

Fluttering your eyelids won't get you extra marks, did not help Angela Rainer.

 

Did you make any assumption on the time to heat i.e. DHW heating for 5 hours, CH on for 14 hours.

I was trying to pre-placate the Units police!

 

Yes I did I assumed 6months of heating @ 8 hours a day H+DHW and 6 months of just 4 hours a day DHW. Low figures but was for the place we are building IE Passive standard) 

[SteamyTea]

I am really hoping that @LA3222 has just got some spurious readings or this is a serious problem that needs a fix.

[Radian]

On 23/04/2022 at 15:19, LA3222 said:

I have 18 individual CT clamps for seperate circuits as well as for the total power used. Helps to drill down into what's going on.

@LA3222 What monitoring system do these CT's plug in to? 

[Kenway]

Does anyone know at what temperature the oil starts to mix and the heater would need to come on? 

[LA3222]

5 minutes ago, Radian said:

@LA3222 What monitoring system do these CT's plug in to? 

Emporia vue. I do intend to try and get some bona fide accurate readings as I'm not too trusting on accuracy, I have read a bit which leads to think the true power consumption is likely a lot less. On the other hand, there does seem to be a lot of information  now being dug up about this issue which suggests there is a problem, just that the true scale of it is unknown at the minute. The other thing that lends itself to this being an actual thing was the attitude of the tech support at Mitsubishi - didn't bat an eye when I queried this.

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

May be a DC voltage as it is an inverter unit.

But if you put DC into an inductive motor winding, the current flow would be a LOT higher, it would just be the winding resistance, so if using DC for energising the stator winding as a heater, it would have to be a much lower voltage.

[Mjb]

My house is drawing 21w with everything off apart from heat pump system which includes the outside unit, FTC5 and 3 Heatmiser stats. My heatpump is an Ecodan PUHZ-W50VHA2 2019 manufacture.

[Radian]

59 minutes ago, LA3222 said:

Emporia vue. I do intend to try and get some bona fide accurate readings as I'm not too trusting on accuracy, I have read a bit which leads to think the true power consumption is likely a lot less. On the other hand, there does seem to be a lot of information  now being dug up about this issue which suggests there is a problem, just that the true scale of it is unknown at the minute. The other thing that lends itself to this being an actual thing was the attitude of the tech support at Mitsubishi - didn't bat an eye when I queried this.

 

Going by this post on the emporiaenergy community forum only the two Main clamps measure real power, all the others will show VA.

 

Quote

So…. Your main power readings from your incoming supply will be very accurate, however all the other circuits may be somewhat inaccurate depending on what is running on them. Thats why the things dont add up & there’s magical “free” feed-in power from somewhere. There’s likely a load with high reactive power somewhere on the smaller CT’s.

So if something looks like its consuming heaps of power – yet there’s nothing on the main power CT’s, trust the main power CT’s.
Culprits are switchmode power supplies, induction motors… anything that has a low “power factor”.

Hope that helps others!

 

I think this is why there's a lot of discussion going on around this subject. The real power is probably quite modest (maybe why the Mitsubishi tech didn't bat an eye) but people checking with CT clamps not referenced to the line Voltage phase see alarming numbers.

 

I don't know how portable your Emporia Vue is but if its the one with two big clamps and 16 little ones, you could temporarily clip one of the big ones around the Ecodan supply wire and check the real standby power with that.

[joth]

Very early days, but what I'm seeing with a dedicated CT (pzem-004t v3) is it alternating between 3W and 27W on a 30 min cycle, so maybe averaging 15W continuous. This is for a PUZ-WM85VAA with FTC6 controller.

 

Edited April 26, 2022 by joth

[SteamyTea]

Well so far I have drawn a blank with people in the industry knowing anything about it.  But then no one has looked.

A couple more people to chat to, hopefully one will allow me to put a proper power meter on one. 

We shall see.

[Radian]

1 hour ago, joth said:

Very early days, but what I'm seeing with a dedicated CT (pzem-004t v3) is it alternating between 3W and 27W on a 30 min cycle, so maybe averaging 15W continuous. This is for a PUZ-WM85VAA with FTC6 controller.

 

@joth can you tell me how the pzem-004t v3 handles bidirectional power? I'm looking for a CT that can monitor import/export.

[joth]

40 minutes ago, Radian said:

 

@joth can you tell me how the pzem-004t v3 handles bidirectional power? I'm looking for a CT that can monitor import/export.

 

It doesn't 😞

(Hence why I had this one spare, I'd replaced it with an emonpi for import/export measurements)

 

There's a hack published to allow reading power direction, but I backed away from trying it.

https://github.com/apreb/eNode#measure-direction-hack-

 

 

 

[LA3222]

3 hours ago, Radian said:

 

Going by this post on the emporiaenergy community forum only the two Main clamps measure real power, all the others will show VA.

 

 

I think this is why there's a lot of discussion going on around this subject. The real power is probably quite modest (maybe why the Mitsubishi tech didn't bat an eye) but people checking with CT clamps not referenced to the line Voltage phase see alarming numbers.

 

I don't know how portable your Emporia Vue is but if its the one with two big clamps and 16 little ones, you could temporarily clip one of the big ones around the Ecodan supply wire and check the real standby power with that.

Yeah I had read that last night while.doimg a bit of reading hence why I need to follow thos rabbit further down the hole. I dont think 200W is right but there is certainly some power usage, need to drill down into it. What @joth is observing is good. Less than ideal that power is wasted but a much more acceptable figure to swallow.

[LA3222]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Well so far I have drawn a blank with people in the industry knowing anything about it.

A bit odd this, I think this issue falls into the no-one cares because no one had to previously. Talk around ASHP is driven by COP, not once have I seen 'standby' power consumption listed. Yet everything else we buy in life gives a value for that.

 

It seems a closed case that there is some power wastage in order to keep the oil warm, stop refrigerant from dissolving into it and damaging the compressor. The devil now is in the detail of how much power is wasted and which are the worst offenders.

[joth]

One more finding:

I ran the DHW for 30mins at 11am this morning (reheated the tank right up to 55C), and the periodic 27W draw ceased for the following 5 hours. I presume as the compressor was nice and hot it didn't have any need for warming it up. Thus, the draw would appear to be dynamic based on environment and operational conditions, not a static invariant load.

 

 

[ReedRichards]

My heat pump has been in "standby" for the last hour.  The reading on the meter that monitors its electricity usage has increased by 1 digit in the last unit; that's 0.01 kWh in an hour or roughly 10 W.  Of course there is a high degree of uncertainty associated with this.  

[joth]

13 hours ago, joth said:

Thus, the draw would appear to be dynamic based on environment and operational conditions, not a static invariant load.

Yes the vampire load is very variable on my ecodan. After operating for 30mins at 11am yesterday it as dormant until 5pm, had 3 blasts of 25W and then dormant again until 3am.

 

So ignoring the actual operation, the energy accumulator says the background load has drawn 124 Wh in the last day, giving an average background load of 5W.

Not perfect, but low enough not to worry about.

 

If the OP really is recording 200W average I think the unit has a fault. Mitsubishi tech support need a slap.

 

(I had the same challenge with a Sony AV amp. A firmware update suddenly pushed the background draw from 1W to 60W. As a consumer I seemed to have no recourse for such a fault, even though it's illegal under the EU 1W regulations)

 

[ProDave]

Last night was forecast to be cold here with possible a light frost.  so I took a meter reading at 10PM and another at 8AM this morning, so a 10 hour cold overnight period.  In that time my LG ASHP use 0.2kWh

 

I chose this cold night as I knew it would be cold enough to trigger the anti frost water circulation function a few times, so that will have been 2 circulating pumps and 2 motorised valves energised a few times.

 

When we get back to some proper weather with warm nights I will repeat that test when I know the anti frost function is not triggered.

[dpmiller]

We've had a warm spell here and the ASHP has not to my knowledge run at all, but it's supply meter has gone up by 0.5kWh in three days.

 

 

[Wil]

I have a Shelly 3EM on each HP.

 

My 3phase IVT18 sits idle at 13.1W, 3W on phase A, 10.1W on phase C. The pump appears to run from phase C when it does run at around 90W before the compressor kicks in.

 

The IVT26 sits idle at 12W. Edit: just found a day it didn’t run the compressor and it consumed 313W across 24H with 29.9W phase A, 22.5W phase B and 260W on phase C.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Wil

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Wil said:

Edit: just found a day it didn’t run the compressor and it consumed 313W across 24H with 29.9W phase A, 22.5W phase B and 260W on phase C.

Just to make it clear,  Your HP produced nothing, but drew 313W for the day.  7.5 kWh or around £2.25 at 30p/kWh.

 

What make and model HP you got?

Edited April 27, 2022 by SteamyTea

[dpmiller]

I read that as total, not per hour?

[HughF]

18 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Just to make it clear,  Your HP produced nothing, but drew 313W for the day.  7.5 kWh or around £2.25 at 30p/kWh.

 

What make and model HP you got?

I assume the iVT is the Cool Energy unit, inverter driven.

[Wil]

2x Cool Energy 3phase, IVT 18 and IVT 26. That 313W was total across 24h. Or 10p a day on standby. 

[joth]

39 minutes ago, Wil said:

2x Cool Energy 3phase, IVT 18 and IVT 26. That 313W was total across 24h. Or 10p a day on standby. 

 

I think you mean it consumed 313 Wh across the 24 hour period.