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Reducing Energy Bills - How goes it?


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15 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

Ever day, it is part of my job.  Mine can combine the microwave and the fan oven to speed things up more.

 

Turns out ours can too. The question now on my mind is how much more efficient it might be to combine using the microwave and resistive components.

 

Our 900W maximum microwave power setting is actually drawing more like 1200W from the mains so is 75% efficient. Resistive heating is 100% ...but the time taken for the heat to reach the centre of food is less for microwaving so in theory it doen't need to cook for so long. I'm sure there's something to be gained from using combined heating modes but it would take a carefully devised experiment to find out by how much.

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1 minute ago, Radian said:

Turns out ours can too. The question now on my mind is how much more efficient it might be to combine using the microwave and resistive components.

Some of it will depend on what you want your food to look, and taste, like after heating.

A microwave is very good for heating/reheating, not so good for the Maillard reaction, which is what can cause complex flavours to emerge.  Try doing cheese on toast to see what can go wrong.

 

As an aside, microwaves do not cook from the inside, that is just a myth.

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Just now, SteamyTea said:

A microwave is very good for heating/reheating,

It probably uses less energy, but that may be more to do with the overall losses of the actual oven, rather than the amount of energy that the food takes to warm.

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Microwave is definitely more energy efficient at least for small items.

 

Imagine a pie you could heat it in around 5 minutes at 900W in the microwave maybe 0.1kWh , but it would take around 30 minutes in the oven, which would use around 0.6kWh (I assume it uses more energy at first to warn up the oven). Of course if you heat a pie in the microwave you are a monster and know nothing about food.

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2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

As an aside, microwaves do not cook from the inside, that is just a myth.

 

Just 31.23mm inside.

You can get a pretty good estimate for the speed of light using a microwave and a bar of chocolate.

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Incidentally, bringing my thread back to topic, I just had my partial June Energy Bill.

 

This covers 30 May 2022 - 27th June 2022, ie 4 weeks or 28 days.

 

30 May 2022 -> 27 June 2022

 

Elec  £ 32.06  85.0 kWh

Gas   £ 12.00  64.0 kWh

 

Total £ 44.06 = £1.57 / day

___

 

These were the previous 2 monthly periods, and notes, to save anyone spelunking back through the thread:

 

___________________________

24 Jan -> 30 March 2022

 

65 days

 

Elec  £ 114.06  489 kWh

Gas  £ 181.44  4170.4 kWh

 

Total £ 295.50 = £4.55 / day

____________________________

31 Mar - 30 May 2022

 

60 days

 

Elec  £ 46.27  77 kWh

Gas  £ 64.10  668.3 kWh

 

Total £ 110.37 = £1.84 / day

____________________________

 

The notes are:

 

1 - GFCH was turned off about one week into April. So it looks like approx. 15% of gas is water heating / cooking. I have not done much optimising except for being careful. I still need to del-lichen my solar panels. 

2 - I have no idea by electricity usage fell like that. I would have expected it to fall by 50-60% or a little more. Perhaps unusual solar patterns.

3 - We did have a notably cold spring and warm April-May iirc.

4 - This is for a 200 sqm house with one occupant working from home, with a big 10 kWp solar array but not optimised with a divert device.

5 - I'm keeping my payment at £91 per month for now, which looks about right. That payment was £74 before Avro Energy went bust.

 

I put my monthly payment up to £111, but I'm tempted to put it back down to £91.

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12 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

I put my monthly payment up to £111, but I'm tempted to put it back down to £91.

I just put mine DOWN by £40 per month and will keep it at the lower level in anticipation of the £400 grand from the government. for at least 10 months.

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Just now, ProDave said:

I just put mine DOWN by £40 per month and will keep it at the lower level in anticipation of the £400 grand from the government. for at least 10 months.

 

Octopussy is still saying I should be paying £147 per month (the algo has perhaps not recovered from the £700 it was overestimating me by in January, and I am only with them since last November), and whinges on the website when I try and take it down below £111. So I would need to email.

 

My balance is still slightly negative, so I'll hang fire for a month.

 

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9 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

Octopussy is still saying I should be paying £147 per month (the algo has perhaps not recovered from the £700 it was overestimating me by in January, and I am only with them since last November), and whinges on the website when I try and take it down below £111. So I would need to email.

 

My balance is still slightly negative, so I'll hang fire for a month.

 

I don't know where their calculation gets it's figures.  I thought OFGEM were cracking down and fining suppliers who charge too much per month?

 

 I tried to change mine using the self service function on their website but it was advising me to increase, not reduce the monthly payment, even though just keeping it the same would over pay based on the last 12 months actual usage.  So I sent an email outlining my calculations and they agreed.

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1 hour ago, Ferdinand said:

30 May 2022 -> 27 June 2022

 

Elec  £ 32.06  85.0 kWh

Gas   £ 12.00  64.0 kWh

 

Total £ 44.06 = £1.57 / day

___

 

These were the previous 2 monthly periods, and notes, to save anyone spelunking back through the thread:

 

___________________________

24 Jan -> 30 March 2022

 

65 days

 

Elec  £ 114.06  489 kWh

Gas  £ 181.44  4170.4 kWh

 

Total £ 295.50 = £4.55 / day

____________________________

31 Mar - 30 May 2022

 

60 days

 

Elec  £ 46.27  77 kWh

Gas  £ 64.10  668.3 kWh

 

Total £ 110.37 = £1.84 / day

I wish everyone read their meters. Would make life so simple for everyone.

 

On a more general note about estimated bills.

Now a lot of people have smart meters, why don't the energy companies off the chance to pay a twelfth of the previous years usage, OR, pay what you actually owe.

I know some cheapskates will get into trouble come the winter, but they will probably be in trouble anyway (and I am paying an extra 25p a day to bail them out).

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I check my usage through the app on a daily basis for no other reason than I’ve become a bit obsessed with it. We have been using between 8 and 10 units a day. Yesterday was the start of me working a longer shift at work so I was out of the house 2 hours longer than normal. My usual routine sees me getting up and putting on the telly and drinking numerous cups of coffee before I leave however of course this was two hours less than normal. Looked at my usage for yesterday and it was down at 6.8 ! Does the tv and kettle really use that much? It’s the only thing that happened differently so I’m assuming it does in which case I think I need to stay at work!

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6 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

On a more general note about estimated bills.

Now a lot of people have smart meters, why don't the energy companies off the chance to pay a twelfth of the previous years usage, OR, pay what you actually owe.

I know some cheapskates will get into trouble come the winter, but they will probably be in trouble anyway (and I am paying an extra 25p a day to bail them out).


That is how the old quarterly billing system used to work on estimates but it used a rolling 5 quarter average to calculate estimates. 
 

The companies are rather clever as Bulb for example doesn't do much with readings and has a random usage generator that I think means you are kept within 10% of a previous month. I did an exercise last month with them and gave them 3 daily reads one after another at 3 days before the bill was due. What I found was a regular 4/2 peak offpeak usage per day, but when the bill came they had estimated 3 days at 6 and 5 units per day respectively…! So 150% on peak and 250% on offpeak actual usage.  
 

The issue for them is they say that your payments are for the upcoming month, yet with a forecast of around £75, they are still taking £133 and will only drop that to £111 “to stop debt build up” despite being over £180 in credit ..!

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8 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said:

Caving?

 

I also use spelunking for rapidly scanning through a document - like going through screen by screen just pausing for half a second to recognise where in the document it is.

 

It's like abseiling down a cave in jumps 🙂.

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3 hours ago, recoveringbuilder said:

Does the tv and kettle really use that much?

Boiling a kettle (for 2 minutes) uses 0.1 unit. Unless your TV is plasma it probably also uses around 0.1 unit every hour.

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17 minutes ago, Radian said:

Boiling a kettle (for 2 minutes) uses 0.1 unit. Unless your TV is plasma it probably also uses around 0.1 unit every hour.

Give up the telly and drink tap water - 100% saving on those two - what's next. Turn off my pc and stop posting he..

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The good news: compared to last year, after taking numerous energy saving measures I've dropped our daily electricity consumption by around 5kWh.

 

The bad: This time last year we were using around 20kWh every day 😟

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