Time to give electricity the flick?

Forums › Home Workshop DIY › Time to give electricity the flick?

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#1600804 29-Jul-2016 14:03

$15 is nothing in the context of saving many hundreds per year. If it happened once a week, sure, but it's not that common. You take the risk to make the gains, if you don't want the risk pay another provider a little more to take the risk for you.

michaelmurfy

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#1600809 29-Jul-2016 14:14

I dodged a bullet.

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timmmay

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#1600813 29-Jul-2016 14:21

Not that much of a bullet. Even using four units in that time period would come to around $20, which is a lot for 90 minutes power, but isn't significant to most people. However it does suggest that people who live week to week probably shouldn't use Flick, because while it's cheaper there's more risk of price spikes each week.

I'd say you maybe dodged a big, slow moving nerf pellet ;)

Wills1

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#1601004 29-Jul-2016 19:23

Tuesday $26.37 for 24.24 units Ouch.

jamesrobert

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#1601276 30-Jul-2016 11:40

"Flick vs. Electric Kiwi anyone? A little confused."

Been with Electric Kiwi for 21 days. 34 cents/day, 29 cents/unit. Hour of Power 4 - 5pm.

21 days cost $91.61. Hour of Power savings $99.63.

I'm happy.

dunnersdude

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#1601434 30-Jul-2016 19:52

How do you know your Hour of Power savings and do you time shift heavily to achieve this saving?

jamesrobert

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#1601590 31-Jul-2016 11:49

Select your hour of power off-peak (ie: not 7 - 9am or 5 - 7pm) and change daily at will. I have mine permanently at 4 - 5pm, then manually switch every heater in the house on for an hour. Being retired, I am always home. Usually no need for any more heating except on the coldest nights. I am in Hawke's Bay. Login to online account gives a detailed breakdown of savings.

wongtop

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#1601658 31-Jul-2016 14:13

timmmay:

Anyone know why power prices are spiking just about every morning this week?

Part of the reason is that there is simply so much water around in the hydro lakes at the moment. This means that hydro is doing more baseload at the moment leaving less "spare" hydro capacity for peaking and reserves. This means prices are low most of the time, but spike when spare capacity starts to run short. The low prices most of the time mean that it is uneconomic to run many of the large and slow to start thermal stations.

macuser

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#1601716 31-Jul-2016 15:04

Wills1:

Tuesday $26.37 for 24.24 units Ouch.

$18 for 12 units, I got ouched more...

luckiestmanalive

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#1601987 1-Aug-2016 05:59

Finally have the damage from last Tuesday... $41! My normal daily bill is $7-9 and so my weekly bill will be $81 instead of $49! I've got to get control of my hot water cylinder and pre-heat the house and water before 7am...

timmmay

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#1602008 1-Aug-2016 07:44

luckiestmanalive:

Finally have the damage from last Tuesday... $41! My normal daily bill is $7-9 and so my weekly bill will be $81 instead of $49! I've got to get control of my hot water cylinder and pre-heat the house and water before 7am...

Yep, I have everything on timers. Heat comes on 5:30am weekends, 6am weekdays, and goes off before 7am. Hot water is 2am to 7am, and given we shower around 6am it's probably back up to full heat by 7am anyway. Cost less than $50 for a broadlink IR timer for the heat pump, and around $250 for an electrician to install a digital timer to the switch board for the hot water. The timer payback period is in the region of 2 years, but with occasional spikes it probably brings it down to less than a year.

jonathan18

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#1602091 1-Aug-2016 10:55

macuser:

Wills1:

Tuesday $26.37 for 24.24 units Ouch.

$18 for 12 units, I got ouched more...

luckiestmanalive:

Finally have the damage from last Tuesday... $41! My normal daily bill is $7-9 and so my weekly bill will be $81 instead of $49! I've got to get control of my hot water cylinder and pre-heat the house and water before 7am...

Finally got up the courage to check mine and was surprised the damage wasn't as bad as I'd feared - $18.27 for 21.45 units. Sure, a lot more than the $4.79 for nearly the same usage the following day, but not as bad as those quoted above.

@luckiestmanalive - any chance you could paste the daily use graph for last Tuesday? Would be interesting to see how you ended up with such a bill - I'm assuming your (substantial?) peak usage hit at both the points prices went crazy?

mentalinc

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#1602170 1-Aug-2016 12:50

timmmay:

Cost less than $50 for a broadlink IR timer for the heat pump.

Can you please link to this and suggest how to set it up (Will be using it with a mitsubishi HI heat pump... Does it connect to anything for smarts or is it just a programme on the device and leave it type device?

thanks

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timmmay

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#1602173 1-Aug-2016 12:56

mentalinc:

Can you please link to this and suggest how to set it up (Will be using it with a mitsubishi HI heat pump... Does it connect to anything for smarts or is it just a programme on the device and leave it type device?

thanks

Broadlink RM Pro. Find it on ebay, aliexpress, or similar sites. It has a huge online database of how to control heat pumps, it learns from your remote. It's a basic on/off timer, controlled by an app on your phone. I have two, and they're controlled independently.

However, I just upgraded to Android 6, and the app doesn't work at all. My Android 4 tablet doesn't have an IR port, and neither does my wife's Moto G. So while the program still works (ie heat pumps go on and off) I can't change it.

richms

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#1602199 1-Aug-2016 13:04

THey have an RM mini now as well. I have one on its way to see what its like.

No way of controlling them from something else is the only shortcoming I can find, they are their own thing. Noone in china seems to bother with even some IFTTT integration on their stuff.

Richard rich.ms

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