How much power do you use?

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#1794568 4-Jun-2017 15:26

Barth: Single household, heating and cooking on natural gas. Living in the Netherlands.
Trying to lower my carbon footprint
Five years ago i had a energy consumption of 2560 kWh and about 1500 m3 gas
Too much. And I started to lower my energy consumption

Last 12 months I used 760 kwh electricity and 770 m3 gas
Last month It was 52 kWh electricity and 14.5 m3 gas
This time of the year (summer) I use 11.5 - 12.3 kWh a week,

The average for a single household here in the Netherlands is 1700 - 1800 kWh
So I have a low energy consumption and a low carbon footprint.
I need that for my credibility when I talk too much about climate change.

Just as a matter of comparison. What is your monthly line rental cost up there for power and gas??

Regards,

Old3eyes

floydie

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#1794585 4-Jun-2017 16:35

Climate change. Pfffft what a con. Since when was an inert gas a pollutant? Climate science is the single most corrupted profession in the history of mankind.

Barth

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#1794595 4-Jun-2017 17:01

@ old3eyes

This year I pay €74 each month to my energy suplier, and that includes all, based on a estimate consumption of 900 kWh electricity and 900 m3 gas.
Once a year i get a Energy bill and on that energy bill are multple costs and taxes included.
when i had my last energy bill in february, My energy consumption that year was 1025 kwh and 990 m3.
Based on that energy use I had to pay €83 each month:
€ 41.00 electricity and gas
€ 05.64 energy taxes
€ 32.88 energy infrastructure costs, electricity and gas
€ 03,50 for that monitordevice at my wall. Smart thermostat.

Those energy infrastructure costs, "netbeheer kosten" in dutch, I think that is what you call "line rental cost"

But i lowered my estimate energy use and now I pay €74 in stead of €83. Each month.

Barth

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#1794606 4-Jun-2017 17:44

floydie: Climate change. Pfffft what a con. Since when was an inert gas a pollutant? Climate science is the single most corrupted profession in the history of mankind.

We will go off topic if I respond to your remark, so I give no comment here.

old3eyes

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#1794611 4-Jun-2017 18:17

Barth: @ old3eyes

This year I pay €74 each month to my energy suplier, and that includes all, based on a estimate consumption of 900 kWh electricity and 900 m3 gas.
Once a year i get a Energy bill and on that energy bill are multple costs and taxes included.
when i had my last energy bill in february, My energy consumption that year was 1025 kwh and 990 m3.
Based on that energy use I had to pay €83 each month:
€ 41.00 electricity and gas
€ 05.64 energy taxes
€ 32.88 energy infrastructure costs, electricity and gas
€ 03,50 for that monitordevice at my wall. Smart thermostat.

Those energy infrastructure costs, "netbeheer kosten" in dutch, I think that is what you call "line rental cost"

But i lowered my estimate energy use and now I pay €74 in stead of €83. Each month.

Thanx for the info..

Regards,

Old3eyes

tdgeek

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#1794615 4-Jun-2017 18:22

floydie: Climate change. Pfffft what a con. Since when was an inert gas a pollutant? Climate science is the single most corrupted profession in the history of mankind.

Are you serious? If so, explain.

richms

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#1794616 4-Jun-2017 18:33

tdgeek:

floydie: Climate change. Pfffft what a con. Since when was an inert gas a pollutant? Climate science is the single most corrupted profession in the history of mankind.

Are you serious? If so, explain.

No please don't. I get exposed to enough dumb as it is.

Richard rich.ms

Jase2985

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#1794638 4-Jun-2017 20:07

this is a thread on how much power you use, not climate change/global warming

Aredwood

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#1795065 6-Jun-2017 00:24

@Barth Is your gas Natural gas (methane gas), Or is it Propane or Butane? This is so I can calculate your gas usage into kW/hr. In NZ there is a rule that Natural Gas has to be billed to end consumers in KW/Hr instead of m3. To make comparisons with electricity much easier.

Im guessing that your hot water is heated by gas, As I can't imagine how you could have such low electricity consumption with electric hot water. Also does your bill say a raw cost per kw/hr of electricity, and a raw cost per m3 of gas?

And also do you have to pay a general "Goods and services tax" or "Value added tax" in addition to the energy taxes?

Guessing that the Energy infrastructure costs are a fixed charge? Or are they actually a capacity based charge?

Sorry for all of the questions, Im just curious as to how your bill is calculated. I also can't imagine only getting an energy bill only once per year. I get billed weekly for power, but most common is monthly. I hate to think how large the bill would be if you use too much and you don't find out for a whole year. How often are your meters read?

Barth

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#1795074 6-Jun-2017 07:10

Aredwood:
@Barth Is your gas Natural gas (methane gas), Or is it Propane or Butane? This is so I can calculate your gas usage into kW/hr. In NZ there is a rule that Natural Gas has to be billed to end consumers in KW/Hr instead of m3. To make comparisons with electricity much easier.

Im guessing that your hot water is heated by gas, As I can't imagine how you could have such low electricity consumption with electric hot water. Also does your bill say a raw cost per kw/hr of electricity, and a raw cost per m3 of gas?

And also do you have to pay a general "Goods and services tax" or "Value added tax" in addition to the energy taxes?

Guessing that the Energy infrastructure costs are a fixed charge? Or are they actually a capacity based charge?

Sorry for all of the questions, Im just curious as to how your bill is calculated. I also can't imagine only getting an energy bill only once per year. I get billed weekly for power, but most common is monthly. I hate to think how large the bill would be if you use too much and you don't find out for a whole year. How often are your meters read?

Those are a lot of questions ;). I needed some time to try to answer them all in English. My yearly bill is very complex, there are a lot of costs included. For power they make a difference in costs between off-peak hours and normal hours.

I rent my home. It's a small end house (relative higher costs for heating)
For heating and warm water there is a central heating boiler on natural gas. Methane. So normaly I use gas for hot water. The central heating boiler is on my attic.

Since one year I have smart meters ( Landis+Gyr ) in my meter box for electricity and gas. The network maintenance operator can now read the meters remotely at any time any day. Before that, they worked only with estimates, and one or two times a year a check of the actual readings.
We get a yearly energy bill, but we pay monthly, based on those estimates of the yearly consumption and divided by 12.

Based on an estimate yearly consumption of 900 kWh power and 900 M3 gas, I now pay 74 Euro each month, summer and winter the same amount. Value added Tax is included.
In the yearly bill there can be extra charges when you have used more than the estimates, or you can get money back when the actual consumption was less than what was estimated and you've paid to much during the year. Last year I got almost 300 euro back.

In my last yearly energy bill the price for electricity was
0.05682 €/kWh for off-peak hours,
0.07040 €/kWh for normal hours.
The gas price was 0.31078 €/m3

Taxes on my last energy bill:
Energy tax electricity: 0.12194 €/kWh
Storage sustainable energy elelectricity: 0.00706 €/kWh
My reduction of energy taxes -379.94 €
Energy tax gas: 0.30478 €/m3
Storage sustainable energy Gas: 0.01514 €/m3

Energy infrastructure costs:
Network Maintenance costs electricity: 0.64255 €/day
Network Maintenance costs gas: 0.42058 €/day

Wash

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#1795141 6-Jun-2017 10:05

Barth:
Aredwood:

@Barth Is your gas Natural gas (methane gas), Or is it Propane or Butane? This is so I can calculate your gas usage into kW/hr. In NZ there is a rule that Natural Gas has to be billed to end consumers in KW/Hr instead of m3. To make comparisons with electricity much easier.

Im guessing that your hot water is heated by gas, As I can't imagine how you could have such low electricity consumption with electric hot water. Also does your bill say a raw cost per kw/hr of electricity, and a raw cost per m3 of gas?

And also do you have to pay a general "Goods and services tax" or "Value added tax" in addition to the energy taxes?

Guessing that the Energy infrastructure costs are a fixed charge? Or are they actually a capacity based charge?

Sorry for all of the questions, Im just curious as to how your bill is calculated. I also can't imagine only getting an energy bill only once per year. I get billed weekly for power, but most common is monthly. I hate to think how large the bill would be if you use too much and you don't find out for a whole year. How often are your meters read?

Those are a lot of questions ;). I needed some time to try to answer them all in English. My yearly bill is very complex, there are a lot of costs included. For power they make a difference in costs between off-peak hours and normal hours.

I rent my home. It's a small end house (relative higher costs for heating)
For heating and warm water there is a central heating boiler on natural gas. Methane. So normaly I use gas for hot water. The central heating boiler is on my attic.

Since one year I have smart meters ( Landis+Gyr ) in my meter box for electricity and gas. The network maintenance operator can now read the meters remotely at any time any day. Before that, they worked only with estimates, and one or two times a year a check of the actual readings.
We get a yearly energy bill, but we pay monthly, based on those estimates of the yearly consumption and divided by 12.

Based on an estimate yearly consumption of 900 kWh power and 900 M3 gas, I now pay 74 Euro each month, summer and winter the same amount. Value added Tax is included.
In the yearly bill there can be extra charges when you have used more than the estimates, or you can get money back when the actual consumption was less than what was estimated and you've paid to much during the year. Last year I got almost 300 euro back.

In my last yearly energy bill the price for electricity was
0.05682 €/kWh for off-peak hours,
0.07040 €/kWh for normal hours.
The gas price was 0.31078 €/m3

Taxes on my last energy bill:
Energy tax electricity: 0.12194 €/kWh
Storage sustainable energy elelectricity: 0.00706 €/kWh
My reduction of energy taxes -379.94 €
Energy tax gas: 0.30478 €/m3
Storage sustainable energy Gas: 0.01514 €/m3

Energy infrastructure costs:
Network Maintenance costs electricity: 0.64255 €/day
Network Maintenance costs gas: 0.42058 €/day

Using a converter here: https://www.ukpower.co.uk/home_energy/gas_meter_readings , 900m3 of natural gas is 10068.0953 kWh of energy. Since gas is your heating and hot water, that would explain the comparatively very low electricity usage as you're only using electricity for lighting and appliances basically.

10,000 kWh of gas + 900 kWh of electricity = 10,900 kWh or an average of 908 kWh/month. I feel much better about our energy usage now as everything in our house is electric and most of NZs electricity production is renewable (hydro and wind).

Barth

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#1795343 6-Jun-2017 13:02

@Wash

Yes, that's correct, I'm only using electricity for lightning and appliances. Not for heating and normaly not for hot water or cooking. Of course I do have a microwave, and also a small kettle for hot water in my kitchen.
My electricity is also 100% renewables, mostly windpower, the rest hydro and solar, but the natural gas isn't of course.
I cannot change that. I don't own this house, I rent this house. I can change my habits but I'm not allowed to change the house, or the heating system.

I looked at your calculations, and I did my own.
Based on 1 m3 gas = 35.17 Mj. And 1 kWh = 3.6 Mj
And also based on my actual energy consumption over the last 12 months, 760 kWh and 770 m3
( 900 kWh and 900 m3 are the estimates of my energy provider, but actually I've used less than that)
770 * 35.17 / 3.6 = 7522.47 so let's say i used 7523 kWh gas in the last 12 months.
7523+760=8283 kWh total. That is an average of 690.25 kWh/month for gas and power combined.

I know that my use of gas is not the lowest. It's an end house with three cold walls. Not an appartement with nabours around.
Of course I also will try to lower my use of gas if possible. but the house must also stay warm of course.

RUKI

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#1795631 6-Jun-2017 22:08

Auckland. We are on electricity only. No wood or gas burners, no heat pumps, no double glazing. 24x7 at premises. IT equipment is running 24x7.

Here are our stats. Total monthly consumption plus solar generation:

http://www.hybrids.co.nz/our-solar-system/

Will publish stats for May in the next couple of days. In July - yearly stats.

Aredwood

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#1795678 7-Jun-2017 02:21

@Barth Thanks for taking the time to post your billing details. I notice that you said that your electricity is 100% renewables, Yet according to Wikipedia, over 60% of Netherlands electricity generation is from thermal and nuclear generation. Are you connected to an electricity network that is independent of the main Netherlands power grid, or are you just purchasing your power from a retail company that purchases only from renewable generators? Meaning that your 100% renewable electricity consumption would instead just be an accounting transaction.

Here is the Power system live data for NZ. The current % renewables generation is much lower than average at the moment. Due to low rainfall to the main South island hydroelectric dams. When there is plenty of rainfall it will typically stay over 80% renewables, And will go over 90% renewables late at night. And another page with Historical renewables generation

The High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) cable runs between the North and South islands of NZ, There are no HVDC cables between NZ and any other country. Typical direction of flow is North. As there is lots of hydro generation but no fossil fuel generation in the South island. But due to the current hydro shortage, power from North island fossil fuel generation has to go south during low demand times, to save hydro water for use during peak times.

Here is a screenshot of my latest powerbill (weekly bill).

The MSpaint edit is just to hide my meter serial number, as you can use that to trace my address. The meter itself is an Elster Grex smart meter, The EDMI Mk 7c is probably the most common smart meter in NZ. Landis+Gyr meters are also used as well in NZ. My meter has been programmed to take readings every 1/2 hour, and daily reading for auditing purposes, it uploads data via a mesh radio network, The EDMI meters use the Vodafone cellular network for their uploads. It takes me 2 to 3 days typically for me to get the 1/2 hour usage information.

Flick Electric then turns it into pretty graphs

and a more recent one

The first one I would have probably had my waste oil powered boiler running after 9pm or so. Which would be running the central heating and hot water. The more recent one I had a 2.4KW electric heater running in the morning, which is why that usage is so high. Which is linked to a timer along with the electric element in the hot water cylinder, so they can only run during off peak times. Cylinder element would have been permanently off for pretty much all of winter 2016.

I also have solar hot water connected to the hot water cylinder. Which typically during summer will provide 100% of my hot water. And even during winter can sometimes still heat the cylinder to 50degC assuming enough sun. Currently only have 2 people in my household, Last winter there was 4 people. But power usage is higher this winter so far as im not using the oil boiler much. And instead using electric heating.

I also have Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) connected to my house. Which in NZ is an 60/40% mixture of propane and Butane gasses. Cost is $96.53 for a 45KG bottle. Which includes the cost of delivery and a worker to swap the empty bottle with the full one and connect it to the regulator on the side of my house. The regulator has 2 bottles connected, which automaticly swaps between the bottles when 1 runs out. So all I have to do is phone the gas company when the regulator says a bottle has run out to get continuous gas.

I only use the gas for cooking and a heater for use during peak usage times or when wholesale power prices are too high. There is also a $115 per year rental fee to have the gas bottles. It is the same no matter how many bottles you use.

Natural Gas (methane) is also available to lots of Cities and Towns in the North island. But unfortunately not in my street. Otherwise I would connect to it.

There is also a rule that says that if you live in the lower south island and use less than 9000KW/Hr of power per year. (8000kW/hr for the rest of NZ) The power retailers must offer you a usage plan that charges a max fixed fee of 33c per day. They are called "low user" plans.

Here is my power companies price schedule for my area - Auckland north and West. And the same schedule for a different company (Pulse Energy).

Hope this has all been of interest to you.

Bobdn

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#1802828 17-Jun-2017 22:32

Average daily electricity usage: 3.42 kWh

However, i have gas heating, hot water and cooking. With Genesis's dual fuel and prompt payment discount, monthly bill averages around $95 (yes, I live alone:)

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