Time to give electricity the flick?

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#1824955 19-Jul-2017 08:23

pogo:
tdgeek:

Another event coming end of this week. A big wet this time, although heavy snow in SI, so I guess that won't help the lakes right now

There's actually not much snow forecast for at least the first wave of rain. I read somewhere that a lot of the snow will melt. Have a look at the purple lines here:

http://www.metservice.com/maps-radar/rain-forecast/rain-forecast-3-day

I just read Stuff. Seems a lot of snow Fri/Sat, but if you read it will melt well, maybe the temps and rain will help that at some point

gchiu

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#1824957 19-Jul-2017 08:25

From Elgas' site 45 kg of LPG contains 614 kWh of effective heat based on a 60:40 mix.

A 45 kg bottle costs about $110 to exchange.

That bottle to rent costs about $64 per year.

>> to-money round/to ($64 / 365 / 24 ) .001
== $0.007

So, bottle rental cost is less then 1c per hour.

>> to-money round/to $110 / 614 0.01
== $0.18

So, looks closer to 19c per kWh. But then you've got unflued gases in your room that you're breathing in, and water vapour being dumped into your house.

So, if you've already got a flued LPG heater, I guess it's only cost effective to use when the price spikes. So, that's your hedge, but to install one of these eg. Rinnai, they seem to be over $2k.

Rinnai's website says that a Energysaver 309FT costs 25-56c per hour to run. It outputs 1.61 kW.

voy1d

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#1825159 19-Jul-2017 13:24

tdgeek:

There is no dry year. The recent spike was low lakes and polar blast. Others will occur. Not huge? The spot price increase was very large. Build that and any others onto a year, add a premium for risk, thats the extra.

So I guess the fact that pretty much everyone in the industry agrees it is a dry year AND the inflow sequences we've seen over the last six months are pretty much the worst on record disagree with your assertion?

The fact is, the uncontrolled lakes have not had significant inflows for a long time, the controlled lakes are steadily falling and the sustained spot price has increased markedly (albeit not sharply) to reflect the reducing fuel supply are the symptoms of a dry year.

The events of the last few weeks are going to exist regardless the amount of water that exists because of the way our market is structured. You'd likely see a lot of the same sequences play out if the lakes were flush as you have challenges around HVDC transfer capacity, whether it is worthwhile for the larger thermal plant to commit (e.g. TCC wouldn't be running if the lakes were healthy) and Genesis would likely be holding back their coal / gas burn.

pogo

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#1826899 22-Jul-2017 10:29

Haven't seen this for a while. Too bad it didn't last.

mentalinc

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#1827057 22-Jul-2017 13:35

Looks like a bug, there is no spot price included (i.e. free power from the grid)

CPU: AMD 5900x | RAM: GSKILL Trident Z Neo RGB F4-3600C16D-32GTZNC-32-GB | MB: Asus X570-E | GFX: EVGA FTW3 Ultra RTX 3080Ti| Monitor: LG 27GL850-B 2560x1440

Quic: https://account.quic.nz/refer/473833 R473833EQKIBX

pogo

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#1827062 22-Jul-2017 13:44

mentalinc:
Looks like a bug, there is no spot price included (i.e. free power from the grid)

It was actually a real forecast price... Just didn't last for long!

gchiu

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#1827254 22-Jul-2017 18:43

For those interested in collecting historical data, and don't want to keep pestering Flick to send the data

https://github.com/gchiu/Rebol3/blob/master/scripts/flick-price-scraper.reb

So, in the example at the bottom of the script, I collect all the pricing and use data for what exists for July 2017, and save each day as a ";" delimited file ( no idea why Excel won't load CSV files)

start_date: 1-July-2017
end_date: 31-July-2017

while [start_date < end_date][
print ["Collecting data for" start_date]
save-csv-data/delimiter ++ start_date ";"
]

miked

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#1827360 22-Jul-2017 23:38

For anyone like me wondering to run REBOL scripts, here's what I found:

http://www.rebol.com/docs/quick-start.html

gchiu

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#1827452 23-Jul-2017 09:37

That won't help much I'm afraid. I'm using the open source builds which are quite different.

But the help: header in my script gives you a URL with instructions on use.

Aredwood

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#1828071 24-Jul-2017 03:41

gchiu:

Also for @pogo

From my Genesis energy LPG bill. Each 45KG bottle costs 96.53 inc GST and delivery. Which works out to 15.7c per KW/Hr. In Auckland at least, no power company apart from Flick Electric can beat 15.7c per unit pricing. (and only when wholesale prices are really low of course). For example Electric Kiwi currently charge 19c/unit standard user and 26c/unit low user. (my old 16.4c/unit cost was based on my old LPG cost of $101 per bottle)

Then you need to consider the efficiency of your gas heater. Even if you use a Rinnai Energysaver, their efficiency is quoted with the lowest efficiency flue type - the direct through the wall type - 82%. Where you then get 19.1c per kW/hr of delivered heat. Although you can boost their efficiency by putting a longer flue on them. As their flue system is a pipe inside another pipe, with the intake air flowing in the gap between the 2 pipes so the heat from the flue gasses preheats the incoming air. So it is possible to get an Energysaver to close to 100% efficiency. And all unflued heaters are 100% efficient. So for draughty old houses, unflued is often perfectly fine, as no moisture buildup problems.

I also use the LPG for cooking, so still need it even during Summer. And having LPG also allows me to go onto the Flick Smart user Plan. Which is a peak/offpeak plan. Meaning I save even more on power through having much lower offpeak rates.

Bottle rental for me is $115 per year or 31.5c per day. Which is for 2 bottles. No point trying to build it into your per KW/hr price unless you know what your yearly LPG usage is / will be.

gchiu

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#1828096 24-Jul-2017 08:31

Aredwood:

Bottle rental for me is $115 per year or 31.5c per day. Which is for 2 bottles. No point trying to build it into your per KW/hr price unless you know what your yearly LPG usage is / will be.

How do you figure that out? I'm guessing you can only have two bottles at any time. So, the rental charge is unchanged all year.

Aredwood

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#1828102 24-Jul-2017 08:55

Yes you normally have to always have 2 bottles. Some companies quote the fee per bottle. While others like Elgas have the same fee for 1 to 4 bottles. 2 bottles is better than 1 anyway, as you can completely empty a bottle then switch over to the other one automatically.

Either way thinking of it as a daily fee makes it easier to compare to electricity.

dantheperson

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#1828163 24-Jul-2017 09:49

Aredwood: . Either way thinking of it as a daily fee makes it easier to compare to electricity.

Exactly. The alternative is to try and include the fixed electricity daily charge into your variable electricity charge for comparison, and you run into the same issue. How many kwh are you going to use over the year to divide the fixed charge by.

timmmay

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#1828195 24-Jul-2017 09:59

I wonder if all the rain down south will help power prices, and if so how quickly.

gchiu

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#1828230 24-Jul-2017 10:32

I haven't seen any pricing above 32c per unit since 14th July.

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