How much power do you use?

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tdgeek

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#1802864 18-Jun-2017 08:50

Bobdn:

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:)

3.42 kWh? Mine is 39.8 daily. 11X as much. We have gas cooktop and Solar HW (although not often able to turn the grid off this period, but have on some days). One heat pump is going a few hours each day, sometimes 2.

Bobdn

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#1802870 18-Jun-2017 08:59

tdgeek:

Bobdn:

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:)

3.42 kWh? Mine is 39.8 daily. 11X as much. We have gas cooktop and Solar HW (although not often able to turn the grid off this period, but have on some days). One heat pump is going a few hours each day, sometimes 2.

Gas hot water halved my bill when i got it 10 years ago.

tdgeek

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#1802873 18-Jun-2017 09:14

Bobdn:

tdgeek:

Bobdn:

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:)

3.42 kWh? Mine is 39.8 daily. 11X as much. We have gas cooktop and Solar HW (although not often able to turn the grid off this period, but have on some days). One heat pump is going a few hours each day, sometimes 2.

Gas hot water halved my bill when i got it 10 years ago.

Yep. When I turned the solar HW grid off for 6 months, the first bill was $80, that was sweet. Went up a little after that as we occasionally used heat pump on cool.

@aredwood A day like today in ChCh, cold, but sunny all day, Ive turned the grid off the Solar HW. Depending on showers and washing, I will probably find that tomorrow morning, the collector will be at 15, lower cylinder at 20 odd, upper maybe at 30-40. I will then turn grid on at about 6am, and it only takes a couple of hours to be fully back to 64 top and bottom. Cylinder is 300l with top and bottom elements. If sunny tomorrow I may turn it off again later. How much power is used for the 2 hour heating? While I cant leave grid off this time of year, I like to turn it off whenever I can, I am assuming that the 2 hour heat up uses less power than maintaining it all day and night

Jase2985

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#1802874 18-Jun-2017 09:18

tdgeek:

Bobdn:

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:)

3.42 kWh? Mine is 39.8 daily. 11X as much. We have gas cooktop and Solar HW (although not often able to turn the grid off this period, but have on some days). One heat pump is going a few hours each day, sometimes 2.

how do you use that much if you have gas and solar? are you heating the place with the windows open, or have 10 people in the place?

we are full electric everything and use about 25wkh a day. and we don't have very many energy efficient things in our place at the moment.

tdgeek

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#1802878 18-Jun-2017 09:31

Jase2985:

tdgeek:

Bobdn:

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:)

3.42 kWh? Mine is 39.8 daily. 11X as much. We have gas cooktop and Solar HW (although not often able to turn the grid off this period, but have on some days). One heat pump is going a few hours each day, sometimes 2.

how do you use that much if you have gas and solar? are you heating the place with the windows open, or have 10 people in the place?

we are full electric everything and use about 25wkh a day. and we don't have very many energy efficient things in our place at the moment.

Two heatpumps, one will be on maybe 5 hours, maybe more, I work from home. Set to 19. Other one likely to be on evening, set to 21.

We have two homesteads here at the moment, and 18yo daughter, so essentially 5 adults.

Gas does the cooktop, which is what is most often used.

Every damn room has many lights, but all green.

Solar HW is GREAT, but its not what they say, as in a solar HW system with electricity backup. Electricity keeps it hot, so when sun is out, its already hot. Use some, and the collector will transfer to bottom cylinder, use some more, electricity will top it up. The 6 months I turned it off, it was full solar only

Or do you mean the $80 bill in summer? If so:

Yes, I did wonder that. The kitchen/living room has 4 sets of lights each with 4 lights, so often at night 4 lights are on, same in formal living room where TV is.

Plasma TV uses more power, thats on 2 hours in week mornings and every night till late.

We use heatpump, maybe both on cool at times.

LOL, no we don't heat with windows open! Its 3 adults usually, often 4.

tdgeek

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#1802880 18-Jun-2017 09:35

Jase2985:

tdgeek:

Bobdn:

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:)

3.42 kWh? Mine is 39.8 daily. 11X as much. We have gas cooktop and Solar HW (although not often able to turn the grid off this period, but have on some days). One heat pump is going a few hours each day, sometimes 2.

how do you use that much if you have gas and solar? are you heating the place with the windows open, or have 10 people in the place?

we are full electric everything and use about 25wkh a day. and we don't have very many energy efficient things in our place at the moment.

Is that now? Now for us, Solar HW isn't much use, as any water draw early will be sucked up by the grid. So we are rarely charting a 300l cylinder with the grid, unless I turn it off for a day, hence my previous query on heat up power usage, as compared to maintaining it 24/7. Gas cooking yes, that is a saving, especially as we don't sue often much, but the other appliances sigh as mini oven, microwave, sandwich press do get frequent use.

EDIT On Genesis

Bobdn

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#1802884 18-Jun-2017 09:41

Yes, i'm sure working from home makes a big difference. I'm hoping to retire soon, expecting a bit of an uptick when i do.

I have a plasma as well and watch all my streaming entertainment (Lightbox/Neon/Youtube) through my PS4. All adds up I think.

tdgeek

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#1802885 18-Jun-2017 09:47

Bobdn:

Yes, i'm sure working from home makes a big difference. I'm hoping to retire soon, expecting a bit of an uptick when i do.

I have a plasma as well and watch all my streaming entertainment (Lightbox/Neon/Youtube) through my PS4. All adds up I think.

Not at the new place, but at the old place I would walk past the plasma, its a fine heater!

This home we are in now is 283 sqm, so that matters, heating is on more, and more lights.

As to working from home, for me that means heat pump now is on upstairs maybe 3 to 5 hours a day. Citrix box and two screens probably doesn't use much but thats 8 hours a day. Paying for heating my coffee, and lunch, a bit there, but overall its probably not a lot, aside from heat pump, which I read somewhere is $50 a month for 6 hours a day

Edit Teen has LCD TV and streams through XboxOne, thats nightly!

Aredwood

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#1802920 18-Jun-2017 11:34

@tdgeek can you switch the cylinder elements on and off separately? If so then just leave the top element on all the time during winter so you won't run out of hot water. The bottom of the cylinder will stay cold. So the solar will still work at max efficiency. Consider fitting a timer to the bottom element. Program it to switch on when the sun goes down, and switch off very early in the morning. Before any hot water gets used in the morning, so that morning hot water usage won't be reheated by the bottom element. So there will be cold water in the cylinder for the solar to use.

If you have different meters for anytime power and hot water or controlled power or night rate power. Check to see which meter the different cylinder elements are wired to. As the top element might be wired to your "anytime" meter, and bottom element to the controlled meter. If so then power used by the top element will get billed at a higher rate.

A 300L cylinder with a single 3KW element takes about 6 hours to heat up from fully cold. Since your cylinder heats much quicker than that, both elements are most likely wired independently of eachover, so would both be on at the same time. (it is possible to wire them so only 1 can go at a time, to help keep peak loadings low)

The (simplified) formula for calculating energy usage to heat water is 16L of water takes 1KW/Hr to heat, on a 50deg temp rise (10deg inlet temp - 60deg outlet temp).

So 300L / 16 = 18.75KW/Hr of electricity used.

Assuming electricity costs 25c per unit

18.75 * 0.25 = $4.68 Cost to heat cylinder from cold.

Although for TDgeek his cylinder has already been partially heated by the solar, so the actual cost will be lower.

[edited to add]

Have assumed that your power per unit cost is the same at all times throughout the day, since you said that you are with Genesis.

tdgeek

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#1803165 19-Jun-2017 07:28

Aredwood:

@tdgeek can you switch the cylinder elements on and off separately? If so then just leave the top element on all the time during winter so you won't run out of hot water. The bottom of the cylinder will stay cold. So the solar will still work at max efficiency. Consider fitting a timer to the bottom element. Program it to switch on when the sun goes down, and switch off very early in the morning. Before any hot water gets used in the morning, so that morning hot water usage won't be reheated by the bottom element. So there will be cold water in the cylinder for the solar to use.

If you have different meters for anytime power and hot water or controlled power or night rate power. Check to see which meter the different cylinder elements are wired to. As the top element might be wired to your "anytime" meter, and bottom element to the controlled meter. If so then power used by the top element will get billed at a higher rate.

A 300L cylinder with a single 3KW element takes about 6 hours to heat up from fully cold. Since your cylinder heats much quicker than that, both elements are most likely wired independently of eachover, so would both be on at the same time. (it is possible to wire them so only 1 can go at a time, to help keep peak loadings low)

The (simplified) formula for calculating energy usage to heat water is 16L of water takes 1KW/Hr to heat, on a 50deg temp rise (10deg inlet temp - 60deg outlet temp).

So 300L / 16 = 18.75KW/Hr of electricity used.

Assuming electricity costs 25c per unit

18.75 * 0.25 = $4.68 Cost to heat cylinder from cold.

Although for TDgeek his cylinder has already been partially heated by the solar, so the actual cost will be lower.

[edited to add]

Have assumed that your power per unit cost is the same at all times throughout the day, since you said that you are with Genesis.

Thanks Andrew

There are two switches in the HW cupboard. I assumed the top for top element and the bottom one for bottom element. If I turn off the bottom switch that turns both off, which is what I do. Is the top switch for the transfer system, maybe for maintenance? Once everyone has gone this morning I can turn that off to see what happens. The LCD panel is handy so I can get a feel for what that switch does. The panel shows collector, transfer, top, and bottom temps, and if transfering, amongst other stuff

How do I tell re the different meters? Looking in the meter box?

Barth

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#1803175 19-Jun-2017 08:02

@Aredwood

Thank for your post of june 7, And yes It was interesting for me to read.
I couldn't react earlier, sorry for that, but this past two weeks the care and support for my family was temporary more important than my activities on the internet.

Your question:

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.

The second.
My electricity comes from the main Netherlands power grid, which is interconnected with the power grids of neigbouring countries. Over land, but there are also two high voltage sea cables. The BritNed cable between the Netherlands an the UK, and the NorNed cable between Norway and the Netherlands.
So, it is an international power grid.

My energy retailer. (Eneco) purchaises from renewable generators on the energy market, but they also own and operate generators, in the Netherlands and abroad.
They own and operate wind farms, are involved in solar projects, operate a 6 MW hydro electric powerplant in France, and in Germany (in cooperation with mitsubishi corporation) they are now building a large 48 Megawatt battery storage for sustainable energy, wich will be finished end this year.

According to my retailer, My electricity mix is 58.8% windpower, 0.05% solar and 41.16% hydropower and only 13.4% of that electricity is generated here in the Netherlands.

Hydropower in the Netherlands could come from Norway, (Norway sells hydro power to the Netherlands during peak hours, and the Netherlands sell power back to Norway during the off-peak hours) but the hydropower part of my electricity mix could also come from France.

It is indeed merely an accounting transaction. Trade on the energy market, but my retailer does a lot more than only purchasing energy.

In one of my previous post, I tried to convert my use of gas from m3 to kWh, but while doing that comparing it with megajoules, I realized that it was a big difference whether I compared the two with "how much Megajoule" or with the price. Per Megajoule the natural gas here is three times cheaper than the electricity.

I looked also at the images of your graphs from Flick Electric, and you wrote that it takes 2 or 3 days to see the information.
Is there also the use of smart thermostats wich generate graphs more directly in New Zealand?
From my retailer I have got a "Toon" smart thermostat, The same device is also known as "Qubi" for the english speaking market. See qubi.com
It produces real time graphs for my electricity usage. The information about my gas usage has a half hour delay. It's connected to the internet via my wifi.
For electricity i can see the my usage real time, over the hours, in days, weeks, months of years. For gas: hours, days, weeks, months and years.
it's also possible to program a week program for automation.
There are also extras like wheather information, precipitation radar, and actual traffic information. It's like a little tablet at the wall, reading my smart meters, and connected to the internet. There are apps for tablets and smart phones for remote control.
Click to see full size

This is my electricity usage today till now from my smart thermostat, the regulairy spikes are from my fridge.

Click to see full size

This is my electricity usage over the months of this year, The red line is the estimated usage from my retailer.

Click to see full size

Here my gas usage over the months, red line estimated usage
It is now summer here in Europe, low gas usage this Time of the year.

As an addition I also use the dutch internet service "SlimmemeterPortal.nl". They also read my smart meters, but from them i get the updated graph the next day. Not real time.

Click to see full size

This was my electricity usage in may on SlimmemeterPortal. Green is peakhours, black off-peak hours.

If one has solar panels on the roof, the produced electricity is also seen in the graphs, but I don't have solar panels.

Barth

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#1803234 19-Jun-2017 10:22

Correction: I wrote Qubi for the name of that smart thermostat, but it is named "Quby" of course. Website quby.com

Aredwood

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#1803728 20-Jun-2017 00:15

Thanks again for taking the time to answer @Barth I hope that your family are doing better now.

Interesting to read about your heating thermostat. Although very few houses would be able to use that in New Zealand. As less than 5% of house have central heating systems installed. Here is a high level overview (NZ Herald newspaper article). Traditionally (100+years ago) heating was mostly by wood and coal, and town gas was also available in some areas (gas that was made by heating coal and capturing the released gas - mostly CO gas). Electricity was available but was often unreliable. It was only around the 1950s-1960s that electricity became reliable.

In the 1960s heating was mostly by electric resistance heaters. The town gas systems were still operating but were not being expanded. The electrical wiring rules at the time were even written for that. Typically no more than 2 power outlets were allowed on each circuit. With a larger cable between the fuse board and first outlet, and a smaller cable between first and second outlet. As the expectation was that almost every power outlet would have a heater plugged into it. The stove would also be full electric. And hot water would be provided by an electric storage cylinder. Electricity to residential housed was subsidised, So it was rare for houses to even have any insulation at all at the time. No need - electricity was so cheap, if you got cold just plug in another heater.

One of the reasons electricity was so cheap was extensive load management systems. Hot water storage cylinders had to be connected to load management, which was normally carried out using Ripple Control. Some power companies also made Night storage heating available. (Big electric heaters that were filled with bricks or concrete, which was heated during the night as a thermal mass, and would slowly release the heat during the day. They also had rules for connecting other loads. If you had an electrically heated spa or swimming pool, it also had to be connected to the ripple control system. These rules were often quite strict and if you didn't comply, you would have your power disconnected. But it meant that everyone got cheap electricity.

In the 1970s Methane gas reserves were discovered. And the government of the day embarked on a massive project to put them to use. A high pressure transmission pipe system was built to distribute gas to every major city and town in the North Island. The town gas systems were converted to operate on methane gas. (including going into peoples homes and modifying every gas appliance to suit). As well as expanding the gas pipe network to cover areas that were not covered by the old town gas pipe networks. Natural gas as it was called was used for virtually everything possible. As well as residential cooking, heating, hot water. (unfortunately not via central heating) It was also used for industry, and for heating in schools, hospitals, and other government buildings. A program was implemented to encourage the conversion of private cars and buses to work on methane gas (called CNG or compressed natural gas when used for automotive purposes). They even built refineries to convert the methane into methanol and synthetic petrol. (gasoline) It was all part of the government of the day's "think big projects" Which was overall to industrialise the country and reduce imports of foreign petroleum. Large gas, hydroelectric, and even 2 oil fired powerstations were built. As electricity demand was expected to rapidly increase over the next few decades. (Both of the oil fired power stations are long gone, 1 of them was not even used once) Today only approx 50% of houses in areas covered by the Natural gas pipe network are connected to gas.

In 1993 there were major reforms of the electricity sector in NZ. The regional power boards were no longer allowed to both own the power lines and be retail sellers of electricity to end customers. So the power network was split up with the government retaining ownership of the national transmission grid (later becoming Transpower) and the main generators. While the lines companies and the retail companies ended up in lots of different ownership structures. The government owned generators were originally in one company that eventually got split into 4, which were depending on the company partially or fully sold off. And a wholesale electricity market was created. Interestingly generation companies were also allowed to be retail companies. but one very big flaw in the 1993 reforms was that lines companies (by my understanding) were not allowed to use load control systems to make money. And it was also unclear who would own the load control equipment in customer houses, and who should have the right to control it. As being able to manipulate power demand means you can manipulate wholesale power prices.

Today we have privately owned, some small fully government owned, and partially government owned generation companies. The government owned Transpower national grid. Local lines companies (who have recently been allowed to start owning generators again). Companies that own the electricity meters and load control equipment (some of which are owned by lines companies or retail companies) The Electricity Authority, which is the government regulator of the electricity sector, and does things like manage the ICP database, which holds records of every Installation Control Point in NZ. (where power is generated or used). To record things like which lines company, meter owner and retail company is responsible for supplying a customer (along with other information). All of this combined with the Low User Regulations mean that electricity is expensive for lots of people in NZ. Quite alot of people pay similar prices compared to what you pay in the Netherlands, Yet they have to use electricity for everything in their house. And for alot of people on Low User rates, your Peak charge in NL is the price they pay for power at all times of the day and night. And often they will be living in houses with little or no insulation. As it was only in 1978 that rules got introduced that required insulation to be installed in new houses.

So for me I buy Power from Flick Electric (My retail company), My electricity meter is owned by Metrix, who are in turn owned by Mercury Energy (retail and generation company). My lines company is Vector Ltd (who also own electricity meters, and offer solar and battery systems as a side company) And of course there is Transpower and generator owners. Flick Electric buy the power that I use from the wholesale spot market (which is run by the NZ stock exchange) While the Australian stock exchange runs the market for hedge and other forward contracts for buying and selling electricity. And the Electricity Authority oversees everything. The usage data from my electricity meter typically gets uploaded overnight to Metrix, Who have to then provide it to Flick Electric. Before they can then provide it to me. My understanding is that Flick Electric then provide that data to Vector, for billing of their charges to Flick. Some form of that data then finds it way somehow to the Electricity Authority and other parts of the system. Metrix also bill a rental fee to Flick for the use of the Electricity meter.

Apart from a flashing icon or LED on the electricity meters, and the numbers on their screens. There is no official real time data feed available to electricity customers in NZ. (Or at least not from the 2 main meter owners who control most of the metering market). So the main way of getting real time data is by using current sensors on the incoming power cables to your house to independently measure your power usage.

There are lots of issues with people in NZ being unable to afford to keep their houses warm and dry. (winter is typically very damp in NZ) Alot of which is no cheap energy source being available for heating to most people. And if you are renting in NZ, the landlord can give you notice of just 90 days to move out, unless you have signed a fixed term rent contract. But fixed term rent contracts are mostly only for 1 year long. And it is rare that the landlord will allow you to make major changes to the house. And the main rules for standards of rental houses are contained in the Housing improvement regulations from 1947 (no Im not making that up). And the Residential tenancies act 1986 Which is mainly to do with the contractual side of residential renting. But has recently been amended to require that smoke alarms and insulation have to be installed. And even then only if the roof spaces and underfloor spaces are accessible to install insulation. There is also the building act and codes that set standards for new houses and buildings. And changes to existing buildings. Even then when making changes to a building, only the new bits need to be to current standards.

Heatpumps (reverse cycle air conditioning systems) are the most popular form of new heating installed. While wood burning indoor fires are also popular. Especially in rural areas where free wood is often available. Heatpumps are often single units, with multiple units being spread around the house. Because very few houses have central heating, and since there is no requirement that even new houses have central heating, Not that many people in NZ are used to having central heating. So there is not much demand to have it installed. Typically as long as rental houses have power points fitted in their rooms, that is considered sufficient. Although landlords must maintain any other heaters that the house has installed.

So yes NZ houses are generally of poor quality. Especially for heating. Yet funnily enough people typically think nothing of spending alot of money to buy new cars. Yet will be unlikely to spend even half of that on buying a decent heating system. So per capita car ownership in NZ is as high as the USA. Although at least electric cars are quickly growing in number here despite no purchase price subsidies from the government. Although there is an exemption from electric cars paying per kilometre road tax. Which my understanding will expire when electric cars reach 2% of all cars on the road. The vehicle fleet in NZ will most likely become close to fully electric before central heating becomes common.

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