Time to give electricity the flick?

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#1383518 9-Sep-2015 16:13

gchiu: This has current pricing http://www.em6live.co.nz/PlanningRegion.aspx?planningregion=lsi

But is there an archive of what prices were?

I just want to correlate their prices with Flick's.

I've decided to go the SMS way to control my hot water power so need to get some scripts running to send SMS, and monitor power, and send SMS alerts to my phone if power goes up too high.

Nope, but you can grab it from this site and record it. Remember live prices won't match the reconciled prices later.

Why would you want to actively control your hot water? That'd be almost as bad as Powershop. I turned my hot water off 5pm one Wednesday and forgot about it until Thursday 9pm. General use (dishes) plus six adult showers and there was still plenty of hot water left, with a regular sized tank. I figure a basic timer that turns the tank on between 3am and 7am is probably fine for many, and if it's not then a boost at 3pm or so when prices usually dip.

fortydayweekend

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#1383520 9-Sep-2015 16:15

gchiu: This has current pricing http://www.em6live.co.nz/PlanningRegion.aspx?planningregion=lsi

But is there an archive of what prices were?

I just want to correlate their prices with Flick's.

I've decided to go the SMS way to control my hot water power so need to get some scripts running to send SMS, and monitor power, and send SMS alerts to my phone if power goes up too high.

Archive is at http://www.emi.ea.govt.nz/Reports/VisualChart?reportName=W_P_C&categoryName=Wholesale&reportGroupIndex=0&reportDisplayContext=Gallery#reportName=W_P_C

Download links are on the top-right. I'm not sure how pretty the data is, but you seem to be pretty good at workarounds!

Flick might be charging you for the price at your node, so you might need to choose that first.

gchiu

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#1383529 9-Sep-2015 16:45

I had the power off overnight to my 180 litre tank except for a couple of hours this morning, and the tank temperature is currently reading 30 deg C, and my solar collector is only 35 deg on a slightly cloudy Wellington day. So, I'm definitely going to need to power it up tonight.

zerkms

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#1383533 9-Sep-2015 16:58

gchiu: I had the power off overnight to my 180 litre tank except for a couple of hours this morning, and the tank temperature is currently reading 30 deg C, and my solar collector is only 35 deg on a slightly cloudy Wellington day. So, I'm definitely going to need to power it up tonight.

That is quick. We shut down our 180L one for almost 10 days of christmas holidays and when we returned back it still was hot (it was shut down for sure - I checked it with power consumption graphs).

timmmay

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#1383536 9-Sep-2015 17:00

gchiu: I had the power off overnight to my 180 litre tank except for a couple of hours this morning, and the tank temperature is currently reading 30 deg C, and my solar collector is only 35 deg on a slightly cloudy Wellington day. So, I'm definitely going to need to power it up tonight.

That is weird. You should probably look into why. Mine is up in the ceiling, so an un-insulated space, with an extra wrap, but it's only a year old. I suspect it would hold heat for a week.

kiwitrc

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#1383537 9-Sep-2015 17:02

gchiu: I had the power off overnight to my 180 litre tank except for a couple of hours this morning, and the tank temperature is currently reading 30 deg C, and my solar collector is only 35 deg on a slightly cloudy Wellington day. So, I'm definitely going to need to power it up tonight.

Where is the temp sensor in your tank that is ready 30? Is it the one at the bottom that compares the solar output temp and decides if it needs to pump?

gchiu

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#1383561 9-Sep-2015 18:01

Currently the tank bottom sensor is reading 23 deg and the top 30 deg. The collector temperature has dropped to 27 deg.

kiwitrc

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#1383570 9-Sep-2015 18:28

gchiu: Currently the tank bottom sensor is reading 23 deg and the top 30 deg. The collector temperature has dropped to 27 deg.

Does the top change if you run the hot tap for a bit?

gchiu

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#1385631 11-Sep-2015 13:03

Looks my hotwater cylinder has a problem. After the temperature dropped to 30 deg, I left the power on all night and it only got to 45 deg in the morning. After another day it then got to 63 deg this morning. Ah, hot showers again

I'm not sure if it's worth fixing as I presume the heating element is faulty so it isn't using as much electricity as it could.

zerkms

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#1385637 11-Sep-2015 13:09

gchiu: Looks my hotwater cylinder has a problem. After the temperature dropped to 30 deg, I left the power on all night and it only got to 45 deg in the morning. After another day it then got to 63 deg this morning. Ah, hot showers again

I'm not sure if it's worth fixing as I presume the heating element is faulty so it isn't using as much electricity as it could.

Btw, if 45 is the actual temperature - then I'm not sure it's safe to use it at first place.

timmmay

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#1385693 11-Sep-2015 14:08

Yeah, you have a potential safety issue, I think it's legionaries disease. Get a plumber in ASAP.

My standard tank can get from dead cold to very hot in a few hours.

gchiu

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#1395878 28-Sep-2015 16:11

I had the electrician check it out, and the element is drawing 8 amps ( I think ) when he bypassed the solar controller.
So, I think what's happening is that there is a timer in place that only allows the contacter to close during certain hours. That part of the programming is not available to me so I'm going to contact the supplier.

Since the water is heated in the solar tubes, in summer it should reach over 60 deg C so that means I don't have to maintain the tank at that temperature. Some places say that you need to get to 60 deg once a week and others once a day to kill Legionella.

I've altered the solar controller so that it's in bypass mode and the electric element is now always on. I had the electrician connect up the EZY Switch so that I now can control the cylinder using SMS, and will program it using delayed SMS to ask it to heat after 3 am for a couple of hours so that we only use the lowest rate of power. Of course in the evening people can shower using the water heated during by the sun during the day.

So, it's a simple dialect eg. turn water on for 2 hrs

Pity it doesn't allow: turn water on for 2 hrs at 5 am.

Once summer is in full swing I expect we'll just leave the additional heating off all the time.

Aredwood

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#1395936 28-Sep-2015 18:01

You will need to leave the element on for alot longer than a couple of hours. 8 amps current draw means your cylinder has a 2kw element. It will take 5.5 hours to fully heat from cold. So you need to program the controller to run the element for 6 hours each night to ensure you will always have hot water. Probably best from midnight to 6 am. If you then shower in the morning. The cylinder will then have cold water in it for heating by the solar.

gchiu

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#1396374 29-Sep-2015 09:57

But it's not completely cold. It's reaching 50 deg C at present by the end of the day, and an hour in the early hours is enough so far to reach hot enough for the shower.

kiwitrc

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#1396389 29-Sep-2015 10:01

gchiu: But it's not completely cold. It's reaching 50 deg C at present by the end of the day, and an hour in the early hours is enough so far to reach hot enough for the shower.

Your thermostat will stop the element once it reaches temperature so no need to limit how long it runs for, best bet is to have a timer running say midnight to 6 if you want cheapest power, at least then if you dont get and solar boost you have hot water in the mornings or anytime you need it that day.

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