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Is mine bigger than yours? Ambient level of consumption.

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Last Post by Majordennisbloodnok 2 years ago

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Toodles

(@toodles)

Famed Member Contributor

Joined: 4 years ago

Posts: 2966

Topic starter 14/09/2024 4:26 pm [#1710]

I have been wondering about this for some time; am I a heavy consumer of electricity ‘in the background’? We may have rather more ‘drains on the main’ than some because we have a number of Amazon smart speakers, cordless telephones, many Zigbee and Alexa controlled lights and switches. etc. Not to mention a NAS, then there is a freezer and a fridge freezer, domestic devices that are never truly off - even if only to display a clock, then there is the network with a MESH system - the list seems endless!

What I am taking a long time to get to is with us drawing ~200-300 watts all round the clock is our background consumption of those little electrons abnormally high at approx. 7.2 kW/h per day? Some of it could be reduced a little I suppose but only inconveniencing ourselves and waiting for boot-up and resets when firing devices up to use them. (I don’t think designers and manufacturers do us any favours here as ‘standby’ to them is their idea of ‘off’.) I’ve also heard of smart devices to plug in in-line with fridges and freezers but how much they save, I have no idea.

So come on ‘Is my demand BIGGER than yours’? I suppose in the overall scheme of things, with a total annual consumption of ~10MWhs in an all-electric home, the 25% spent on convenience and ‘must haves’ is not the end of the world, after all, we want fresh food to eat whilst we listen to the radio, and that food has been cooked on the induction hob or the microwave oven, we like to see our way around the house and don’t much fancy using a bicycle dynamo to charge the iPhones, iPads and having 24/7 access to the internet and our friends (not to mention wasting everyone’s time on the renewableheatinghub!) Curiously, Toodles.

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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Mars

(@editor)

Illustrious Member Admin

Joined: 6 years ago

Posts: 4874

14/09/2024 5:19 pm

Our baseline consumption, the house running and doing its thing (WiFi, chargers, home sewage treatment plant pump (100w), fridges, security cameras, smart plugs, HomePods, all the other stuff I can’t think of that’s connect to WiFi, etc.), is between 600-800 watts, so ours is bigger than yours @toodles 🤣 😓

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Topic starter 14/09/2024 5:36 pm

@editor >5.000 kWh’s per annum! Yikes, I thought ours was big enough! Amazed, Toodles.

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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Derek M

(@derek-m)

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Joined: 6 years ago

Posts: 4425

14/09/2024 6:17 pm

@toodles

During a 24 hour period our baseload is in the 100W to 300W range with occasional dips below and surges above. Assuming a 200W / hr average would give 4.8kW per day.

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Anonymous 5011

(@Anonymous 5011)

Joined: 4 years ago

Posts: 562

14/09/2024 8:53 pm

We out this afternoon and drawing between 320 and 390W. Basically MVHR, dMEV fan in summer house, sewage plant fan, ASHP standby/pump consumption and general stuff. So about 8.5kWh without lifting a finger.

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robl

(@robl)

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Joined: 5 years ago

Posts: 216

15/09/2024 8:22 am

150W average overnight - in order that’ll be: fridgefreezer, mvhr, ftth router, water softener, loads of standby stuff. There’s no standby stuff that runs at >1W - I remember looking at a dab radio that was hot in standby at the shop, didn’t buy it. Telly usb power switches on/off other stuff - wii u, buttkicker (it does what it sounds like!) etc.

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Majordennisbloodnok

(@majordennisbloodnok)

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Posts: 2140

15/09/2024 9:34 am

We’re at about 250-300W average overnight. Give that, on top of the fridge freezer, we’ve got a PoE switch, wireless access points, a CCTV camera, the Home Assistant server (on a PC), a DVR and a router all necessarily running, I’m not unhappy with that.

105 m2 bungalow in South East England
Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5 kW air source heat pump
18 x 360W solar panels
1 x 6 kW GroWatt battery and SPH5000 inverter
1 x Myenergi Zappi
1 x VW ID3
Raised beds for home-grown veg and chickens for eggs

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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IanMK13

(@ianmk13)

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Posts: 195

15/09/2024 12:13 pm

@majordennisbloodnok My base load is perhaps a little lower than that with, I imagine, similar ‘tech’, but no ASHP. 5.5kWh/day when we’re away. Something like 12-13kWh normal daily use this time of year. I’d originally thought that 13.5kWh of battery would be sufficient (assuming overnight ToU tariff) but now I’m not so sure - I’ll see how winter goes…

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Posts: 2966

Topic starter 15/09/2024 12:28 pm

@ianmk13 Our average total daily consumption without the heat pump in use but including DHW needs is approximately 14-15 kWh - so that means our baseload is some 50% of the total (just to have some convenience here and there!)

I suppose we ought to increase our daily consumption somewhat, then our base load would not look so significant! 😉

Thoughtfully, Toodles.

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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IanMK13

(@ianmk13)

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Posts: 195

15/09/2024 12:50 pm

@toodles I should probably clarify that, not having an ASHP, DHW is via a gas boiler.

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TechnoGeek

(@technogeek)

Estimable Member Member

Joined: 3 years ago

Posts: 177

16/09/2024 11:31 am

@toodles discounting the ASHP and EV our baseline consumption (fridge freezer, lights, gadgets and cooking) averages about the same at 7Kwh / day, so mine is the same size as yours! 🤣 🤣

The fridge freezer is, as you would expect, the biggest consumer, especially during the summer

5 Bedroom House in Cambridgeshire, double glazing, 300mm loft insulation and cavity wall insulation
Design temperature 21C @ OAT -2C = 10.2Kw heat loss, deltaT = 8 degrees
Bivalent system containing:
12Kw Samsung High Temperature Quiet (Gen 6) heat pump
26Kw Grant Blue Flame Oil Boiler
4.1Kw Solar Panel Array
34Kwh GivEnergy Stackable Battery System

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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