Is mine bigger than yours? Ambient level of consumption.

Toodles · 2024-09-14T15:26:30Z

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.

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Toodles

(@toodles)

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Topic starter 16/09/2024 2:33 pm

@technogeek It is good to know from the responses to this question that our domestic drain from the grid is pretty average and all I need to do now is reconcile this fact by reasoning ‘It is not a lot of energy - it is just that energy is too boodly expensive!’ Reflectively, Toodles.

This post was modified 10 months ago by Toodles

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

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Judith

(@judith)

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16/09/2024 8:31 pm

Our minimum usage in the night is ~150W but mostly it is more. Usual suspects WiFi mesh and extenders tend to dominate, inc MVHR. When we’re not here it’s ~8kWh but when present with washing machine dishwasher, tumble drier (all the most efficient available) we can easily be 15kWh.

2kW + Growatt & 4kW +Sunnyboy PV on south-facing roof Solar thermal. 9.5kWh Givenergy battery with AC3. MVHR. Vaillant 7kW ASHP (very pleased with it) open system operating on WC

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IanMK13

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18/09/2024 12:59 pm

Of course this base-load - before we even think of doing the washing or turning the TV on - relates to another fixed cost on top of the standing charge. My 5.5kWh/day is costing me another £1 or so per day on current Agile prices (I see prices have increased, recently). To minimise loads on ‘standby’, I have ‘smart sockets’ in my office and on the two entertainment systems in the house. Those things that don’t need to be on 24/7 (things other than Wi-Fi access points, certain network switches, CCTV, NAS, Sky boxes, etc) are switched off via the smart sockets until required.

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Majordennisbloodnok

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18/09/2024 2:34 pm

Posted by: @ianmk13

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Those things that don’t need to be on 24/7 (things other than Wi-Fi access points, certain network switches, CCTV, NAS, Sky boxes, etc)...

And there's the key for us. The range of IT equipment we're running is fairly extensive and I must admit I was surprised our residual usage wasn't higher. However, most of it plays a part in the intelligent running of our big ticket items (ASHP, battery, EV charger, agile import/export) the streamlining of which saves us far more than the cost - financial and carbon - of the residual usage. It's a tradeoff between the cost of running the kit and the benefit of what the kit does. I'd love to swing the compromise more in our favour, though.

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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