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Thread: Electricity usage

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    Default Electricity usage

    A couple of us were yakking at work today, and we wondered why electricity utilities don't offer a cheaper rate at night time, other than hot water off peak?

    We mulled over things like a swimming pool pump and filter that runs for about 8 hours a day. A lot odf people filter during the day and late afternoon, when I assume electricity usage is at it's peak, and thus pricey to manufacture.

    I wondered if they had an offpeak electricity rate, how many people would take it up, and whether this would be beneficial in reducing day time loads?

    Any interest in the thought, or is it stupid??



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    Senior Member z80's Avatar
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    With solar grid fed systems it should be the opposite.

    The most expensive base load power will tend to be at night.

    I think that's the logical way it will go.

    Also off peak hot water will soon be gone IMHO.

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    Why would you reduce the costs in peak hour?

    The electricity company is in a win, win sit.

    The sun goes down and the price goes up

    I could be wrong, as always.LOL

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    gas powered instant hot water systems solves the water heaters problem....

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    Quote Originally Posted by urban_s0ulja View Post
    gas powered instant hot water systems solves the water heaters problem....


    Agreed, storage hot water systems are inefficient.

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    Cool

    I'm sure our supplier does that. They came & put in these intelligent meters a couple of months ago & I'm sure that all power is charged at a lower rate after 10pm

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    We are looking at solar solutions for the residential market. so far $15K - $20K would make a home self sufficient and also generate an income in rebates or cancel out night usage costs.

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    Quote Originally Posted by intelliGEORGE View Post
    We are looking at solar solutions for the residential market. so far $15K - $20K would make a home self sufficient and also generate an income in rebates or cancel out night usage costs.


    You are dreaming if you think that will make you self sufficient on electricity.


    $50k....maybe.


    But...50k buys you $60 a week in interest in the bank.

    that's $720 a quarter.

    Do you pay that much in electricity a quarter?

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    [QUOTE=viewer;23985]

    We mulled over things like a swimming pool pump and filter that runs for about 8 hours a day. A lot odf people filter during the day and late afternoon, when I assume electricity usage is at it's peak, and thus pricey to manufacture.



    In QLD you can connect permanently wired devices to the off peak meters. You will save a few $$ getting your pool wired up this way.

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    [QUOTE=thing;24236]
    Quote Originally Posted by viewer View Post

    We mulled over things like a swimming pool pump and filter that runs for about 8 hours a day. A lot odf people filter during the day and late afternoon, when I assume electricity usage is at it's peak, and thus pricey to manufacture.



    In QLD you can connect permanently wired devices to the off peak meters. You will save a few $$ getting your pool wired up this way.
    Hmm..thanks thing,,,I'll have to ring Country Energy and find out what they can offer..

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    the only condition is that it is "permanently wired". You can't have a 3 pin plug on the end of the filter. You also can't have change over circuits to flick between peak and off peak. I have done a few of these jobs and it works well. You just have to find the cash to pay the sparky in the first place, after that you can get good savings

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    Oh...that would not suit a pool then, as you have the need to backwash and clean, and need daylight to do that.Without being able to manually turn on the pump, it would not suit.

    back to the drawing board.

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    Quote Originally Posted by viewer View Post
    Oh...that would not suit a pool then, as you have the need to backwash and clean, and need daylight to do that.Without being able to manually turn on the pump, it would not suit.

    back to the drawing board.
    Why do you need a pool in bananaville anyway

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    The monkey slaves enjoy a swim for their hard endeavours.....

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    check you meter and see how often the off peak is on for. you would be surprised. It is on most of the day. You can install switches & timers to turn it on/off.

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    All they do is to rip you off all the time cheaper after 9 at night would be good
    Been there done that

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    In this area the mechanical clocks in the power meters can be up to 12 hours out due to (time additive) power failures. This probably assists in creating power "outages" (I maintain this is a yuppy term for failures) during the day when thousands of electric hot water systems are pulling 5 kilowatts (when they should be heating at night) due to the incorrectly set clocks.

    There is also an efficiency issue in relation to this clock error - the electric heater runs all day then cools down overnight...when you have your shower in the morning you use a greater volume of hot water due to its lower temperature. Pedantic I am, but inefficient it is ! As energy-efficiency-aware users of dwindling energy supplies this issue has relevance...I reckon ! Multiply efficiency gains by hundreds of thousands of users and the issue is definitely relevant.

    I guess the clocks are never checked or reset as the electricity providers would have to employ someone to do this job - this would severely cut into the providers' daily multi-million dollar income....

    The newer digital meters have a real-time clock which seems to be quite accurate, possibly set by control tones sent down the powerlines....dunno.

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    the power company use a 22khz tone (i think this is the right freq) to turn the relay on and off. As soon as the power grid hits a peak usage they turn off the HWS. I have never seen a clock meter but they may be in use interstate somewhere

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