$700-a-year increase running an airconditioner & snap price rises of as much as 15,000 %

[zilo]

In my new home I am totally off the grid...for everything including power,

I have found that the new technology compressors use significantly less power than the old ones. so have done a lot of research and measurements on appliances...some whilst in the retail store.

Recently I purchased a Samsung "digital inverter " refrigerator that I measured as a peak of 80 watts and a quiescent 20w whilst making ice blocks in an hour.

That is the same as my laptop when charging.

I suspect that the same technology is or will soon be available for air con units?

[EB#]

Originally Posted by zilo

In my new home I am totally off the grid...for everything including power.....

Kudos to you mate!

[Ford_The_Win]

Time to investigate going solar I think...I ain't giving up my tumble dryer or my AC.

[Cashie]

Originally Posted by Ford_The_Win

Time to investigate going solar I think...I ain't giving up my tumble dryer or my AC.

We haven't owned a tumble dryer for many years.
Clothes are either dried on the line or inside on the clothes horse if the weather is bad.
Saved a fortune.

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by zilo

In my new home I am totally off the grid...for everything including power,

I have found that the new technology compressors use significantly less power than the old ones. so have done a lot of research and measurements on appliances...some whilst in the retail store.

Recently I purchased a Samsung "digital inverter " refrigerator that I measured as a peak of 80 watts and a quiescent 20w whilst making ice blocks in an hour.

That is the same as my laptop when charging.

I suspect that the same technology is or will soon be available for air con units?

I want to do exactly like you are doing. Being completely off the grid is probably the best thing anyone can do IMO.

[EB#]

The sale of a public utility (supply contracts, wires, infrastructure, whatever) is a blight of modern government policy and ultimately a dangerously unsustainable model.... Spineless and corrupt politicians in bed with the big end of town, yet again. All for the sake of piles of cash, some big houses, some big boats and an array of other expensive ridiculous trinkets - aka The Obeid Method.

Minor rant over.

[sbutler]

Its just the same crap the fuel company's dish up to us when they tell us its not price fixing.
The price of oil is at a ten year low, so why are we not paying price's we were paying ten years ago.. We are being bent over, & there is SFA we can do about it.

Solar was the anwser but not now, you pay
[eg] 62c per KWH off the grid.
If you have solar they pay you at most 6c ! Do the math, your still getting bent over. In the old days when they were paying 62c KWH you would make what you used, but they woke up to that & have been dropping at a monthly basis to the point its not worth having..
While it will make yo feel all fuzzy inside, its doing SFA for your wallet..
Rant over...

[EB#]

For what it's worth, here are a few notes on our household electricity use:

- We have a 1.75kw solar system with grid feed for excess generated. This was installed in Dec 2013.

- Yes, it is a rort given that they charge me 30c/kwh to buy electricity and pay me 6c/kwh when I produce it, which they then on-sell across the street at the 30c rate

- Our quarterly bill, post solar installation is in the order of $100 cheaper, or a saving of about 30% per bill. However a couple of years of averaged bills (only one year so far with solar) should give a more accurate indication of the savings/benefits.

- Our house is an older place, not 'open plan' and just me and my g'friend live here. We both work, so the house is empty during working hours. We live in northern NSW in a 'sub-tropical' climate, which can be pretty hot in summer (30+) and quite cold at night (7 or 8) in mid winter. Our extreme hot and cold periods are not that long and most of the year is pretty comfortable actually, negating the need for year round heating or cooling.

- Given that all the rooms have doors, we heat one room in winter and one room in summer, usually the tv room or bedroom (one only at a time, never two) at peak conditions when required. This is done with either a reverse cycle AC or a medium sized panel convection heater. As it happens, this doesn't need to happen all that many times throughout the year, just when it is extreme conditions. Otherwise throw on a singlet or a good jumper to suit the season.

- When the roof was repaired (post hail storm) and newly insulated a fair while back, I gathered all the sizeable insulation offcuts (foil backed) and then fixed them under the timber floor of the tv room. It made a considerable thermal performance improvement for the room.

- We are pretty frugal with general power use, switch off major appliances at the wall when not in use, run LED and/or fluro light bulbs etc. No heat lamps, radiant heaters etc.

- The building is a duplex and our neighbour (1 bloke) has a solar hot water system on his side. We struck a deal with him and plumbed his hot water into our side also (one main line with a valve) and shut down our old electric HW altogether. The single solar HW unit easily supplies 2 bathrooms and 2 kitchens, for a total of 3 people.

If there is a way to pay less for power, I am happy to try it out!

[Maka]

Anyone considering or already using solar power generation for their places of residence, please have a look at this link -

http://www.solarcitizens.org.au/

cheer's, Maka

[EB#]

Originally Posted by Maka

Anyone considering or already using solar power generation for their places of residence, please have a look at this link -
http://www.solarcitizens.org.au/
cheer's, Maka

Good one mate. Just joined up to that one.

[Maka]

Taken from Solar Citizens website -

Solar Citizens will work to ensure:

•Every Australian is able to take up the benefits of solar in their home or in their community
•Solar homeowners are paid a fair price for the power they contribute to the grid
•Solar homeowners are able to connect to the grid
•Solar homeowners are not subject to unreasonable charges or tariffs

(with thanks to Solar Citezens)

ps - i'm not a spokesman for this mob, i thought i would throw it up for those it may interest.

cheer's, Maka

[mik]

Originally Posted by Maka

Anyone see this story in the Sydney Daily Telegraph yesterday, so if you use more than average power in peak demand, you will be paying a massive premium for the privledge? (i'm frantically checking over our previous bills now!) This applies to all states i gather?

"The Australian Energy Markets Commission (AEMC) says the way to curb future increases in peak demand is to give households “signals” to change power use"

"To beat the new electricity changes some households may have to surrender control of their aircon to their power provider"

"Those who can’t afford that investment — or spiralling running costs — may have to flee to more community “cooling centres” such as libraries"

(with thanks to the Daily Telegraph)

http://www.news.com.au/finance/money...-1227195669476

cheer's, Maka

starting to look like big brother or communism isnt it.
yes comrade .... you vill use airconditioner when we say ...OR ELSE !!!!!!

[Maka]

Amec want to lessen the burden on the network in peak demand, yet overall usage is declining as Bill M pointed out in a earlier post -

"The trade-off would be price cuts in normal weather. By curtailing peak demand, less money would need to be spent on network expansion"

"The AEMC claims rule changes it made last month to send these signals will deliver modest savings of over the medium term to most households"

"The rise of airconditioners is blamed for growth in “peak demand”. There has been about $8 billion of network upgrades in the past decade to deal with this growth and that investment has been recouped through big price rises for all households"

"Charges for network services now account for half of a bill. The actual power is just 20 per cent"

(with thanks to the Daily Telegraph)


Mik, your right, behaviour modification with a big stick. Just like the old days at high school!

cheer's, Maka

[xtremerus]

I assume they would only be able to control your AC if you have a "smart" meter, and not the older conventional ones. Is that right??

[ute83]

Originally Posted by xtremerus

I assume they would only be able to control your AC if you have a "smart" meter, and not the older conventional ones. Is that right??

That's right. I believe the newer ac installations are connected directly to the smart meter hence being able to turn it down or even off.

[danzvtil]

Originally Posted by ute83

That's right. I believe the newer ac installations are connected directly to the smart meter hence being able to turn it down or even off.

Theres another "device" out there, not sure what its called but it allows remote control of your AC compressor-IE refrig AC has 2 parts, the internal blower unit and the external compressor(which uses the bulk of the power load).
At predetermined peak loads, the power company can remotely switch off x number of compressors in each street for a predetermined amount of time only (like 10-15 mins) this has the effect of shedding load across a suburb while the internal AC blower still operates. For the life of me I cant see where this saves power as when the compressor is reactivated, it will have to work that bit harder to cool the inside air back to where it was before the shutdown. There was a trial of this system in SA at one stage but not sure where it is now.
There was talk a few years ago of houses having to notify the power company of how many ac units are in their premises.
It will get to a stage when new system installs will need to be approved with a device of this nature, big brother will definitely have a hand over your power use.

[poppa smurf]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

Theres another "device" out there, not sure what its called but it allows remote control of your AC compressor-IE refrig AC has 2 parts, the internal blower unit and the external compressor(which uses the bulk of the power load).
At predetermined peak loads, the power company can remotely switch off x number of compressors in each street for a predetermined amount of time only (like 10-15 mins) this has the effect of shedding load across a suburb while the internal AC blower still operates. For the life of me I cant see where this saves power as when the compressor is reactivated, it will have to work that bit harder to cool the inside air back to where it was before the shutdown. There was a trial of this system in SA at one stage but not sure where it is now.
There was talk a few years ago of houses having to notify the power company of how many ac units are in their premises.
It will get to a stage when new system installs will need to be approved with a device of this nature, big brother will definitely have a hand over your power use.

do you have any literature on this? mate, we just installed a new unit before chrissy and I remember that the mob who installed the unit had to notify the power mob.

at the time I wondered why! simply assuming that it was to do with the compilation of the drain on local lines.

I wonder if ours has this?......if so i won't be happy.

and yes I agree, the savings made will be soaked up to "recool" the house.

[Charliewool]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

Theres another "device" out there, not sure what its called but it allows remote control of your AC compressor-IE refrig AC has 2 parts, the internal blower unit and the external compressor(which uses the bulk of the power load).
At predetermined peak loads, the power company can remotely switch off x number of compressors in each street for a predetermined amount of time only (like 10-15 mins) this has the effect of shedding load across a suburb while the internal AC blower still operates. For the life of me I cant see where this saves power as when the compressor is reactivated, it will have to work that bit harder to cool the inside air back to where it was before the shutdown. There was a trial of this system in SA at one stage but not sure where it is now.
There was talk a few years ago of houses having to notify the power company of how many ac units are in their premises.
It will get to a stage when new system installs will need to be approved with a device of this nature, big brother will definitely have a hand over your power use.

I call BS on this... Do tell how they'd remotely control one appliance on a circuit?
Or even if say, a 2hp air con is on it's own dedicated circuit?
Does Powercor bluetooth your compressor from headquarters and trip the circuit breaker or what?

[Franco Cozzo]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

I call BS on this... Do tell how they'd remotely control one appliance on a circuit?
Or even if say, a 2hp air con is on it's own dedicated circuit?
Does Powercor bluetooth your compressor from headquarters and trip the circuit breaker or what?

A relay I guess, trigger it with the smart meter.

Do they do 240V/415V relays?

I doubt they'd do that sort of stuff though, if I had A/C and they turned it off I'd be on their door steps holding signs and yelling

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

I call BS on this... Do tell how they'd remotely control one appliance on a circuit?
Or even if say, a 2hp air con is on it's own dedicated circuit?
Does Powercor bluetooth your compressor from headquarters and trip the circuit breaker or what?

Don't underestimated danzvtil comment, I too have read somewhere of new technology & it is a reality, what I have read is customers will be able to sign up to this offer from the energy retailers for special tariff conditions & of course some wiring alterations will be performed to your premises if needed
New appliances will have built in new technology to facilitate communication with the network grid, hence via smart meters.

[poppa smurf]

don't know how they would be able to shut off just your air-con unless it is on a totally different switching arrangement.

would have to be remote controlled or the blokes they send around to manually shut it off would want to be big boys.

[lisaishername]

Originally Posted by poppa smurf

don't know how they would be able to shut off just your air-con unless it is on a totally different switching arrangement.

would have to be remote controlled or the blokes they send around to manually shut it off would want to be big boys.

Simply, they wouldn't. I haven't heard of any smart meters containing solid state relays yet. Tho Smart meters do contain cellphone transceivers at the moment its for large apartments or units for monitoring usage.
http://forums.radioreference.com/ele...te-cutoff.html
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montre...offs-1.2834439

“Some person may live with medical equipment necessary to live. So we think it's [imprudent] to remotely disconnect electricity.”
Moisan-Plante said Hydro-Québec charges high fees to reconnect cut-off customers, and that's another pressing concern.

Cha Chiing!

It looks like they just shut off your entire house not just your aircon and its done via a dispatch.

If they want to shed loads they can just shutoff the entire suburb or town not individual houses.

[poppa smurf]

Originally Posted by lisaishername

If they want to shed loads they can just shutoff the entire suburb or town not individual houses.

you're talking about the old rolling blackouts......would not be tolerated nor allowed in this day and age.......Certainly with no benefit to consumer or reason behind it.

[lisaishername]

Originally Posted by poppa smurf

you're talking about the old rolling blackouts......would not be tolerated nor allowed in this day and age.......Certainly with no benefit to consumer or reason behind it.

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...ires-melbourne

On Wednesday, the Victorian premier Denis Napthine, who has introduced an effective ban on the construction of wind turbines, talked about the need to "reduce the supply to some households".
He's talking about cutting the electricity to homes, during the hottest part of the day.
"The government is insisting that priority is given to electricity supplies for hospitals, nursing homes emergency services, public transport and major infrastructure," he said in a radio interview, and he also noted that essential services "will be exempt" from power cuts.
The blackouts were exacerbated by repair delays at one of Victoria's major power stations and problems with the Basslink power cable from Tasmania.

Either these reasons are needed before they will initiate rolling blackouts or we have an economic collapse and nobody is able to pay the bills.

Will not be tolerated? Of course there would have to be a reason behind cutting off the power. Melting high voltage lines. etc

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/su...206-325e0.html

"The main cause of network faults during hot conditions is overloading," Citipower and Powercor spokesman Lyall Johnson said.
He said most customer outages were caused by high and low voltages, fuse failures and transformer failures.
"We encourage customers to monitor their usage of electricity in periods of extremely hot weather and, where possible, reduce their usage," he said.
Stuart Allott from distributor United Energy (supplying south-eastern suburbs to the Mornington Peninsula) said 45 of approximately 20,000 street-level low-voltage circuits failed during the heatwave.
"Prolonged heat can cause our transformers to be unbalanced or overloaded due to customer load increasing as a result of high air-conditioner use, and we only truly know what peak load they can take when we get a set of very hot days in a row," Mr Allott said.
He gave the example of McKinnon, in Melbourne's south-east, as an area that had blackouts. A "peak demand issue" was identified in a small area of the suburb and works were fast-tracked to improve supply reliability, he said.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by lisaishername

http://www.theguardian.com/environme...ires-melbourne

Either these reasons are needed before they will initiate rolling blackouts or we have an economic collapse and nobody is able to pay the bills.

Will not be tolerated? Of course there would have to be a reason behind cutting off the power. Melting high voltage lines. etc

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/su...206-325e0.html

Most of the black outs caused in bush fires is for health & safety reasons when it comes to HV equipment tripping out (intentionally), Smoke around HV equipment is very dangerous for people fighting fires, you will be surprised how HV power can discharge through smoke, not many people know this fact but a CFA fiery will certainly know of it.

Most times the authorities will have the power switched off for this reason.

[poppa smurf]

yet to see a high voltage power line melt, in fact there are many safeguards to give way before that happened.

the main ones are the transformers.......they have all been updated.

I'm afraid the media (as usual) has slopped up a lot of propaganda which has been spread by power barons in an effort to justify their multi million dollar profits.

there is, and always will be, scare tactics and propaganda circulating, the trick is to be able to weave our way to the truth.

[lisaishername]

Originally Posted by poppa smurf

yet to see a high voltage power line melt, in fact there are many safeguards to give way before that happened.

the main ones are the transformers.......they have all been updated.

I'm afraid the media (as usual) has slopped up a lot of propaganda which has been spread by power barons in an effort to justify their multi million dollar profits.

there is, and always will be, scare tactics and propaganda circulating, the trick is to be able to weave our way to the truth.

Did you miss this one? Or are you referring to in Australia?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nt0njgVmv4

Just because you haven't actually seen it with your own eyes doesn't mean it won't happen. Its impossible to keep an eye on every single HV circuit all across Australia at least from a personal perspective.

AT least its good to hear that they are upgrading transformers and doing what they need to do to keep ahead of the curve of failing gear. But once we see an economic downturn I don't see why they cannot start to skip on maintenance.

Its also good to hear that we are using less and less power and going more and more to Solar grid-tie. That should hopefully reduce the strain on the grid.

I would like to find out what will happen when a large percentage of households install solar and the entire street or suburb is running at higher-than-healthy voltages.

[poppa smurf]

Originally Posted by lisaishername

Did you miss this one? Or are you referring to in Australia?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nt0njgVmv4

Just because you haven't actually seen it with your own eyes doesn't mean it won't happen. Its impossible to keep an eye on every single HV circuit all across Australia at least from a personal perspective.

AT least its good to hear that they are upgrading transformers and doing what they need to do to keep ahead of the curve of failing gear. But once we see an economic downturn I don't see why they cannot start to skip on maintenance.

Its also good to hear that we are using less and less power and going more and more to Solar grid-tie. That should hopefully reduce the strain on the grid.

I would like to find out what will happen when a large percentage of households install solar and the entire street or suburb is running at higher-than-healthy voltages.

hasn't happened, never will, too many safety measures in place to protect the grid and don't forget the grid is substantially over constructed, one of the so called reasons our power prices are so high.

everytime this is dragged out I see chicken little in the tabloids.

as for overloading the system with too many solar systems, I suggest you do a little more homework.

everybody that has home solar installed must comply with regulations, as in licensing the generating system to comply with allowable voltages relating to the particular line they about to "feed into".

we all must have a PVSEG number, or Photo voltaic Small Energy Generator number and your system must comply with the capabilities of the line it is to tie into.

if the line is to be "overloaded" the license will either not be granted or the line will be upgraded to handle the extra load.

once again can't happen.

[lisaishername]

Originally Posted by poppa smurf

hasn't happened, never will, too many safety measures in place to protect the grid and don't forget the grid is substantially over constructed, one of the so called reasons our power prices are so high.

everytime this is dragged out I see chicken little in the tabloids.

as for overloading the system with too many solar systems, I suggest you do a little more homework.

everybody that has home solar installed must comply with regulations, as in licensing the generating system to comply with allowable voltages relating to the particular line they about to "feed into".

we all must have a PVSEG number, or Photo voltaic Small Energy Generator number and your system must comply with the capabilities of the line it is to tie into.

if the line is to be "overloaded" the license will either not be granted or the line will be upgraded to handle the extra load.

once again can't happen.

It wouldn't be an "overload" condition (is this for lack of a better word?) if you're feeding too much voltage into the power grid anyway, you're using the wrong terminology and making vast assumptions over what I meant.

I meant that a dangerous condition involving the voltage rating of appliances (neighbours appliances) burning out as a result of inadequate voltage regulation on the local power grid.

And you do sound pretty knowledgeable on the topic but I would hazard to guess you are also very self-assured. Not sure if that is a bonus or what.

Oh and the new york blackout occured as a result of a single tree in a high voltage power line corridor and a guy forgetting to turn on said safety equipment after repairing it the day before.

I agree though that the chances are slim.
#1 You would need safety systems to be offline or in disrepair.
#2 You would need a lack of maintenance in hv power line corridors.
#3 You would need a solar flare. (And safety equipment like earthing at the generating station to be in disrepair or non functioning state)
#4 Nuclear War.

So still slim.

[Cashie]

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