Smart meters?

[ericmark]

Would that be as a substitute for the occupier doing something smart, like not leaving the cooker or the shower on?

My electric cooker has it built into the cooker, but I have not seen gas cookers with it built in. We try to manually control our usage, but from time to time things go wrong, and having a "Smart" device take over when something goes wrong is good.

I have had mothers central heating go wrong, both over and under temperature and I moved to a two way communication device to stop or at least reduce the chances of this happening, true "Smart" devices are good at intervening when we or some other device gets it wrong. But what I have seen of "Smart" meters they are not good enough to be worth installing. They are just a job creation scheme. Although short lived as then meter readers will be made redundant.

 

[winston1]

Owl energy meter with wireless link to the sensor clamp on the supply cable.

http://www.theowl.com/
various models
but cheaper http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Other-Appliances/20715/i.html?_sop=15&_from=R40&_nkw=owl+energy+-phones you might get a used one for a tenner

or

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_f...rgy+meter.TRS0&_nkw=owl+energy+meter&_sacat=0

because so many people buy one, use it for a bit, then lose interest. The CM160 has a USB connector for a PC. There are other models.

There are a number of different brands around. There was a brief fashion for energy companies "giving" them to customers who signed up for a higher-price tariff.

I went for Owl because at the time I was looking, it came out fairly well in Which; had a version that connects to the PC, and was readily available on ebay. There might be better ones now.

If you have solar panels you can learn how to optimise use of your washer, drier and dishwasher to minimise cost. The Immersion Controllers are so expensive that they are not an economical proposition.

But as I said earlier these devices are not accurate. They measure current only and assume voltage, not measure it, and assume a power factor of unity, which is only true for pure resistive loads.

Trading standards should ban them.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Its not until you actually see what your laziness is actually costing that you realise how much money you could save.

And do you know what, by far and away, is the biggest laziness problem there?

Not bothering to think that your CH works by burning gas, and that if you use the heating less you will need to buy less gas.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

When I get up in the morning, I watch tv for three minutes instead of boiling the kettle for tea.

It saves on electricity.

I installed a real-time bank account app on my phone.

As soon as I realised how much I was spending on train fares to go to work, I stopped going.

 

[matz]

And do you know what, by far and away, is the biggest laziness problem there?

Not bothering to think that your CH works by burning gas, and that if you use the heating less you will need to buy less gas.

with respect, why are you being so offensive?? of I course I know CH uses gas - what do you think I think it runs on, the water alone lol?? Actually, not that it is any of your business, but my missus has an illness that means she is relatively inactive. Inactivity means you get colder than someone who is active so the heating creeps up and up as you think its cold when in reality its like an oven. So she turns it up and I turn it down.... ok?

 

[ericmark]

It's not energy you want to save, it's money, and the big problem is comparing gas with electric. With an all electric home it's easy, all electric used ends up as heat, so while the heating is required you can use all you want as all it does is means the heating runs for a shorter time. OK for the purest there are exceptions, but boil a kettle and that heat ends up in the house, watch TV and it depends on if it can be seen through the window if the light emitted turns into heat in the home or goes outside.

But with gas then we have to consider if producing heat from a bulb is good or bad, as gas is cheaper than electric and inferred is more direct than convection so it becomes harder. Items like the induction hob and microwave cooker have turned things upside down. We are not looking at just the heat into the food but the heat or energy which escapes without going into the food. And we have to consider moisture removal and possibly summer cooling. And that is without considering the taste of the food.

For electric we have had meters now for a long time which will measure how much we are using at any given point of time, or how much over a time period. Any inaccuracy due to power factor or voltage variations are really not worth worrying about, OK for a factory or office block with 100's of fluorescent fittings then you may want to know when capacitors in the fittings have failed, but all that needs is some record keeping and a clamp-on ammeter it does not really help to measure the whole factory unless fitting a power factor correction unit.

Where this changes is with gas appliances, now with an electric oven the element goes on until up to temperature then it cycles, so cooking the Christmas turkey although on for many hours, once hot the electric only replaces what escapes, however the gas flame is direct and in many ovens it burns for the whole time the oven is in use, it would be interesting to know how much gas is used to cook the Christmas turkey. However it really does not need 1000's of people measuring the gas used, it only needs one person to measure it and they can tell everyone else.

And to my mind knowing what the house uses is no real help, if I know lap top uses 30W and desktop uses 40W then easy I use lap top not desk top, but the meter measuring whole house is not going to show me that. Now a meter which can measure what the lights use, and alert one when there are lights on and it's bright outside that will help. If I know that it costs me £1 to use the gas powered shower and £0.50 to use the electric then I can decide if I want to pay extra and have a good shower or save 50p and have a trickle shower under the electric. However it is rare for either gas or electric shower to be used without any other item running, electric is easy it says 8kW so simply work it out, gas however is another story, know size of boiler but don't know if boiler is running flat out, and if boiler just supplying shower, or is the central heating running as well.

So knowing how much is being used in total does not really help, and the current transformers can be used as "Smart" devices and switch items on and off, but I have only used one to do that once, it was connected to an extractor fan so if the fan was not running then the machine which could produce fumes could not run, I had a similar thing with gas central heating not a current transformer but simple flap, no flue motor then no central heating. I suppose one could fit one to auto do many things, but in the main you are measuring one circuit, not whole house.

I bought a plug in energy meter, and yes I have used it, it will show if insulation is failing on a freezer, it can work out size of heater required to keep my beer warm, it showed me how much power the Sky box used when switched off, but after the first few weeks it ended up in a cupboard and only used once in a blue moon. So for electric the current transformer on main input and a meter to show what you are using where you can easy read it may help reduce the power you are using, but after first month you may as well pass it on to neighbour as you have found all the bits you can alter. So in real terms smart meters may help the supply companies, but unlikely to help the consumer.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

with respect, why are you being so offensive??

I'm not, or at least I'm not in any way trying to be - if people are offended that's because they've chosen to be.

The point I'm trying to get across, both to you and to anybody else reading, is that nobody should need any of these monitors, or the monitoring features of a smart meter. They shouldn't tell them anything that they don't already know.

If they turn lights off in unoccupied rooms because, durr - oh look, the monitor shows me that they are consuming power, then they could just have applied a little thought along the lines of "lights use power - why not turn them off if there is no point having them on".

If they find that they are happy with the house a little cooler, then WT* could they not have thought to see if they were happy having thought about the fact that burning gas costs money so burning less will cost less?

 

[JohnD]

my summer nighttime usage (no heating, boiler not running, porch light on, landing lights on, alarm on, two FFs, stuff on standby, is 255W

If I were to turn on a few 12W lamps, or the bathroom extractor, the difference would be negligible.

(text error corrected)

 

[JohnD]

But as I said earlier these devices are not accurate. They measure current only and assume voltage, not measure it.

Ha ha ha

In my house the voltage hovers around 240, give or take half a volt.

The biggest range I have seen is 237 to 244

if you think that sort of range invalidates a meter which shows you that a full kettle uses more power than a half-full, or that a tumble-drier uses more than anything else in the house, or that a phone charger is insignificant, then you are living in a fantasy world.

What would you do with the extra 0.5% of accuracy, if you had it?

 

[EFLImpudence]

is 255W/hr

Do you mean that?

 

[JohnD]

no

is 255W

or 255Wh/hr

average overnight

 

[ban-all-sheds]

if you think that sort of range invalidates a meter which shows you that a full kettle uses more power than a half-full

Why would anyone who took the trouble to think need a meter to tell them that?

Why would anyone who took the trouble to think ever boil more water than they needed anyway?

The only time I boil a full kettle is when I need a full kettle's worth of hot water, and if I need it, I need it - half a kettle won't do and how much it costs is irrelevant, as I can't do anything about it.

 

[JohnD]

And if you are a person who thinks that a light bulb, or a bathroom extractor fan, or a phone charger, uses enough power to be a concern - how will you discover you are wrong?

If you want to know if it cheaper to heat a pie, or boil a mug of water, in a microwave, how will you see the evidence with your own eyes?

If your family likes to use an electric shower for long periods, how will you demonstrate the cost?

What if you turn into someone who goes down stairs in the dark because she is worried about the cost of a lightbulb?

If you see, rather than have an uninformed opinion, what it costs to use a fan heater, it may help you change your habits.

Any numbskull can say "turn it off" and many of them believe the inaccurate nonsense circulating in the media.

Edit
If you are the sort of person who doesn't feel the need for looking at a meter, the solution is obvious. Don't buy one, and don't look at one.

 

[stillp]

a full kettle uses more power than a half-full

Nice post, apart from the bit quoted! It uses exactly the same power but for half the time.

 

[matz]

I would suggest the average person doesnt have a clue as to what appliance costs what to run precisely, all they have is the STO going out each month for gas and electric. Yes most people know electric heaters eat electric but if you stop 10 people in the street and ask them how much their boiler costs to run I bet most wont have a clue. We have this smart meter thing sat at the top of the stairs so you can see at any point in time during a 24hr period how much gas or electric you have used so far and I have found the results an eyeopener hence my comments. Of course I could have done it another way and thats work out how much each appliance costs to run then time how long each appliance is on for - perhaps use a stop clock or something!!! how else would you work out how much its cost to run something that works off a stat??? Seems far easier to have a real time read out of energy consumption under my nose.....