Standby power

I have a power monitor system that reports the lowest power consumption that occurred overnight, so you know it will have found a time when the fridge, etc., wasn't running. The minimum value it has recorded is 0.233 kW, which is a cost of around $500 per year, or $125 per quarterly bill.

Sounds like a heck of a lot and I don't know yet where it all comes from. Anyone else worked out the standby power in their home?

Shopping around for power, I noticed that the best offer seems to be from a Snowy Hydro subsidiary. Looking at the detail, they offer seasonal tariffs. In summer it's about 34c and in winter it's about 22c.
I know they have a portfolio of wind farms as well as their dams, which I suppose both produce more power in winter than in summer.
So do any of you network electricity specialists know about the detail of the AEM grid operation? Can generators just use it to transport their own electrons without bidding into the market? That's the explanation for why they would offer summer/winter rates that springs to mind. And it looks like a good deal for people like me who run A/C off solar, but need heat in winter.
BTW Harrow, that minimum, if run for 24 hours is 5.35kWh and almost up to my average daily draw from the grid including hot water.

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remery said..
That's interesting. I'm looking at putting in a 6.6 kW system, initially without a batter because they are so expensive. I wonder if a small, cheap battery could be used to keep things ticking over at night. It would have to be programmed otherwise it would flatten in a few minutes when the aircon is turned on in the early evening.

Hi, I have recently put a system on my roof at home, 13+ kw of panels through a 10 kw inverter and switched to the best earning power supplier that I could find, been 6 months now and I am still in front cash wise, so power has not cost me a cent since I did it.

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gs12 said..
350 - 550 W over night for us. As above it's standby power of various devices (microwave, TV, wifi modem) and fridge cycling on and off.

Our reverse cycle AC (about 20 year old Daikin) consumes around 70W constantly - I was told there is a small heater in the crank case, that's there to prevent mixing of oil and refrigerant. I'm not sure if this is still the case with newer AC units.
Manual states that it can be turned off at the breaker completely but to allow few hours after turning it back on before use so I just leave it on all the time

Yep, I knew the ducted AC would be one of the culprits for that reason. An old remoted control gas fireplace might have a lossy transformer as well. I walked around the house to see how many things were constantly plugged in and powered up all the time and stopped counting when I got to something close to 50.

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Mr Milk said..
Shopping around for power, I noticed that the best offer seems to be from a Snowy Hydro subsidiary. Looking at the detail, they offer seasonal tariffs. In summer it's about 34c and in winter it's about 22c.
I know they have a portfolio of wind farms as well as their dams, which I suppose both produce more power in winter than in summer.
So do any of you network electricity specialists know about the detail of the AEM grid operation? Can generators just use it to transport their own electrons without bidding into the market? That's the explanation for why they would offer summer/winter rates that springs to mind. And it looks like a good deal for people like me who run A/C off solar, but need heat in winter.
BTW Harrow, that minimum, if run for 24 hours is 5.35kWh and almost up to my average daily draw from the grid including hot water.

Most power doesn't go through the market. Or to be more accurate, it all goes through the market, but most generators and energy retailers have private contracts (PPAs - Power Purchase Agreements) that they settle outside the market so that they are not exposed to the spot-price market for much of their energy trading. Investors generally won't fund the development of a renewable generator until it has secured PPAs for most of it's forecast power production.

I pay 22 cents all of the time, except for 2pm to 8pm on weekdays when it's 34 cents.

^Thank you.

Does it matter too much the price of the standby power consumed? With the daily charge, I am not sure it makes that much difference.

I know with my gas connection, my water supply, and obviously the electricity supply, the daily connection charge is a significant part of the cost. It's like people want you to reduce consumption, but give you no great incentive to do it.

As for using a battery, that's better for the grid to do I think. Batteries sound great until they fail as they have been cycled too many times. If people were really worried about it all appliances would be engineered to use no to minimal power, but instead I think they assume it doesn't matter too much.

I know when Silicon Chip Magazine did a freezer to low energy fridge conversion years ago there were arguments about the minimal amount of energy it used when idle. It was minimal and really only made a difference if it was turning on an inverter which otherwise might not have been needed.

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FormulaNova said..
Does it matter too much the price of the standby power consumed? With the daily charge, I am not sure it makes that much difference. I know with my gas connection, my water supply, and obviously the electricity supply, the daily connection charge is a significant part of the cost. It's like people want you to reduce consumption, but give you no great incentive to do it.

That's an interesting thought, we have gas hot water, gas stove and gas heater. The latter we are trying to avoid using now that we a heat pump. Replacing the stove and hot water with electric would be a big expense... but I hadn't thought about the connection charge.

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remery said..

FormulaNova said..
Does it matter too much the price of the standby power consumed? With the daily charge, I am not sure it makes that much difference. I know with my gas connection, my water supply, and obviously the electricity supply, the daily connection charge is a significant part of the cost. It's like people want you to reduce consumption, but give you no great incentive to do it.

That's an interesting thought, we have gas hot water, gas stove and gas heater. The latter we are trying to avoid using now that we a heat pump. Replacing the stove and hot water with electric would be a big expense... but I hadn't thought about the connection charge.

I switched from gas instantaneous hot water to gas booster (instantaneous) solar hot water system. The gas consumption has dropped dramatically. But the bill hasn't really dropped as much as you would think if you are using almost no gas. If gas boosters were more availaible in LPG I would be tempted to switch to bottle gas for the cooktop and booster. I have a rental property and it has bottle gas for the cooktop and if that's all that is used it lasts a very long time.

I also noticed that despite being told my rental property was very 'water wise', as no one was living there, with almost no water consumption the bill has still hefty. For all that I saved I may as well have set it to run the sprinklers all the time as the cost was not really that much.

I have an induction cooktop in that house as well, and I have to say I don't mind it. I prefer gas cooktops but the induction one is almost as good. So no gas is needed and it cuts the costs a lot.