Energy saving, consumption and other stuff

[General_Misery]

Today, only 10 months after solar panel contract was signed, we started to produce electricity If calculations are correct we’ll produce ~ 12.7 thousand kWh/year i.e. ~ 73% of our consumption. If wife and daughter’s daily shower in 45 C was cut to 15 min each we would be self-sufficient re power

 

[lakaelo]

Today, only 10 months after solar panel contract was signed, we started to produce electricity If calculations are correct we’ll produce ~ 12.7 thousand kWh/year i.e. ~ 73% of our consumption. If wife and daughter’s daily shower in 45 C was cut to 15 min each we would be self-sufficient re power

View attachment 19878

Wtf are you doing?? Crypto mining?? For what do you use nearly 16 thousand kWh a year??
We producing around 10k and we have a consumption around 2 to 2.5k a year.

 

[glenwilson]

Wtf are you doing?? Crypto mining?? For what do you use nearly 16 thousand kWh a year??
We producing around 10k and we have a consumption around 2 to 2.5k a year.

Leccy powered car?

 

[blugi21]

and we have a consumption around 2 to 2.5k a year.

I have this hard to believe! I live alone in an apartment and basicly only things that consume electric are my PCs, consoles and TV and yearly consumption is around 3200kWh.

 

[lakaelo]

I have this hard to believe! I live alone in an apartment and basicly only things that consume electric are my PCs, consoles and TV and yearly consumption is around 3200kWh.

thats really high for a "1 person" household. normaly ( german stats but i guess it is equal to other countries ) you should have close under / around 2000kWh. 3200 is more for a 2 person consuption.
but we are really below average because here is everything switched to LED ( switched from halogen bulbs to LED some years back what means to take some hundred € and buy LED lights/bulbs but for example we had a 5 beam lamp in the livingroom with 5x 40watts=200watt when its on. Now we have, when i remember right, 50x LED bulds with 4-5W each in the whole house = max. 250watt, when theoretically all would be switched on. so nearly only using 10% light energy as before ). even the heater ( geothermal ) and warm water ( solar thermie ) is not needing much power. PC is not high in power consumption because its not running so often on high power and with my old gtx1060 its not really a mess when i play 2-3 hours a week and for my office work its more a "idle" lol

 

[edgarsmelderis12]

We have around 2500. But wife beats the shit out of kids if they forget to turn off the light , i changed my clothes one size smaller so it streches on me and no need to iron them and Mary installed electricity saving app on my pc ...

 

[lakaelo]

Mary installed electricity saving app on my pc ...

 

[General_Misery]

Wtf are you doing?? Crypto mining?? For what do you use nearly 16 thousand kWh a year??
We producing around 10k and we have a consumption around 2 to 2.5k a year.

Well, we should have ~ double that usage according to a conservative assessment due to house size, wind factor, conservatory (lots of glass), climate, women’s showers etc etc. We have e.g. geo-thermal energy since 2009 so that helps big time.
Did you know that Sweden has been Europe’s biggest power exporter lately and still the spot price (raw power i.e. not including tax etc) in the south were we live hovers around €0.4? In the north it’s about €0.03! We can thank EU for this as we were forced to divide Sweden in four zones vs power markets In addition we’ve closed down a number of nuclear plants based based on e.g. ”not financially viable” based on historically very low power prices.

But not to worry, now we get gas/coal/oil power from to the continent to make up for the ”shortages”

End of rant

PS The situation is of course more complex and not as polarized as described, just wanted to 🗣

 

[glenwilson]

We are about 2300kwh a year for electric. Probably main use is cooking and the shower. For cooking we try and do things like baking just before we use the oven for dinner so it doesn't cool down between and neither of us take that long in the shower. Gas is used for heating and hot water only. Obviously heating varies with the weather - it has only been on once or twice since about April. Whilst not paranoid about lights left on etc. we don't have anything on unnecessarily like the printer. For tea and coffee just have the water we need and so on.


Electric for this year (at the moment anyway) is about £1,400 and gas is about £500. This is expected to double in October and maybe double again next year.


My Mum's combined bill was about £3k so hate to think what that is now. Have tried getting her to have better heating controls installed but she won't.

 

[blugi21]

thats really high for a "1 person" household. normaly ( german stats but i guess it is equal to other countries ) you should have close under / around 2000kWh. 3200 is more for a 2 person consuption.
but we are really below average because here is everything switched to LED ( switched from halogen bulbs to LED some years back what means to take some hundred € and buy LED lights/bulbs but for example we had a 5 beam lamp in the livingroom with 5x 40watts=200watt when its on. Now we have, when i remember right, 50x LED bulds with 4-5W each in the whole house = max. 250watt, when theoretically all would be switched on. so nearly only using 10% light energy as before ). even the heater ( geothermal ) and warm water ( solar thermie ) is not needing much power. PC is not high in power consumption because its not running so often on high power and with my old gtx1060 its not really a mess when i play 2-3 hours a week and for my office work its more a "idle" lol

Hmmm i think i really need to do some investigation about my consumption and maybe do some changes if possible. To be honest i did not think much about the stuff before as electricity has been cheap but now, as it has gotten more expensive and keeps only rising, it forces to be more aware of things. Might get one of those electricity meters that you put between the machine and wall and it shows the consumption.

 

[glenwilson]

Rather than buying one for the whole house maybe just get one that can plug into a socket and see what individual devices are using? For us they are about £20. Presumably there is a meter on the mains so that could be used by just recording the reading morning and evening to get a rough idea of usage.

For some devices we use remote sockets that can have timers set. Whilst the socket will use some power it helps to ensure some devices are not on all the time.

We are at the point where other than not cooking etc it would be hard to make a significant savings though with the potential prive increases... We have a few devices that are on stand-by like the dvr but they don't use too much. Obviously stuff like the fridge and freezer are on all the time. What does annoy me is the need for a hub for the heating, smoke alarms, etc. that all have to be on rather than having just one for them all.

Finished this the other day.

 

[lakaelo]

as we can see, there is a lot of interesting convo to this "energy" theme. so i guess it should be better to put them all into a extra thread outsite from "todays views".

 

[lakaelo]

Rather than buying one for the whole house maybe just get one that can plug into a socket and see what individual devices are using? For us they are about £20. Presumably there is a meter on the mains so that could be used by just recording the reading morning and evening to get a rough idea of usage.

true. same here. you get some as a adapter so you can plugin your powerstrip in there and so you can test how your whole pc unit consumption is.

Hmmm i think i really need to do some investigation about my consumption and maybe do some changes if possible. To be honest i did not think much about the stuff before as electricity has been cheap but now, as it has gotten more expensive and keeps only rising, it forces to be more aware of things. Might get one of those electricity meters that you put between the machine and wall and it shows the consumption.

i guess your "main energy eater" will be your pc. this can be a huge point when you summ things together.

• pc 850 watt or more? so this means all what your pc can max use this amount of watt. when all your components running always on high level and than you run the whole system for hours, than it is a huge amount of energy.
• screen(s) can be around 100 watt each.
• any other things you use during gaming? musik, normal light?

all in all its easy that your pc setup can use 1000 watt per hour, maybe only 5 hours a day thats 5000watt/day. or with other words 5kWh a day. this means when you run this only 5 days a week you are at 1300kWh/year.

 

[blugi21]

Rather than buying one for the whole house maybe just get one that can plug into a socket and see what individual devices are using? For us they are about £20. Presumably there is a meter on the mains so that could be used by just recording the reading morning and evening to get a rough idea of usage.

Yes this is what i meant. Checked and cheapest ones start at 15-20€ but not sure how accurate they are (for home use should be enough though). Also they seem to be out of stock everywhere so seems like im not the only one with the idea of getting one.

true. same here. you get some as a adapter so you can plugin your powerstrip in there and so you can test how your whole pc unit consumption is.


i guess your "main energy eater" will be your pc. this can be a huge point when you summ things together.

• pc 850 watt or more? so this means all what your pc can max use this amount of watt. when all your components running always on high level and than you run the whole system for hours, than it is a huge amount of energy.
• screens(s) can be around 100 watt each.
• any other things you use during gaming? musik, normal light

all in all its easy that your pc setup can use 1000 watt per hour, maybe only 5 hours a day thats 5000watt/day. or with other words 5kWh a day. this means when you run this only 5 days a week you are at 1300kWh/year.

Yes PC is my main culprit. Before i kept it always on except nights when it was on sleepmode so about 16h a day. 2 main monitors plus occasional 3rd one when i plug it on TV. Need to start using the sleepmode more meaning when i know im not using PC for a while. Interesting to see what the total consumption is for the whole setup. 3080 is a really power hungry GPU and it shows as i dont need any other heatsource in my livingroom and its still like a damn sauna.

Other interesting device to check is my freezer which is quite old (almost 15 years i think) so could use quite a lot of power. Actually just now doing an unfreezing to it and then a proper cleaning so it would maybe run more efficiently.

 

[lakaelo]

Other interesting device to check is my freezer which is quite old (almost 15 years i think) so could use quite a lot of power. Actually just doing an unfreezing to it and then a proper cleaning so it would maybe run more efficiently.

old ones can run with up to 350kWh/year. so its a lot but "only" double what a new one is using.

Yes PC is my main culprit. Before i kept it always on except nights when it was on sleepmode so about 16h a day. 2 main monitors plus occasional 3rd one when i plug it on TV. Need to start using the sleepmode more meaning when i know im not using PC for a while. Interesting to see what the total consumption is for the whole setup. 3080 is a really power hungry GPU and it shows as i dont need any other heatsource in my livingroom and its still like a damn sauna.

why not just switching it off when you are not on it? i have a simple multiplug with switches on my pc setup. so i can switch them all off or the ones i don´t use.


have you ever tried the "energy saving mode" of your bios? or at least the "optimal" settings? formerly i also was running all on "high performance" setting but for the normal stuff or even bf4 your pc had not to run on that mode and normaly you can´t see a big difference in performance.

 

[blugi21]

why not just switching it off when you are not on it? i have a simple multiplug with switches on my pc setup. so i can switch them all off or the ones i don´t use.

Im kinda using my PC troughout the whole day so there aint really a time when it could be turned off. Only when im going out of home but that does not happen often. Im also in a believe that its better to put PC in sleepmode instead shutting it as its easier for component weardown and also turning on PC takes a big spike in power. If not using for a longer time then shutting down is better. Im no professional so i could be totally wrong.

have you ever tried the "energy saving mode" of your bios? or at least the "optimal" settings? formerly i also was running all on "high performance" setting but for the normal stuff or even bf4 your pc had not to run on that mode and normaly you can´t see a big difference in performance.

Actually not long ago i was wondering why the PC was so noicy all the time and realized it was in high performance mode and switching that to normal/optimal settings helped. I should try the energy saving one to see how it works out. Can still put it to go automaticly on power mode when a game is open so it should not affect it.

 

[lakaelo]

Im kinda using my PC troughout the whole day so there aint really a time when it could be turned off. Only when im going out of home but that does not happen often. Im also in a believe that its better to put PC in sleepmode instead shutting it as its easier for component weardown and also turning on PC takes a big spike in power. If not using for a longer time then shutting down is better. Im no professional so i could be totally wrong.

i am also not a professional but i guess you are wrong lol

however, i also handled this like you some years ago and had everything in sleepmode or standby. than i used the "powermeter" to check the power consuption of a lot of electrical stuff here at the house. just in my office with all the PC/office stuff i was suprised that, even when i not using anything there was still nearly 100watt output. so checked some things and found out that things ( printer, screens, pc, laptop, fax, tablet, router, even the phone ) still using 4 to 10watts for using sleepmode/standby and in total you have 100watts now. thats the same as you have a 100watt light bulb running 24/7 !!! since then, when i am at sleepmode lol i switched everything totally off and saving the energy/money.

but there is also a other thing what is using a lot of energy. don´t know how you make your "hot water". here in germany a lot of houses usinig a "boiler / continuous-flow water heater". no clue how it called in english. its a electrical heater under the sink with a little tank where the water will be heated. thats also a powerhungry thing when you run it on 24hour how water and ofter running on "over60°" mode to prevent legionella. but this is not really necessary because its done when you run it once a month in this high temperature mode. rest of the time its enough when you have around 40 to 45°.

 

[blugi21]

i am also not a professional but i guess you are wrong lol

however, i also handled this like you some years ago and had everything in sleepmode or standby. than i used the "powermeter" to check the power consuption of a lot of electrical stuff here at the house. just in my office with all the PC/office stuff i was suprised that, even when i not using anything there was still nearly 100watt output. so checked some things and found out that things ( printer, screens, pc, laptop, fax, tablet, router, even the phone ) still using 4 to 10watts for using sleepmode/standby and in total you have 100watts now. thats the same as you have a 100watt light bulb running 24/7 !!! since then, when i am at sleepmode lol i switched everything totally off and saving the energy/money.

but there is also a other thing what is using a lot of energy. don´t know how you make your "hot water". here in germany a lot of houses usinig a "boiler / continuous-flow water heater". no clue how it called in english. its a electrical heater under the sink with a little tank where the water will be heated. thats also a powerhungry thing when you run it on 24hour how water and ofter running on "over60°" mode to prevent legionella. but this is not really necessary because its done when you run it once a month in this high temperature mode. rest of the time its enough when you have around 40 to 45°.

Oh this is good to know. Thank you. ^^

I live in an apartment so hot water just comes from city pipes (????) and is included in rent. Same thing with heating so i dont luckily need worry about that.

Just learned that i can log in into my electric companys web page and see my electric usage by yearly, monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly basis. This is actually really interesting and now i can see if any changes i make have an actual meaning.
Here is my graph from yesterday:


Now i can, for example, next night shut down my PC instead of sleepmode (plug off monitors too) and compare how much of a difference there is.

 

[lakaelo]

Oh this is good to know. Thank you. ^^

I live in an apartment so hot water just comes from city pipes (????) and is included in rent. Same thing with heating so i dont luckily need worry about that.

Just learned that i can log in into my electric companys web page and see my electric usage by yearly, monthly, weekly, daily and even hourly basis. This is actually really interesting and now i can see if any changes i make have an actual meaning.
Here is my graph from yesterday:
View attachment 19900

Now i can, for example, next night shut down my PC instead of sleepmode (plug off monitors too) and compare how much of a difference there is.

Oh. That graph is a nice Feature

 

[glenwilson]

I think we need an old farts talking about appliances section!

I don't think any freezers are that efficient. Ours is in the garage so not as warm as the house in winter. Yes, it is one you can you use outside.