How much electricity do you use?? (Am I mad)

Soldato
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Actually they are pretty thirsty.

I can see last month our fridge/freezer used 26.5kWh which works out to be around £8 a month / £96 a year. If the OP has 2 fridges and 4 freezers, then that could easily be running up £500-600 a year.

Which is fine for a main unit in the kitchen but most of the energy consumption from fridges and freezers comes from opening the door. When you have 2/3/4, you’ll not be typically accessing those regularly like you could your main fridge. That said I think keeping fridges and freezers in un-heated outbuildings increases energy consumption.


Whut, that would work out at about 2.8mpkWh, I mean I suppose they could be driving a fat eTron.

Charging losses and pre heating need to be factored in.
 
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Hi all,

I spend about £3100 a year on electricity / £233 p/m and so with the rising prices I'm keen to look at options for saving money here. I'm conscious prices are all over the place at the moment, so kWh are probably more meaningful to compare - I use 15100kwh per year.

When I look at sites that state the 'average' kWh per household, they always seem to be much, much lower. It's a five bedroom house with two kids.

So question is how many kWh per year do you guys use and is there any smart sites to help me estimate how much appliances use. I do have a fair few PCs, but that's Overclockers fault and indeed you guys...... ;)

Do you get a good crop?
 

Jez

Jez

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Whut, that would work out at about 2.8mpkWh, I mean I suppose they could be driving a fat eTron.
Only a rough approximate guess as to explain a lot of the usage, assuming some charging inefficiencies and things. And hey the etron is really nice :p (Are other nice EVs like the Taycan any better?)
 
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Right Gents, to preserve my dignity:

Car - it's a dinky 2020 Nissan Leaf not a 'fat etron'!

Cannabis Farm - no I am not growing cannabis!

This is where I'm wanting to get to - ie I do think my meter readings might be a bit off.

Undoubtedly I could optimise a fair bit, but I'm struggling to see how I get to 15000kwh per year....!
 
Soldato
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Right Gents, to preserve my dignity:

Car - it's a dinky 2020 Nissan Leaf not a 'fat etron'!

Cannabis Farm - no I am not growing cannabis!

This is where I'm wanting to get to - ie I do think my meter readings might be a bit off.

Undoubtedly I could optimise a fair bit, but I'm struggling to see how I get to 15000kwh per year....!

So do you have a smart meter fitted, and do you have the IHD (IN-home display)? If you do look at the live readout on that and see what it says in power usage. Usually they are updated every 5-10 seconds. SO you can see the effect things have as you turn them off and on.
 
Soldato
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No, you’ll get something that does the job and it’s the same as what everyone else gets.

The leaf is probably only in the 3.5miles/kWh rage. So 10k miles is around the 2800-3000kwh range.

Do you have a smart car charger? Some report how much electric they are delivering to the car so that will give you can accurate reading for that.

Have you checked if you have an immersion heater on your hot water as others suggested?
 
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Hi B0rn2sk8 - thanks for all your help, really helpful!

Smart car charger - yes, have this integrated and feeding into Home Assistant. It's about 180kWh per month on average (so around £25-30 max a month)

Immersion heater - yes I suspected this originally, but have actually replaced boiler etc since then - so don't think that's constantly on.
 
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Hmm - ok, so woken up today on a mission.

Have an smart plug with energy tracking attached to my main PC - typical gaming PC, three big monitors, speakers and usual gubbins attached.

This is reading around 380W at idle - which I do tend to leave on 24/7. Quick calc suggests this is around £492 a year? My maths right/this seem right ballpark?

If so it could be a case of turning off two main PCs each day would save at least £500......
 
Soldato
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How is that 380w at idle? You surely can’t be leaving monitors on 24/7 too (E.g. not in standby when not in use).

Likewise, just set the PC to put itself to sleep if not used for 10/15 mins. If you did that, it’s true idle power consumption is probably under 20w.

Nether the less a 380w draw 24/7 365 is 3,300kwh.
 
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Yes, that's the bit I'm checking - basically plug with all devices then coming from that - PC is sitting at windows desktop and reading 350-380W idle.

- Decent enough PC - eg Ryzen 300 series, 32 GB ram, three disks, 2070TI etc, 750W PSU
- 3 x 28" 4K monitors
- Other than that usual gubbins - ie speakers, mice, keyboard, usb ports, earphones etc
 
Soldato
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Hi all,

I spend about £3100 a year on electricity / £233 p/m and so with the rising prices I'm keen to look at options for saving money here. I'm conscious prices are all over the place at the moment, so kWh are probably more meaningful to compare - I use 15100kwh per year.

When I look at sites that state the 'average' kWh per household, they always seem to be much, much lower. It's a five bedroom house with two kids.

So question is how many kWh per year do you guys use and is there any smart sites to help me estimate how much appliances use. I do have a fair few PCs, but that's Overclockers fault and indeed you guys...... ;)

4 bed, 3 people, 1 electric shower, external hot tub used sometimes, we're using 130-140 a month now following the price increases.
Your usage seems high.

Do you leave an immersion heater turned on constantly?
 
Soldato
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Yes, that's the bit I'm checking - basically plug with all devices then coming from that - PC is sitting at windows desktop and reading 350-380W idle.

- Decent enough PC - eg Ryzen 300 series, 32 GB ram, three disks, 2070TI etc, 750W PSU
- 3 x 28" 4K monitors
- Other than that usual gubbins - ie speakers, mice, keyboard, usb ports, earphones etc

Check the power plan in the System & Sleep settings, and make sure it isn't set to performance all the time or something silly. Also check task manager and look at the CPU/GPU activity graphs and see if it really is idle, as a system like that at idle should be sub 100w
 
Soldato
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Yes, that's the bit I'm checking - basically plug with all devices then coming from that - PC is sitting at windows desktop and reading 350-380W idle.

- Decent enough PC - eg Ryzen 300 series, 32 GB ram, three disks, 2070TI etc, 750W PSU
- 3 x 28" 4K monitors
- Other than that usual gubbins - ie speakers, mice, keyboard, usb ports, earphones etc

I’m not sure you picked up the point of what I said, if the monitors are on, it’s in use, even if it’s sat on the desktop. You are not going to reduce that.

If you walked away from it for 20 mins the monitors should go into standby and the true ‘idle’ power draw when it’s not being used will be much lower, perhaps 50-60w.

Those monitors will be drawing 100w+ each when on which is most of the power draw your are reading and not the true ‘I’ve left my PC on overnight when I’m not using it’ power draw.

But anyway, you should set it to go to sleep anyway when not in use. It will wake from sleep faster than the monitors come out of standby anyway.

Do you have a hot tub or one of those layze spa’s or anything like that?
 
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Check the power plan in the System & Sleep settings, and make sure it isn't set to performance all the time or something silly. Also check task manager and look at the CPU/GPU activity graphs and see if it really is idle, as a system like that at idle should be sub 100w

Yes, that's probably my doing at some point........... ;) What can I say, I'm a girl who likes power!
 
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