December 26, 20187 yr Happy Christmas everyone, Yesterday we pulled 47kWh from the mains, a normal day would be between 20 and 25. We peaked at 11000W being drawn, I don’t think I ever saw us at even half that, and that only quick bursts normally! Geyser, aircon, Oven, microwave/convection oven, pool pump, dishwasher... I think every high load item we have was running. 11kW is 50A, so not too much more and we would have tripped the main 60A breaker...
December 29, 20187 yr On 2018/12/28 at 6:22 AM, Chris Hobson said: Sjoe - I suppose the only consolation is it would be worse without solar. On 2018/12/26 at 5:40 AM, Elbow said: Happy Christmas everyone, Yesterday we pulled 47kWh from the mains, a normal day would be between 20 and 25. We peaked at 11000W being drawn, I don’t think I ever saw us at even half that, and that only quick bursts normally! Geyser, aircon, Oven, microwave/convection oven, pool pump, dishwasher... I think every high load item we have was running. 11kW is 50A, so not too much more and we would have tripped the main 60A breaker... I Hope you had a good result coming from the oven...
January 1, 20197 yr LOL, ill educated family members! We had the same e.g: Plastic in the compost bin. Meat in the normal trash (big no no, in the heat it gets flies very quickly. Normally it is immediately recycled through the digestive system of a dog.) Put on gas kettle for coffee, forget that it doesn't switch itself off. After cooking the food (turkey and gammon n a wood oven, yum), then it is allowed to get cold and the microwave works overtime to heat it all up again. All lights on all the time Hairdryers after swimming (?) etc All while I am running on half a battery bank.
January 1, 20197 yr On 2018/12/26 at 3:40 PM, Elbow said: Happy Christmas everyone, Yesterday we pulled 47kWh from the mains, a normal day would be between 20 and 25. Hi "Elbow"....are you saying you used 47kWh in one day? If so, it is little wonder the SA power suppliers and infrastructure are battling!!!! That I think would be 3 times the average! On average I only use around 8kWh (off grid) but even when I had a pool and grid connect system I only used 12kWh. This poor old Earth....how does it cope? Maybe it doesn't!
January 2, 20197 yr Author 10 hours ago, gpigeon said: Hi "Elbow"....are you saying you used 47kWh in one day? Hi @gpigeon, I don't have any PV at the moment. And yes - Christmas day we used 47kWh. Normally we are between 20 and 30, so it was extraordinarily high. A typical day we'd use: 4.5KWH on the geyser 4.5kWh on the pool filter motor 2.5kWh on the stove 2.5kWh running my NAS, routers etc (my "dedicated" circuit) and lights 13kW on other plugged in stuff (my son's computer, tv, wall warts, convection microwave, kettle, etc) Of course off-grid means "needs must". How do others do? We do have mostly led lighting - some rooms have older 12v halogens and I find that the 12v leds don't work properly in those fittings. I have a low-energy NAS / mini-server. Obviously the geyser should go solar.
January 2, 20197 yr 12v led lamps. Couple of possibilities. The electronic transformers, as they are called, often has a minimal load. Putting 3 led lamps on each transformer sometimes does the trick. Alternatively, using older iron transformers also works well, but also has a poor power factor unless you bunch up a few in parallel to get the load on the transformer up. I personally don't mind the poor power factor as the lights are a small load now. Finally, you could go to GU10 lamps instead. Re power factor, if you load a 5A transformer with only 0.5A, the magnetic flux generated in the transformer core is not properly released through the secondary side. So on each half cycle it has to first negate the residual magnetism of the previous cycle, causing current to lead the voltage and therfore a bad power factor. To fix it you either put lamps in parallel on each transformer or use smaller transformers.
January 3, 20197 yr Author On 2019/01/02 at 10:17 AM, plonkster said: 12v led lamps. Couple of possibilities. Thanks for the great advice. The easiest probably is to remove the transformers and just use GU10 downlighters. But who wants to sweat in the roof space at this time of the year. (You can sometimes pull the transformers through from below, didn't give that a try).
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