General > General Technical Chat

Watt the fμck?

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Red Squirrel:
I don't fuss too much about the standby loads, because they're a drop in the bucket compared to my server rack.   :o

I am looking into tying solar power into the servers as well as other loads though.  I have to tidy up my home automation stuff and redesign it so it's more plug and play, but end goal is to have transfer switches that will transfer loads between hydro and solar based on solar power input.  Probably going to just go by the battery voltage as it's easier to measure than current, so if it's at 27v it will transfer loads over.  If voltage goes below say, 24.5 it will then transfer them back to hydro. May want to use time of day as an indicator too, so that in the final hours of daylight I ensure to let the battery charge back up.   In the summer months I could probably run stuff off solar almost 24/7.

I also want to setup automation so that the inverter turns on/off based on voltage.  That will allow me to plug in space heaters in the solar system without worrying too much about if I'm killing my battery.  Price of natural gas basically doubled so going to try to get more out of my solar system.  Looking into adding more panels too.

coppice:

--- Quote from: nali on October 01, 2022, 09:33:29 am ---
--- Quote from: coppice on October 01, 2022, 01:54:09 am ---
--- Quote from: mikerj on September 30, 2022, 09:15:02 pm ---I presume the power that the smart meter requires is drawn from the unmetered side?  Anyone know typical power draw?  Guessing not huge but when there is millions of the bloody things...

--- End quote ---
It is a requirement that an electricity meter is powered from the unmetered side. If you think about it, it really has to be. Otherwise the meter would creep when the entire property is turned off, and they would have a customer service nightmare. Meters also don't read the first few milliamps, so they don't creep on noise. The exact number of milliamps varies with the location. Germany estimated that it took a 600MW generating set to power all its Ferraris wheel meters. Electronic meters initially had the selling point of cutting this considerably. Early smart meters took a modest fraction of a watt, However, they have grown in complexity, and I'm not sure how much most of them currently take.

--- End quote ---

The metered side is also internally switched by a bistable relay. Shame the question didn't come up a few days ago as I've just finished a contract at a meter manufacturer otherwise I could've looked up the spec or just hooked up and measured a device.

--- End quote ---
Some meters have switching and some don't. It depends on the utility. That don't impact anything else in the design. Its just an output switch. You could still power the meter after the current sensor, if regulations allowed it. They don't. The spec you had is probably irrelevant to most people. Basic metrology is governed my ISO standards in most countries, and ANSI standards in the US. Organisations like WELMEC and OIML cover a lot of specs for global metrology, including electricity meters. Still a lot of requirements are very local, like anti-tamper features, and including the power envelope. It has to be. The comms used in various places is so different that the power requirements are all over the place.

SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: paulca on September 30, 2022, 08:54:02 am ---
--- Quote from: SiliconWizard on September 29, 2022, 07:18:07 pm ---On a more serious tone though, one thing that defies logic is that from what I know, the UK is almost self-sufficient energy-wise - at least for electricity and gas. They do not get any gas from Russia AFAIK, whatsoever. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.
So how come prices are skyrocketing there? The UK is not even part of the EU anymore, so it's not a matter of decisions from the EC either. What is it? I'm curious and not the only one wondering, so if some enlightened people can explain this to us.
The OP's title looks quite right.

--- End quote ---

I have come across a different view of why the gas price is so high.  It's an international market with international prices.  The reason it's gone nuts partly the Ukraine war.  But not entirely.  The war caused a shock to the price, which started the price bouncing under volatility.  The number of companies trading in the international natural gas market went from 9 when the market was stable to over 200 when it destabilised.  These are option traders and speculators, buying low and selling high.  Their entire goal is to keep that price volatile so they can scrape the profits off of it.

Worst though, the energy companies are whining about the RISK cause by the price bouncing, so they lift their consumer price to protect themselves.  However they also purchase energy futures to offset their risk.  The net is, when the price is down your utility company are making record, bumper profits.  The price is bouncing massively.

It's correct the UK don't import gas, oddly, Ireland is a net exporter of natural gas.

So it does bear a question....  why can't the UK and Ireland take it's gas off the international market and sell it to us for sensible "localised" prices.

--- End quote ---

So it basically looks like a great scam. Doesn't it?

Infraviolet:
All these measurements sound like they were on things which go in to plug sockets, which means you didn't account for consumption by ceiling lights and such. Wonder how the consumption compares for the most efficient LED lights which can screw in to bulb mountings vs LED lighting running from low voltages produced by wall wart adapters in plug sockets.

In the end the real way to save energy though is to do without heating where you can, and ensure any water heating by gas/electric/heatpump boilers is done on-demand only and not for a fixed daily period.

The real solution, ofcourse, is nuclear energy, with a slice of renewables for out-of-the-way areas and whatever fracking is regrettably inevitably needed until the nuclear capacity can be brought online. But too many virtue signallers have been simultaneously trying to say that the planet is doomed and yet also demonise the best solution. What it all comes down to, in the end, is that anything to do with lifestyle changes to manage consumption is a waste of time, diminishing returns, what the planet, and the economy, needs is more and cleaner production, and governments/businesses to invest in new energy production rather than burning tonnes of money on (delete as appropriate) obscene levels of bureaucracy/obscene levels of profit.

james_s:
Lighting loads are nearly irrelevant these days, assuming modern LED lighting. It is absolutely dwarfed by heating and hot water. I think on average even just my refrigerator consumes more power than all the lighting I use.

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