Watt the fμck?

[Monkeh]

Looking at the datasheet for the product you linked, they have done exactly what I said; used a lower discharge current to exaggerate the capacity.

No they haven't. Read it again and note that both are using standard discharge time curves - 20hr. 350mA for the 7Ah, 450mA for the 9Ah. Also note that the 9Ah weighs 25% more than the 7Ah.

[PlainName]

I like to turn nearly everything off in my office overnight, so I arranged to switched spur that provided power for the PC, monitor, Dymo, remote TV monitor, desk lights, etc. Shut down the PC then flick the switch and it's all good, except that after a lot of switching the switch would fail. Replaced, repeat.

My solution was to use an "E-ON Energy Saver Power Down Plug Surge Protect... you get the idea". This is a long time ago, and amazingly you can still buy them:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00VKU57D4

The idea is you plug the thing you will be turning off (in my case the PC, but often a TV or something) in the monitored socket, and everything else (that is, what you want to also turn off) in the other. When the power being sucked through the monitored socket drops to some low figure, the entire thing powers down. There's an IR doobrey so you can use you remote control to bring it all back up, but it has a button built in, which is what I use. Says it uses 0.5W in standby but I haven't measured it - my sole purpose was to save me switching loads of stuff individually.

[AVGresponding]

I am familiar with the Power Sonic brand, and consider them to be one of the budget brands, they are in no way a premium brand.

What about Yuasa? Panasonic don't seem to make lead gel batteries anymore. Any other brand you'd be able to recommend?

Are you sure? They seem current to me (ooops, sorry, unintentional pun).  https://industry.panasonic.eu/products/energy-building/batteries/battery-cells/secondary-batteries-rechargeable-batteries/valve-regulated-lead-acid-batteries#please-find-more-valve-regulated-lead-acid-batteries-here-paragraph-1322

I'm not saying Power Sonic are bad, just that they aren't premium (actually they seem to have improved a lot). Any brand that the likes of RS, Digikey etc sell that are in the same-ish price bracket will be perfectly adequate, just that if you use them in a high demand situation like a UPS you aren't going to get the sticker capacity.

Yuasa are good, CSB, Haze, Fiamm. Premium for me is the likes of Hawker/EnerSys. For a home UPS there's no reason to spend that much though. Better to just make sure the float voltage the UPS is charging at is not excessive, and the case temperature is reasonable.

[AVGresponding]

Looking at the datasheet for the product you linked, they have done exactly what I said; used a lower discharge current to exaggerate the capacity.

No they haven't. Read it again and note that both are using standard discharge time curves - 20hr. 350mA for the 7Ah, 450mA for the 9Ah. Also note that the 9Ah weighs 25% more than the 7Ah.

That implies they've filled the "free-space" with plate and electrolyte. That would have a knock-on implication for the lifespan, as that would mean there's less space for the H₂ to expand into during charge, so it would vent and be lost more easily.

[Monkeh]

Looking at the datasheet for the product you linked, they have done exactly what I said; used a lower discharge current to exaggerate the capacity.

No they haven't. Read it again and note that both are using standard discharge time curves - 20hr. 350mA for the 7Ah, 450mA for the 9Ah. Also note that the 9Ah weighs 25% more than the 7Ah.

That implies they've filled the "free-space" with plate and electrolyte. That would have a knock-on implication for the lifespan, as that would mean there's less space for the H₂ to expand into during charge, so it would vent and be lost more easily.

Perhaps so. In many applications these are one-shot packs anyway, one real discharge and they've had it, so it may as well be a nice deep one.

[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.   

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]

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...

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.

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

[cortex_m0]

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.

According to a 2016 report from the UK government, almost 40% of UK energy (a category including crude oil, coal, gas, and electricity) is imported.
29% of energy imports are of natural gas, primarily from Norway and Netherlands.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/environmentalaccounts/articles/ukenergyhowmuchwhattypeandwherefrom/2016-08-15

France is a notable source of electricity in the UK. There are multiple grid connections between the UK and the continent, at least one of which runs alongside the Channel Tunnel:
https://www.nationalgrid.com/uks-second-electricity-link-france-starts-flowing-full-capacity

[mikerj]

AGM and Gel are two names for the same thing. They use a gel electrolyte absorbed into a glass-fibre mat to keep it in contact with the lead electrodes. This means you can use them in any orientation, unlike a traditional lead-acid wet cell.

This isn't true, they both sealed and valve regulated designs but they are constructed differently.  The electrolyte in an AGM battery remains liquid, but is suspended in the glass mat.  A gel battery uses silica to form a fairly thick colloidal gel.  Gel batteries are the ones very often used in UPS and security alarms, they cope with deeper discharge better than other lead-acid designs but are more sensitive to being overcharged (the gel dries up and battery impedance rises dramatically, the usual cause of death).  Gel batteries tend not to be use for high current applications like starter batteries, AGM is superior for this.

[rstofer]

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.

A couple of reasons:  Who owns the gas?  Is it private enterprise or is it some subsidiary of the government?  If it is owned by private enterprise (likely), then world market rules apply.  He who pays the most, gets the most.  Worldwide market!

Nationalizing energy for reduced costs isn't going to work either.  There is nothing a government agency can do that can't be done faster, better and cheaper when 'profit' is involved.  Employees of government agencies aren't interested in 'profit', they are interested in pension benefits upon retirement.  Customer service is right out the window.

Then there are the 'take or pay' contracts that are intended to smooth prices.  A utility signs up to take so much raw resources over some period of time for a certain price.  If they exceed the amount, they pay going rate for the extra.  If they underuse the amount, they pay anyway.  Those sound like workable strategies as long as supply is relatively stable and consumers don't do something irrational like conserve.  It can be counterproductive to conserve if it leaves the utility buying resources it can't sell and losing money on a daily basis.  Of course they are going to raise prices.  They can do this because consumer agreements are not 'take or pay'.  They're more like 'pay what we bill'.

Want to regulate the price?  Good luck!  Maintenance will go down, continuity of service will go down but profits will stay the same or climb.  Just get the .gov involved if you want to see how a market actually works.  There is no sense of nationalism when profits are involved.

[tom66]

Removing ~35% of all gas from the European market (Russia is now supplying <20% of what it was pre-war) will of course have an effect on the gas price.  I don't see any conspiracy here.

[paulca]

I have been on this campaign for nearly a month now.

So by setting my mains power graph to 1 week and moving it week by week from the start of Sept, taking the average power (in W) over that week.

It's gone from 496W average to 346W average.  About £40 a month.

The fish tank is going to a good home tonight.  I'm done with it.  It turns out it IS a 150W heater, it's not broken, but the tank is using that heater for 20 minutes every hour and it's not even cold indoors yet!  I'm bored of it long ago anyway.

On "educating others".  When you start talking Watt hours and Kilowatt hours, people lose interest and stop listening.

So, without making the conversion between power and energy units a thing, just bypass it entirely and don't mention the units.  Stick with Watts.  Just multiple it by roughly how many hours a day the thing gets used to get a "Cost factor" - call it a unitless value (even though it's watt hours / day).

Examples:
Oven - 3kW - 15 minutes per day (30 minute bake) = 750
Electric shower - 11kW - 10 minutes per day = ~1900
Gaming PC 100W - 16 hours a day = 1600

Smart hub - 1W - 24hours = 24
Smart temp sensor - 0.1W 24 hours = 2.4
Idle Hue RGB Bulb - 2W 24 hours = 48

It should be fairly easy for most people to go through most items in their house, put an estimated power value on it, estimate how many hours a day, "Score" the items, sort them and do something small and simple to reduce each of the big ones.  Maximum impact, minimum effort. and NO TEMPORAL UNIT CONVERSIONS.  (You and I know we can extract watt hours, divide and multiple to get kWh and £ / $.  They don't need to know.

That and on everybody this winter needs at least a house wide power meter!

[paulca]

Thanks Dave for the latest video!

[paulca]

These are my attempts of data logging.  At least it's data.







The fish tank square wave is still f[c-u]{2}king with me.  New owner, no show.  It might come down to clove oil.

** Mains power values, there are 3.  They are the min/max/last? of the down-sampling on the series from t=whatever (pm)  to t=1min (1 data per minute).  (I preserves the high, low, average and last for each 1 minute sample set for 1 month.) Then down sample that to 5mins for... ever currently.
* ess and nes are "essential = 24/7" and "non essential" switched at the door on the way out.  Only 2 power rails, 2 sockets, 2 smart plugs.