House Power Consumption Anomalies. Power Company Blames Me. I Need Proof/Help

pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 19:41

I’ll try and make this as painless to read as possible…

I called power company to sort out my recent solar install and got told I can sign up for live (1hr interval) power usage via their website. My bills have been astronomical for a while now, hence solar, so I decided to check my daily usage data for the last billing period.

Compared to this time last year, the bills were on average 2 to 3 times the usage this time around. When I looked at the usage, every day during the billing period has been almost no usage during the day and maxed out at night. From about 8pm till 7am, the usage is just wild, from 1.5kWh up to 3kWh. The next morning, the power usage flat lines all day till 8pm and goes into overdrive till 7am where it drops back to about 0.5kWh usage.

My set up is: 3 phase (for aircon only) Gas hot water, what is on during the day while I am at work is the same as what would be going at 11pm till 7am. Weather has been fine. Aircon is ducted but had been turned off due to failure, awaiting repair. Solar system was not active/installed during this period. Dish washer and clothes washer get used at any times. Clothes dryer is banned and off limits unless it’s an emergency. Electric stove and oven.

First off, any ideas on what is hogging power all night but calms down all day? Could that even be an issue? Could be t be something like interference from electronic devices. (I do not have power line network adapters.)

Secondly, power company wants a $700 fee to test the meter for faults. If it’s faulty, I get no refund for previous bills and meter will be changed. If it tests fine, it’s $700 for nothing.

Thirdly, what is a good, accurate power usage meter I can install on the whole system to see if it is the meter playing up. I want to record what the house it actually doing over night and compare that to what they say it happening. I have a “per outlet” type usage meter, but I want to see what the house as a whole is doing and then if it is doing what they say, I can then narrow down devices individually…

Will post some screen shots when I get a moment to get them…

Electrical & Electronics

Comments

  • Wiede on 22/11/2017 - 19:54
    +2

    Someone in your household is mining crypto :)

    • [Deactivated] on 22/11/2017 - 19:57
      +1

      Shhhhhh…

    • Diji1 on 22/11/2017 - 20:10
      +1

      Or growing pot :p

      • afoveht on 22/11/2017 - 20:20

        Or neighbours doing either/both on your account.

      • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 20:40

        Oh yeah! I forgot to mention the massive hydro setup in the back two rooms. But they bypass the meter… it might be the doge coin miners. Bitcoin is on a bubble, so it’s all about mining those dogecoins!

  • Toons on 22/11/2017 - 20:03
    +1

    You can buy power loggers to install in switchboard and they provide real time data just depends on how far you want to go.

    Most of the companies selling solar units are also selling these so you can pinpoint the power hungry devices, they also record your input and output to the grid if your solar is set up to sell excess power.

    • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 23:35

      Got a recommendation? Has to be less than the $700 the filthy power retailer want from me. :D

  • RobMel on 22/11/2017 - 20:29
    +2

    maybe isolate.
    turn off one fuse at a time each night?
    An electric heater in a room accidently left on?
    neighbour leaching from outdoor outlet?
    anything in shed?
    …

    • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 23:38

      Electric heaters are banned in this house. So it wasn’t that. Garage is isolated and not much out there but a radio. If it was leaching down 2kWh worth each hour, it would be warm…

      No external power points and fuse box is locked. That would be the only power point outside.

      But thanks for the idea, I’ll give the fuse thing a try… isolate the house a section at a time…

  • kipps on 22/11/2017 - 20:30

    Have you checked your inverter’s stats each day against your meter?

    Does your inverter know consumption?

    Any chance you can get your inverter’s stats uploaded to pvoutput.org every 5 mins to help you understand usage?

    How old are your appliances? Any chance it’s your fridge/freezer coming on when you’re home and opening doors & is not effectively cooling?

    • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 23:45

      This is the bills previous to solar. Solar was only installed a month ago. This is the quarter up till Sept. 19.

      Inverter is a ABB 3 phase 8kW inverter. I think it does input to grid stats, but not consumption. I don’t have the wifi card for it yet, so I cant get access to a lot of that sort of into from the units screen.

      Everything in the house is less than 5 years old. When I moved in here I got all new appliances. I currently (excuse the pun) have an outlet meter on the fridge. It may be its defrost cycle over night is playing up? Test will soon confirm

      And I’m an aircon dictator. If anyone leaves a door open and aircon is on, they go outside, since they like it so much. Aircon was replaced at the same time as solar was due to it failing and was isolated during much of the quarter leading up to this bill.

  • poboy on 22/11/2017 - 21:11
    +2

    The largest energy loads are air conditioning, pool pumps and hot water systems. So, assuming your neighbour isn't stealing your power, your usage is from one of these areas.

    As recommended, turn off one fuse from your fusebox each night to isolate the problem.

    • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 23:47

      Aircon was dead and isolated. No pool either. Hot water is gas. No outside outlet and security cameras around the house cover areas where power could be stolen from…

      And yep. I’ll be doing the whole fuse thing when I can get something to measure the difference in usage.

  • mskeggs on 22/11/2017 - 21:23
    +2

    The average house in oz uses 20kWh per day, so using 1.5-3 per hour in the evening peak isn't even notable, my oven uses 2.5kW, and my kettle, microwave, heater, bathroom heat lamps, clothes dryer, dishwasher and kids gaming pc all use over 1kW. On a busy evening, my real time meter often shows loads over 4.5kw, and we have pretty power efficient stuff, just a bunch of people all hitting it at once.

    It is weird if you are using power after you go to bed, though. Go out at midnight when almost everything is off and see what the meter in the meter box is registering directly. One thing that sucks power that is sometimes on overnight is a pool pump maybe?

    If you noticed increased usage in the last year it is likely all the aircon. And if you are seeing no usage during the day it is likely the solar net metering off setting 100% of your daytime usage.

    • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 23:55

      It’s using up to 3kWh at 3 and 4am. The only thing I can put it down too that would be big enough to draw down a load that massive is aircon, but it was isolated for weeks during this last billing cycle. I would have to be running the dryer, the washing machine and dish washer for 8+ hours every night to get these readings, and they aren’t run like that.

      No PC, only NUCs. And all that gets turned off at bed time. Load on the system increases after 8 and maxes about 11pm and stays high load till 7am… it’s like I wake up and the house goes back to sleep.

      And no pool. And solar install was after this most recent bill, so the net off isn’t applicable to this last billed quarter.

  • colinjames on 22/11/2017 - 22:39
    +3

    Why can't you turn on each appliance one at a time and read the change in the meter.
    Maybe compare the physical reading to the online live readings each hour at a quiet usage time like midnight.

    • pegaxs on 22/11/2017 - 23:58

      Gonna try the fuse trick a few people have mentioned above and isolate a section of house at a time.

      Af for reading the meter, it’s a smart meter. It’s just a wall of numbers that means nothing to me. It may as well be output in Chinese. It scrolls through about 4 different pages of information and a test screen…

  • garetz on 22/11/2017 - 23:00

    It's probably your hot water system if you use electrical and not gas, its usually designed to heat at off peak hours.

    • pegaxs on 23/11/2017 - 00:00

      Hot water is gas. Not boosted in anyway, just straight gas. And even that thing eats gas bottles, yep, you read right, gas bottles. No piped gas here.

  • RobMel on 23/11/2017 - 08:10

    A long shot. Isolate inverter using circuit breakers. A faulty or incorrectly wired inverter could cause grief.

    • pegaxs on 23/11/2017 - 08:15

      Very long shot, because the power consumption issues was prior to the solar system being installed. Doesn’t get more isolated than not being there. I won’t know about the inverter until the next meter read on 22/12/17 or if the night time feeding frenzy has stopped or eased.

      But thanks for the warning. I will keep an eye on that in case that becomes a problem as well.

      • RobMel on 25/11/2017 - 14:13

        Solar inverter with time travel feature, cool :)

  • DarwinBoy on 03/04/2018 - 08:20

    So i come across this thread searching for something else.
    What is the mysterious energy eater????

    • pegaxs on 03/04/2018 - 08:37

      Wow. Forgot about this thread I posted…

      Anyway, long story short, I got solar installed and a brand new air condition system installed since then. As part of the install, the meter had to changed to a net off meter for the solar system. Within a week of the new meter going in, the mystery power usage was gone. The overnight ramping up to 100% load and coming down again the next morning was due to the faulty meter. When it went to off peak mode, it was reading full load all night. As soon as peak period started, it would revert to reading normally.

      As part of the meter replacement, it had to be sent back for its final read and I threw the question out to them again, since it was going back. They came back and confirmed that it was indeed an issue with the meter and I have since received a refund (lol… no it's actually a credit, but it feels like a refund) on my last two bills because of the errors found.

      I ended up buying an Engage Efergy power monitor and have since found that they are bullshit and very inaccurate. You cant tweak them in anyway for the Australian market, but I can get a general overview of what the whole power/solar systems are doing…

      • DarwinBoy on 04/04/2018 - 08:23
        +1

        That did seem the most logical explanation in this mystery. Good it got sorted because paying for something your not getting will always leave a bitter taste.

      • noone on 26/09/2018 - 17:51

        Did you get the Efergy Engage Hub Online Energy Monitor? I'm considering to buy them but won't if they're inaccurate.

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