timer plug on freezers?

Cardew

Ken68 wrote: »

A government spokeman talked about this the other night on TV , echoing Post 4 here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ipm/2008/11/dynamic_demand_best_kept_energ.shtml

Ken,
Your link is nothing to do with a savaplug in post 4.

A scheme similar to this NPower trial is already in full use in the USA. Customers are paid $xxx to allow certain appliances(particularly Aircon/heating which draw large amounts of current) to be switched off remotely for short periods.

This enable the Engineers running the electricity grid to balance the electrical load and reduce the generating capacity. For instance at half time in an important football match, thousands of kettles are switched on at the same time causing a huge surge in demand; they can offset that by, say, turning off remotely electrical heating in a lot of homes for a few minutes.

Ken68

Sorry Cardew, I meant Post 4 in the link.
The television interview, one of those weird channels, Sky News I think, mentioned switching off freezers from the grid, similar to your USA remark.
If the energy people can do it, why not do it yourself, as Beautiful Ravens suggests. Needs careful monitoring though.
Possible £20 to £30 a year savings.

Fire_Fox

Ken68 wrote: »

Sorry Cardew, I meant Post 4 in the link.
The television interview, one of those weird channels, Sky News I think, mentioned switching off freezers from the grid, similar to your USA remark.
If the energy people can do it, why not do it yourself, as Beautiful Ravens suggests. Needs careful monitoring though.
Possible £20 to £30 a year savings.

As I read it, the energy companies are aiming to even out demand for electricity, instead of peaks and troughs: they aren't trying to save energy or save money.

Rightly or wrongly I have now ordered a Savaplug. I have a ten year old Tricity Bendix basic freezer (??TT120F) with no digital display or frost-free facility. Would be interesting to use an Owl monitor before and after.

espresso

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Rightly or wrongly I have now ordered a Savaplug. I have a ten year old Tricity Bendix basic freezer (??TT120F) with no digital display or frost-free facility. Would be interesting to use an Owl monitor before and after.

An OWL monitor would be useless for this before/after test. You really need a plug-in monitor e.g. here.

A much better purchase than a Savaplug!

Magentasue

espresso wrote: »

An OWL monitor would be useless for this before/after test. You really need a plug-in monitor e.g. here.

A much better purchase than a Savaplug!

Agreed. I left my fridge and freezer plugged into one of those for a week and worked out a daily kwh use. There's no way you'd be able to calculate it from an Owl or similar.

Ken68

An Owl monitor would be good for monitoring present usage( for the on/off periods) to guage how to set a conventional segment timer, 3 for £10. Then an ice cube test to check the thawing.
Certainly money can be saved overnight.

beautiful_ravens

Thanks for the info - and I think the power saving plug I saw was possibly JUST for computers, however, it was on amazon if youre still looking.

Ken68

Hi Bootiful, early readings show this Fridge/Freezer of mine. 292kwh p.a. 1hour and 6minutes off and 18minutes on.Doesn't vary.
To make savings of £20 a year would need to bring that down to say 9minutes to recover to frost zone.