Lidl Energy monitor in stock next week

Cardew

Chester_Draws wrote:

Boatman,
Without meaning to go offthread, which supplier are you with for 10p/6.5p ?

Plenty of tariffs with similar prices(including some with BG) They are, of course, no longer available for new customers.

Morseman

On the point about what you pay for electricity, some suppliers charge a higher rate for the first so many kWh (or units) of electricity or gas used and then a lower rate after that has been used. However, many suppliers don't do this, they just charge a flat pence per unit (kWh) whatever you use.

Also, some electricity supplies have a meter with two readings, one for 'day' use and the other for 'night' use. The 'night' rate is often at least half the price of the 'day' rate, but the day rate may be a bit more than a single rate supply. This encourages people to shift electricity use into the 'night' rate. A night is usually counted as 12:00 (midnight) to 7am, but some suppliers/areas have different times.

Many meters are swaped over by a small clock, which is left set to UTC (or GMT if you prefer). that means, during British Summer Time, the 'night' is 01:00am to 08:00am BST. Great if you get up and have a cup of tea before going out to work. Some meters are controlled by a signal, either by radio or through the electricity supply, which switches the meter from 'High' to 'Low' rate, but they mostly keep to the old 'Economy 7' times of 12:00 midnight to 07:00. There was some 'offset' to avoid a large switch on of storage radiators, which the Economy 7 rate was designed to support, across the country causing problems and, with the older timeclocks, the switching times did get a bit out of synch, or someone set it to BST instead of GMT...

Some ways to benefit (remember, this saves money, not energy, so the CO2 emissions will be exactly the same) are to put the washing machine on set to come on during the 'night' rate, fit a timer, or set one that is possibly fitted to your electric immersion heater, to come on during the cheaper rate. However, don't make it too early, or the water will cool slightly and the heater will come back on again. Of course, these ideas are only of any use if you are on a 2 rate tariff with a suitable meter.

Whenever I think of buying something to 'save' energy, I calculate how much energy I would need to save just to cover the cost of the equipment. So, taking the £60 unit, that's 6000 pence. My day rate is just under 10p/kWh and just over 3p/kWh. So, I would need to save 600kWh at the day rate or 3000kWh at night to pay for it. Of course, the real figure would be somewhere between this, except I'm more likely to take notice of the display when I am awake. :-)

That means that I think I will probably use the good old manual system of reading the meter on at least the 1st of the month and keeping a spreadsheet of use.

I do have a Maplin bought unit, but it isn't the one you can put the electricity rate in, as that would be difficult due to the two rates, day and night, and anyone on a system of the 1st load of kWh at one price and the others at another would have a similar problem. Although, you could get an average by dividfing the total cost by the total number of kWh. The next debate is, do you include VAT, or not, and do you include standing charges, which you have to pay anyway, and what about bills that include standing charges in the rate per kWh?

I use the Maplin unit to check what various things use over time. As has been said, that's useful for anything on a thermostatic controller, or where there is a motor, or a variable use. Like TVs on standby or on-full, or off completely. I have used it for my job, to take to a factory or office, plug it into something and show the custmer roughly what something uses per hour. They are not super-accurate, but they are near enough for people to understand what leaving something just running can use up...

I also have a much bigger, and quite old now, couple of units that will measure three phase energy use. Or, alternatively, up to three single phase supplies. This downloads to a computer and gives a graph of use by time. Useful to see what is being used at night, or over a longer period of time, when I cannot hang round reading a meter every half an hour. :-)

For larger customers, I can, with their permission, get the amount of electricity that is used half-hour by half-hour, as their main/supply meters store this and it is downloaded every night and used for industrial/comercial customers bills.

espresso

Morseman wrote:

I do have a Maplin bought unit, but it isn't the one you can put the electricity rate in, as that would be difficult due to the two rates, day and night, and anyone on a system of the 1st load of kWh at one price and the others at another would have a similar problem. Although, you could get an average by dividfing the total cost by the total number of kWh. The next debate is, do you include VAT, or not, and do you include standing charges, which you have to pay anyway, and what about bills that include standing charges in the rate per kWh?

Shows just what a good piece of kit the Lidl energy monitor is then, especially at the price!

TimBuckTeeth

Morseman wrote:

Whenever I think of buying something to 'save' energy, I calculate how much energy I would need to save just to cover the cost of the equipment. So, taking the £60 unit, that's 6000 pence. My day rate is just under 10p/kWh and just over 3p/kWh. So, I would need to save 600kWh at the day rate or 3000kWh at night to pay for it. Of course, the real figure would be somewhere between this, except I'm more likely to take notice of the display when I am awake. :-)

That means that I think I will probably use the good old manual system of reading the meter on at least the 1st of the month and keeping a spreadsheet of use.

I would not pay £60 for one, it would take a long time to cover the cost. It is more of a gadget for the curious rather than a money saving item.
The plug in meters, especially the Lidl one, are affordable and could pay for themselves within a year, and they can be swapped between appliances.

Morseman wrote:

I do have a Maplin bought unit, but it isn't the one you can put the electricity rate in, as that would be difficult due to the two rates, day and night, and anyone on a system of the 1st load of kWh at one price and the others at another would have a similar problem. Although, you could get an average by dividfing the total cost by the total number of kWh. The next debate is, do you include VAT, or not, and do you include standing charges, which you have to pay anyway, and what about bills that include standing charges in the rate per kWh?

On the lidl ones you can program in a cheaper night rate and the switch over time. Taking an average would not work too well, as some items are only used during the day, whilst others are used to take advantage of the cheaper night rate.

I include VAT as I have to pay that.
I don't include the standing charge, as I would have to pay that anyway, even if the appliance (or entire house) used no electricity.

With the two rate tariffs - the higher rate can either be viewed as being equivalent to the standing charge or you could take the view that the higher rate units are used by other appliances. Most households with average use always use more than the threshold level, so the lower second rate should be programmed into a meter.

Comparing no standing charge with standing charge tariffs

katscratchmeow

Hi I have just bought one of the maplin energy monitors and not wanting to sound stupid, but what do you all mean about entering the price and time. I have read the:confused instructions, and it seems so complicated how can one little peace of equipment seem so complicated. do you have to enter a price or can you just plug and go.

Kat

Cardew

katscratchmeow wrote:

Hi I have just bought one of the maplin energy monitors and not wanting to sound stupid, but what do you all mean about entering the price and time. I have read the:confused instructions, and it seems so complicated how can one little peace of equipment seem so complicated. do you have to enter a price or can you just plug and go.

Kat

The main purpose is to measure the kWh your appliance uses.

So if you plug in your fridge for 24 hours and it uses, say, 2kWh you can look at the price you pay for electricity(including VAT) and work out what it costs to run - its just simple arithmetic. Electricity costs you 9 pence/kWh then your fridge costs 18p to run for that 24 hour period.

It gets more complicated if you have an Economy 7 tariff as you have to work out what it uses during the 7 hours of cheap electricity.

With appliances like fridges and freezers you must take a reading over a long period as it will use a high amount of electricity for a period and then for a long while.

Similarly for Washing Macine, dryer and dishwasher you must take a reading over a full cycle to calculate the cost.