Voltis Home -voltage optimiser - Anyone actually got one?

Murchison2003

Zeupater.
The reason behind fitting this after a few years is this. Since i fitted the heat pump, i have shopped around for the cheapest energy provider. Each year as you will know prices have risen despite the world getting warmer. My standing order has risen each year and i have always had a small amount to pay at the end of the deal. I fitted the solar panels, which generate approx 3200 kwh each year. Before someone picks up on that value to offset the generation against reduction in kwh per year, i initially used half of what i generated, the remaining went back into the grid. Despite this extra generation, costs were still rising but at a slower rate.
I did some research and came up with the Voltis. Since i fitted the Voltis, i have 1 month of my contract to run, i am £400 pounds in credit and my next contract is more expensive but my standing order is £30 a month lower. That's the facts. That's why i think it has made a difference.
Am i pleased i fitted solar, yes. They are outperforming what was estimated, and as i fitted when the initial F.I.T was at it's maximum, offset with what i get back from the government, my total utility bill per month for my heating and electric is approx £58, i'm happy with that.
Hope this answers your question.

lstar337

Murchison2003 wrote: »

Since i fitted the Voltis, i have 1 month of my contract to run, i am £400 pounds in credit and my next contract is more expensive but my standing order is £30 a month lower. That's the facts.

Yep it's been much warmer since you fitted the voltis so less heating required, that's the facts.

Murchison2003 wrote: »

That's why i think it has made a difference.

You were much more confident earlier in the thread.

My bill has reduced recently too, and I didn't have to buy anything. Guess I'm a better money saver!

Murchison2003

Istar337
What can i say. Your getting desperate now picking out words like' think', meant to say know. Sorry.

You seem to have alot of time on your hands to scrutinize my posts, is Billy Smart not busy just now?

ed110220

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and you've produced no real evidence for the voltage optimiser being the cause of your electricity savings. Given the huge amount of research into energy saving, it would seem miraculous that you have discovered what has eluded whole armies of researchers!

As everyone else says, the much more likely reason for your electricity consumption being down was the unusually mild winter. The Independent reported that gas consumption was down by 25% in the first four months of the year and electricity by 10% http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/centrica-warns-on-profits-after-mild-winter-switchoff-9341732.html.

It's a basic failure of logic to attribute to an unknown mechanism (voltage optimiser) what can be explained by a known one (weather). It's a bit like leaving a saucer of milk out overnight and on finding it gone in the morning presenting it as evidence of fairies when it's already well known that cats drink milk.

Ed

zeupater

Murchison2003 wrote: »

Zeupater.
The reason behind fitting this after a few years is this. Since i fitted the heat pump, i have shopped around for the cheapest energy provider. Each year as you will know prices have risen despite the world getting warmer. My standing order has risen each year and i have always had a small amount to pay at the end of the deal. I fitted the solar panels, which generate approx 3200 kwh each year. Before someone picks up on that value to offset the generation against reduction in kwh per year, i initially used half of what i generated, the remaining went back into the grid. Despite this extra generation, costs were still rising but at a slower rate.
I did some research and came up with the Voltis. Since i fitted the Voltis, i have 1 month of my contract to run, i am £400 pounds in credit and my next contract is more expensive but my standing order is £30 a month lower. That's the facts. That's why i think it has made a difference.
Am i pleased i fitted solar, yes. They are outperforming what was estimated, and as i fitted when the initial F.I.T was at it's maximum, offset with what i get back from the government, my total utility bill per month for my heating and electric is approx £58, i'm happy with that.
Hope this answers your question.

Hi

Thanks for the reply, but what about the question ... "are you happy with the performance of the GSHP system ? .... ", as I'm quite interested as to whether this had any relevance to the need to look at voltage optimisation in the first place .... it's obviously keeping you warm, which is good, but how's it performing ... as expected, or better ??

Z

Murchison2003

Z
I thought posts 21 and 37 would have answered that but i will elaborate. I have spent some time, i don't know why, on my little charts.
HEATPUMP METER YEAR END DEC-NOV RUN HOURS KWH YEAR END OCT-SEPT TOTAL KWH 2009 3344 8360 2009 18973 2010 3803 9507.5 2010 20500 2011 3405 8512.5 2011 20661 2012 3515 8787.5 2012 17898 SOLAR FITTED 2013 3516 8790 2013 17061 2014 ?? 2014 13500 ESTIMATE ( CURRENTLY 12831 KWH)
Here are my actual figures for heat pump and meter. It is always stated that temperatures are rising, my pump hours have been quite consistant. A definate change in trend when i fitted solar. Some have quoted ' we've had milder winters', as stated i've seen a reduction every month, summer and winter since fitting the Voltis.
To answer your question' "are you happy with the performance of the GSHP system ? .... ", yes i am. as I'm quite interested as to whether this had any relevance to the need to look at voltage optimisation in the first place ....As you can see i am a high end user of kwh, that's why i opted for voltage optimisation. it's obviously keeping you warm, which is good, but how's it performing ... as expected, or better ??
It is performing as expected. It was calculated to run at 8200kwh per year to keep a constant room temperature of 21 deg. (sap figured are taken into account during this calculation).As i have said previously, my house is hardly ever under 22.5deg 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The heatpump is virtually maintenence free, i clean 2 small filters myself saving the cost of a boiler service each year which 5 years ago was £110.
Hope this answers your question Z

Murchison2003

Z
That didn't turn out too good i'll try again.

HEATPUMP
YEAR END (DEC-NOV) HOURS RUN KWH USED
2009 3344 8360
2010 3803 9506
2011 3405 8512
2012 3515 8788
2013 3516 8790
2014 ??

METER
YEAR END TOTAL KWH
2009 18973
2010 20500
2011 20661
2012 17898 (SOLAR FITTED)
2013 17061
2014 CURRENTLY 12831 ESTIMATE 13500 (VOLTIS FITTED)

zeupater

Murchison2003 wrote: »

Z
That didn't turn out too good i'll try again.

HEATPUMP
YEAR END (DEC-NOV) HOURS RUN KWH USED
2009 3344 8360
2010 3803 9506
2011 3405 8512
2012 3515 8788
2013 3516 8790
2014 ??

METER
YEAR END TOTAL KWH
2009 18973
2010 20500
2011 20661
2012 17898 (SOLAR FITTED)
2013 17061
2014 CURRENTLY 12831 ESTIMATE 13500 (VOLTIS FITTED)

Hi

Okay, thanks - one question immediately jumps out though ..... if I read that correctly, leaving the total heat provision aside, you're using around 3x more electricity than the average UK household - are there any unusual high load appliances running which are consuming somewhere around 18-20kWh /day ?

In order to make sense of the metered consumption of the heat-pump, can you confirm whether you have a DHW and/or supplementary heating temperature boost provided by immersion coils - and if so, whether the immersion units run through the heat-pump meter, or just the main household supply meter ?

To put this into context, leaving the metered heating aside, in a comparably sized property, you look to be consuming more electricity in a day than we do in well over a week ....

HTH
Z

Murchison2003

Z
I knew that would be your next question.
I have a hot tub that consumes a fair amount.
The heatpump has an aux back up that is only used to heat the water once a month to kill bactetia.
So the pump usage has been pretty steady despite the rise in temp over the years.
Do you have any thoughts on why that might be?

zeupater

Murchison2003 wrote: »

Z
I knew that would be your next question.
I have a hot tub that consumes a fair amount.
The heatpump has an aux back up that is only used to heat the water once a month to kill bactetia.
So the pump usage has been pretty steady despite the rise in temp over the years.
Do you have any thoughts on why that might be?

Hi (&/All)

So, just to summarise the situation as it stands so that every braincell I have left doesn't turn to mush .... leaving the heating requirement aside and taking the government & industry average annual household electricity consumption of 3300kWh as a basis, of the ~10000kWh of remaining electricity consumption we're being led to believe that the majority (~6600kWh) is likely to be mainly due to thermostatically controlled resistive water heating for a hot-tub ? .... so in context, you're using the equivalent of two entire households worth of total annual consumption on a piece of equipment for which a voltage optimiser would make absolutely no difference ....

So, we seem to now be left with a situation where, if you take both the heatpump & hot tub out of the equation because they are both thermostatically controlled heating devices with given heat-loss replacement requirements, how does the 'big elephant in the room' not become visible and how does the situation stack up with an intent to keep energy costs under control through ripping out the oil fired boiler, investing in a heat-pump and voltage optimisation equipment and continually shopping "around for the cheapest energy provider". Effectively, if the optimiser is still being seen as the source of the energy savings, we're left with a situation where there's been a 3500kWh reduction in consumption on what's left .... which was likely to be around 3300kWh .... 3300-3500 = ? ....

What do I think ? ... well here goes ... The original post was made without any forethought, either because alternative conclusions made from the data at hand hadn't been sufficiently considered, or in a belief that the IQ, knowledge base and technical experience of members on a 'simple' moneysaving site wouldn't be as developed as on other, more technically biased sites. I find it really unconvincing that really important and relevant information is held back - If I was looking at replacing oil heating with an electric heat pump I'd certainly know what my existing consumption of both fuels was ... and when having had a debate regarding heating and ambient temperatures, I'd also not supply the current and estimated annualised total meter reading but conveniently forget to provide the run hours and consumption for the heat-pump and expect to be taken seriously ...

Regarding ... "So the pump usage has been pretty steady despite the rise in temp over the years. Do you have any thoughts on why that might be?" ... I really don't much care what the reasoning is as there seems to be little intent to consider any alternative logical reasoning anyway ....Amongst a myriad of guesses, it could be that you have an additional heat source (log burner) or the pump is simply undersized and relies on backup heating, but then again this year's energy saving could just have well been the result of turning the hot-tub thermostat down a notch, or off for a couple of months - or you've even been on a winter cruise ... it's just that there are too many variables at play to seriously conclude that voltage optimisation is even partially responsible, let alone solely.

If you're serious, help convince us ... if you want help in understanding alternative conclusions, ask and listen with an open mind ... if there's a technical query, just ask as there are qualified electrical and electronic engineers, heat-pump users & installers regularly following and contributing to these boards (including this thread if my memory serves me right) ...

As for the imbalance in the equation (~3300 - ~3500) .... does anyone else with pv have a clue what the effect of having what is an averaged 2kW base-load would be on their export percentage .... anyone ??? .... :wall:

---

Come now, it's a time limited draw open to everyone, and I'm expecting no use of reference sources here & I'll know if you've been cheating ... 1st Prize, my shortest reply yet !! ...

HTH
Z