Octopus Tracker

Spoonie_Turtle

MultiFuelBurner said:

masonic said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:
The SVT rates include a small allowance for profit, either 1.9% or possibly 2.8% now if that's been implemented?  So no, on the SVT no supplier is making mega profits.  The differing markets seem to be the major factor, if I've understood the gist of QrizB's explanation correctly.

The difference in the way energy is purchased will be having the bigger impact currently, just due to the situation we find ourselves in, but I believe there are all sorts of uncertainties and margins for error built into the calculations, so the actual profitability is probably understated most of the time. We have also come out of a period where the cap was set at an unprofitable level, and I'm not sure whether or not there was a fudge-factor built in to subsequent caps to allow suppliers to claw back that prior loss.

The days when there were plenty of tariff choices coming in comfortably under SVT, even under the early price cap regime, seem like a distant memory.

The figure of "fudge" escapes me but it used to be 1.9% profit but that has been increased I think.

But yes when I looked at the breakdown of costs and the fact Kraken and it's bots must reduce customer service costs they us some fudge to be had from my understanding for SVT.

I think I said something like this in another thread (apologies if it was actually this one and I'm repeating myself) but if suppliers can be more efficient with lower costs, without reducing customer service, I'm perfectly happy for them to have some extra profit beyond the level Ofgem provides for in the cap. 
More efficient suppliers are good for customers, and if the financial incentive makes suppliers become genuinely more efficient (as opposed to, "making efficiencies") in the end costs will come down - and in the meantime the better companies have money to fund ways of reducing their customers' bills.  Win-win all round it seems to me [unless I'm fundamentally misunderstanding or missing something which is always a possibility!].

AeroJ

Telegraph_Sam said:

AeroJ said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Been filling my washing machine with hot water for the past 10yrs

!!!!! Hate to think what your water bill has come to by now ...

Telegraph_Sam said:

AeroJ said:

MultiFuelBurner said:

Been filling my washing machine with hot water for the past 10yrs

!!!!! Hate to think what your water bill has come to by now ...

Water costs almost nothing compared to energy and I always collect waste water for flushing, cleaning and watering.

masonic

At the risk of stating the obvious, the machine is going to need to take the water from somewhere, whether it is the hose or a watering can. I presume @AeroJ is pouring during the machine filling, and stopping when the machine detects it has reached the desired fill level and shuts off the flow from the hose.

Telegraph_Sam

I thought it was 10 years non stop LoL sorry

MultiFuelBurner

At the risk of making the tracker thread the dehumidifier and washing machine fill thread the hot water still needs heating and I guess that's cheaper with gas that electricity but involves the faff of a watering can and getting the right timing and level right for a wash.

Is it greener though to let the washing machine do it with it's element over the burning of gas? (Yes I've thought about the average gas mix of 35% for producing electricity)

QrizB

AeroJ said:

Been filling my washing machine with hot water for the past 10yrs and never had a problem.

I calculate this saves me about £100 a year.

This is the Tracker thread.

The Tracker electricity price has averaged about 20p/kWh all year, and the gas price about 4p/kWh, but hot water heated by a gas boiler is closer to 5p/kWh due to boiler efficiency.

At a difference in cost of 15p/kWh, to save £100 a year you need to be averting 670kWh of electricity.

A cheap washing machine like this one claims to use 0.65kWh per wash cycle.

So, to save £100 a year, you need to be using zero electricity per cycle and doing 1000 cycles a year. That's three loads a day.

AeroJ said:

Water costs almost nothing compared to energy and I always collect waste water for flushing, cleaning and watering.

But the cold water that you run off before getting hot water to fill your washing machine was once hot water, that has cooled in the pipes. This is why hot fill washing machines have fallen out of favour; washing machines use so little water that "hot fill" usually turns into "cold fill with once-hot water".

If you're adding 5 litres of hot water to your washing machine, but drawing off 5 litres of cold water before adding it, you're really using 10 litres of heated water. This makes the economics worse.

Tarquinius

@QrizB Thank you for your explanation about forward markets factoring in a risk premium - very interesting.   I'll read up about Texas:  those price spikes sound scary, although thankfully Octopus Tracker prices are capped at 100p/kWh for electricity and 30p/kWh for gas.

Spies

masonic said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

My Meaco 20 L eco dehumidifier (type??) appears to show up well in the comparisons. The environmental room emperature is in the mid teens. These are currently retailing @ c. £250. Probably as good a solution as I'm going to get, but possibly not excluding some other if it was a matter of making a new outlay. Esp if compared with a new tumble drier.

It's a compressor type, and stated power consumption is up to 255 W "/h" (presumably typical usage in laundry mode, no data for standard operation, but expect this will be below 200 W). It gives extraction data for 30C @ 80%RH: 20 L/day and at 27C @ 60%RH: 12 L/day. This will be considerably lower when the temp is in the mid-teens. The below plot (general data, not your model specifically) gives an idea of the temperature dependence:

https://ionmax.com.au/blogs/resources/desiccant-or-compressor-dehumidifier

You could experiment and see how much water it produces from an empty tank at the start of your drying operation to the end, and divide by the number of hours it ran. If you have a plug-in energy meter you can even see exactly how much energy it used. Then you can work out the energy consumed per litre moisture removed, which is the best metric for efficiency.

masonic said:

Telegraph_Sam said:

My Meaco 20 L eco dehumidifier (type??) appears to show up well in the comparisons. The environmental room emperature is in the mid teens. These are currently retailing @ c. £250. Probably as good a solution as I'm going to get, but possibly not excluding some other if it was a matter of making a new outlay. Esp if compared with a new tumble drier.

It's a compressor type, and stated power consumption is up to 255 W "/h" (presumably typical usage in laundry mode, no data for standard operation, but expect this will be below 200 W). It gives extraction data for 30C @ 80%RH: 20 L/day and at 27C @ 60%RH: 12 L/day. This will be considerably lower when the temp is in the mid-teens. The below plot (general data, not your model specifically) gives an idea of the temperature dependence:

https://ionmax.com.au/blogs/resources/desiccant-or-compressor-dehumidifier

You could experiment and see how much water it produces from an empty tank at the start of your drying operation to the end, and divide by the number of hours it ran. If you have a plug-in energy meter you can even see exactly how much energy it used. Then you can work out the energy consumed per litre moisture removed, which is the best metric for efficiency.

Shall we also try to include the calculation of heat energy that's released when you condensate water? This is why compressor dehumidifiers are actually over 100% efficient as you get 2259 joules per gram of water condensed. 

Telegraph_Sam

QrizB said:

AeroJ said:

Water costs almost nothing compared to energy and I always collect waste water for flushing, cleaning and watering.

But the cold water that you run off before getting hot water to fill your washing machine was once hot water, that has cooled in the pipes. This is why hot fill washing machines have fallen out of favour; washing machines use so little water that "hot fill" usually turns into "cold fill with once-hot water".

If you're adding 5 litres of hot water to your washing machine, but drawing off 5 litres of cold water before adding it, you're really using 10 litres of heated water. This makes the economics worse.

When I first introduced "dehumidifier" into this Tracker thread I had no idea it had enough meat in it to lead so far (> dimishing returns?)  If there's further to go a separate spin-off thread could be called for. Or not.

mmmmikey

Telegraph_Sam said:

QrizB said:

AeroJ said:

Water costs almost nothing compared to energy and I always collect waste water for flushing, cleaning and watering.

But the cold water that you run off before getting hot water to fill your washing machine was once hot water, that has cooled in the pipes. This is why hot fill washing machines have fallen out of favour; washing machines use so little water that "hot fill" usually turns into "cold fill with once-hot water".

If you're adding 5 litres of hot water to your washing machine, but drawing off 5 litres of cold water before adding it, you're really using 10 litres of heated water. This makes the economics worse.

When I first introduced "dehumidifier" into this Tracker thread I had no idea it had enough meat in it to lead so far (> dimishing returns?)  If there's further to go a separate spin-off thread could be called for. Or not.

Although it's gone a bit further than expected, the whole discussion of laundry seems quite significant for Tracker users as it's one of the few significant uses of energy that can relatively easily but put off for a "cheap" day for many people. I've been following both the dehumidifier and hot fill discussions with interest.