What does it REALLY cost to run your energy guzzling household appliances? (Less than you think)

Spendless

maryb said:

Going back to the original theme of this thread, I don't have a smart meter but I've got into the habit of reading my meters nearly every day to try and work out what uses most energy and I've been keeping a spreadsheet. It came as no surprise to see that Monday's reading was always high (Sunday roast so oven on) and using the washing machine and dishwasher adds a predictable amount.  But what has surprised me is that there seems to be a very linear relationship in electricity consumption with the time of year and that can only be lighting.  I say surprising because we have LEDs wherever possible so I didn't think lighting would be such a significant element of our consumption.  I shall be shouting at the family like Warden Hodges going forward

What about other things, like family home more in the evenings (I know I get the mind set that I can't pop to a friends for coffee because it's dark not thinking of the actual time) and using electricity for entertainment purposes eg TV,  Games consoles. instead of being outside or going out,   eating more things that require cooking, rather than salads.

maryb

All good points. When our girls were back during lockdown I thought of a lot of the same factors to explain the clear seasonal trend.  But it’s still very marked now we are back to just us, retired empty nesters who don’t go out in the evening very much.  And sadly, our heating hasn’t actually gone off yet so no seasonal reduction yet.  Although the weather is getting warmer that just means we are not lighting the stove, we still need the heating in the evening.  It’s a puzzle

ZolaBuddy

Working in IT I am often asked about how much electric a typical PC uses if switched on during a typical 8 hour working day. There's no definitive answer as all PC setups are different (number of internal hard drives, power supply units, graphics cards, age of motherboard/BIOS etc), but between 200-300wh is about the norm, or 700kwh per year, and this doesn't include monitors, which again can take up a good chunk of power depending on size, age and purpose. 

There is no real value in switching off PCs at the mains of a night time as only a handful of watts are saved compared to putting the machine into sleep/hibernation mode. (If you have a fast booting machine then powering off might be okay as you won't have to wait an age for your machine to become fully available after post boot.)

Additional energy can be saved by reducing brightness on screens, and activating any energy saving pre-sets (eco saving) in the PC/monitor menu options.(This also applies to laptops. More so in fact given that they're dependent on batteries)

And always have a backup plan in action just in case something does go wrong and you can no longer boot or access your drives.

(Sorry for the geeky nerdy post, but I couldn't resist  )

jobbingmusician

ZolaBuddy said:

Working in IT I am often asked about how much electric a typical PC uses if switched on during a typical 8 hour working day. There's no definitive answer as all PC setups are different (number of internal hard drives, power supply units, graphics cards, age of motherboard/BIOS etc), but between 200-300wh is about the norm, or 700kwh per year, and this doesn't include monitors, which again can take up a good chunk of power depending on size, age and purpose. 

There is no real value in switching off PCs at the mains of a night time as only a handful of watts are saved compared to putting the machine into sleep/hibernation mode. (If you have a fast booting machine then powering off might be okay as you won't have to wait an age for your machine to become fully available after post boot.)

Additional energy can be saved by reducing brightness on screens, and activating any energy saving pre-sets (eco saving) in the PC/monitor menu options.(This also applies to laptops. More so in fact given that they're dependent on batteries)

And always have a backup plan in action just in case something does go wrong and you can no longer boot or access your drives.

(Sorry for the geeky nerdy post, but I couldn't resist  )

Enjoyed this.  Yes I totally appreciate the variance as I have memories of having seen geek sites where all the kids are talking about water cooling systems etc etc.  Could you give us some similar estimates for a laptop?  What would be really great would be some info about gaming and non-gaming systems, assuming that my assumptions (screen display is the heaviest user of electricity, and this is greater on gaming systems, also possibly sound card to some extent) are correct?  Does streaming eat power, so that people on Zoom all day are consuming significantly more power than little me just chatting on forums like this?

ZolaBuddy

jobbingmusician said:

ZolaBuddy said:

Working in IT I am often asked about how much electric a typical PC uses if switched on during a typical 8 hour working day. There's no definitive answer as all PC setups are different (number of internal hard drives, power supply units, graphics cards, age of motherboard/BIOS etc), but between 200-300wh is about the norm, or 700kwh per year, and this doesn't include monitors, which again can take up a good chunk of power depending on size, age and purpose. 

There is no real value in switching off PCs at the mains of a night time as only a handful of watts are saved compared to putting the machine into sleep/hibernation mode. (If you have a fast booting machine then powering off might be okay as you won't have to wait an age for your machine to become fully available after post boot.)

Additional energy can be saved by reducing brightness on screens, and activating any energy saving pre-sets (eco saving) in the PC/monitor menu options.(This also applies to laptops. More so in fact given that they're dependent on batteries)

And always have a backup plan in action just in case something does go wrong and you can no longer boot or access your drives.

(Sorry for the geeky nerdy post, but I couldn't resist  )

Enjoyed this.  Yes I totally appreciate the variance as I have memories of having seen geek sites where all the kids are talking about water cooling systems etc etc.  Could you give us some similar estimates for a laptop?  What would be really great would be some info about gaming and non-gaming systems, assuming that my assumptions (screen display is the heaviest user of electricity, and this is greater on gaming systems, also possibly sound card to some extent) are correct?  Does streaming eat power, so that people on Zoom all day are consuming significantly more power than little me just chatting on forums like this?

Dedicated games machines are geared up towards high performance graphics cards, memory modules, high-end motherboards and power supply units.

From memory PCs games machines can take up to 800watts of electric/hour, possibly even more with a large monitor and speakers thrown in. Not sure about gaming laptops, but probably around 200-300 watts/hr due to various hardware limitations. But that is still quite a lot for a dedicated games laptop.

But one key thing is the efficiency of the PSU. On cheap gaming PCs PSUs are very inefficient in terms of how the unit wastes energy as just heat. So for example if a cheapish PSU is rated at 250w but takes 325w from your electric socket, meaning that 75w is wasted as heat. Ideally the more efficient the PSU the better balance between what the PSU is rated at and what it actually draws from the mains.

And of course overclocking CPUs and dedicated GPUs will overheat the box unless it is super air-cooled or better still water cooled. This requires more electricity as the machine tries to keep cool without destroying the hardware inside


 

scrummy-mummy

maryb said:

Going back to the original theme of this thread, I don't have a smart meter but I've got into the habit of reading my meters nearly every day to try and work out what uses most energy and I've been keeping a spreadsheet. It came as no surprise to see that Monday's reading was always high (Sunday roast so oven on) and using the washing machine and dishwasher adds a predictable amount.  But what has surprised me is that there seems to be a very linear relationship in electricity consumption with the time of year and that can only be lighting.  I say surprising because we have LEDs wherever possible so I didn't think lighting would be such a significant element of our consumption.  I shall be shouting at the family like Warden Hodges going forward

I would also assume that anything that does any 'cooling' will have to work harder as the weather warms...fridges and freezers for example?

jobbingmusician

scrummy-mummy said:

maryb said:

Going back to the original theme of this thread, I don't have a smart meter but I've got into the habit of reading my meters nearly every day to try and work out what uses most energy and I've been keeping a spreadsheet. It came as no surprise to see that Monday's reading was always high (Sunday roast so oven on) and using the washing machine and dishwasher adds a predictable amount.  But what has surprised me is that there seems to be a very linear relationship in electricity consumption with the time of year and that can only be lighting.  I say surprising because we have LEDs wherever possible so I didn't think lighting would be such a significant element of our consumption.  I shall be shouting at the family like Warden Hodges going forward

I would also assume that anything that does any 'cooling' will have to work harder as the weather warms...fridges and freezers for example?

Only true to a limited extent though as most of the energy is 'maintenance' energy, which in a well insulated fridge, and particularly freezer, should be minimal (assuming the appliance is not subject to teenage boys opening the door and standing around chatting for ages as all the cold escapes).  Dive in and out of your appliances, folks!

Also - chest freezers are much more effective at maintaining their cold that upright freezers.  This is because cold air drops (while hot air rises).  It 'falls out of the front' of upright freezers once the door is opened, but more or less stays where it is in chest freezers.

maryb

That would go against the pattern -  our electricity consumption rises from October onwards as the days get shorter, peaks in December - January and then goes down steadily as the days get longer. Throughout that period I'm cooking the same sort of autumn winter meals so I don't think it's the oven.

If I hadn't been keeping a spreadsheet over a period of time I wouldn't have noticed that trend.  And if I'd had a smart meter I probably wouldn't have bothered

victor2

maryb said:

That would go against the pattern -  our electricity consumption rises from October onwards as the days get shorter, peaks in December - January and then goes down steadily as the days get longer. Throughout that period I'm cooking the same sort of autumn winter meals so I don't think it's the oven.

If I hadn't been keeping a spreadsheet over a period of time I wouldn't have noticed that trend.  And if I'd had a smart meter I probably wouldn't have bothered

Our electricity usage is pretty even throughout the year. Maybe you watch more TV in the colder months, and your electric pump for your heating will only be running in the winter, but we have gas central heating and don't really notice that.
We average about 11kWh per day.