OT: Earth Hour

While some of my neighbours foolishly turn their lights out and ignite candles (which produce more CO2 than the lights they replace), I might just disconnect myself from the grid for an hour, and fire up my petrol generator instead.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else
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Meh!

If you want to feel good, have a glass of wine, should have the same effect :-)

Reply to
Rheilly Phoull

And you can save a fortune by disconnecting from the grid completely. It now costs me as much for "supply charge" as it does for the electricity I use thanks to the power companies clever way to recoup some of the money lost to those with solar panels.

58% increase this year alone! Strangely there has been hardly a murmur though :-( Thinking a gas generator may be the answer, I'd only pay one supply charge then, and the excess heat could warm the house in winter.

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

It's a nice idea, but I'd be surprised if you could actually save money that way, once you take into account the cost of the capital involved, depreciation, and such regular (and other) maintenance as is required.

Even getting the generator to run efficiently is a challenge when you have the kind of varying load represented by a house.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

You don't use the generator to directly power the house but rather to generate electricity to store if you use it as a long term system long term.

Reply to
Dechucka

That addresses the efficiency issue, but at the very non-trivial cost of needing substantial storage capacity.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

To date, the mains has (mostly*some sites) always been cheaper, but increasingly there are brackets where it isn't.

There is also the reliability issue, resultant losses and recovery ability.

Due to the "RV" market, you can get into small storage systems cheaply before moving onto the higher investment.

Reply to
news13

The short term power requirements for a house can be quite high. Turn on a kettle, a toaster, a microwave and a hair dryer all at once (not so unlikely), and you're at around 6kW. Want the clothes dryer running as well? 8kW.

So unless you're willing to reorganise your life, you'll need a system capable of supplying power at that kind of level, even if not for long periods. That quickly gets expensive, and the point of this was to save money.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

Not a problem

Which is what batteries can do. I run an off grid system at our holiday house. The cost to convert to an off grid system from an on grid system would be not worth it especially as we are running Gel-Cells. However grid connection in our case was astronomical so it was good value, we're running a wind and solar array with petrol generator emergency back up

Reply to
Dechucka

Which is fine where a grid connection costs too much. But this sub-thread is premised on the idea that one has a grid connection already, but decides to relinquish it in favour of on-site generation in order to reduce the cost.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

Not worth it then.

Reply to
Dechucka

The main breaker will trip by the time you get to 8kW. (less if they are on the one circuit) But franky anyone who uses a clothes dryer these days given the cost of electricity has more money than sense, and is NOT likely to be looking for solutions to reduce cost when the obvious one is staring them in the face!

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

If you're silly enough to try and duplicate your mains lifestyle, then it is going to be very expensive. Generally people who do it moderate/change their life style to one less energy intensive.

So, the first trick is to lead a less energy expensive lifestyle.

Reply to
news13

That is not what this sub-thread is about.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

Shrug, it is for me. If you want to talk about prolifigate energy, go for it.

Reply to
news13

Who has main breaker smaller than 35A?

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Reply to
Jasen Betts

Mine is 30A, (the inline supply fuse is 80A though I believe) and the 2 sub circuits only 15A each. Never been a problem for me though, got rid of the clothes dryer 30 years ago.

Trevor.

Reply to
Trevor

WTF does consumption time have to do with a size of feed charge?

Reply to
news13

I take it that you think it's obvious that it has nothing to do with it. You're mistaken. I'll explain why, if you ask the question again in a civilised way.

Sylvia.

Reply to
Sylvia Else

FO, your argument. Make it or shut up. You started this s**te fight you cross posting troll.

Reply to
news13

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