Measurement campaign: power consumption of a family

[SARTENAER]

Each year, during the annual regularization my electricity bill, I asked myself the same question: why do we consume so much? And especially what steps to take to effectively reduce our consumption?

Our annual electricity consumption varies between between 5000 and 5500 kWh / year (5 people family with electric water heater). What all this energy food ???

Following reading (among others) good advice published on forums from econologie.com, I decide to buy a wattmeter (shhh, don't tell them that I didn't buy it on their site ...). What is very interesting with this device is to be able to establish a quantitative assessment of the annual electricity consumption of each device. It takes a certain amount of patience… but the results are very instructive.

For example (results will vary of course widely from one household to another!), I give you my little balance to the following address:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... FT37MdYyWg

The methodology is simple: place successively each device under control of consomètre during 2 weeks, meet daily consumption, then extrapolate 1 full year estimating seasonal variations (eg the boiler is cut from May to September, the dryer turns less in summer, etc.). This sometimes requires a few tweaks (eg connected in three-phase stove) ... or downright another technique based on the estimation of daily life in known power (eg lighting).

This table tells me especially that I could easily reduce my consumption of over 50% without any loss of comfort ... Stay tuned!

I have not found another report of this kind on the web ... shame, it seems to me instructive ...

[jean63]

After reading (and others) good advice published on forums econologie.com, I decided to buy a power meter (hush, do not tell them that I did not purchase on their site ...). What is very interesting, this unit is able to establish a quantified assessment of the annual electricity consumption of each device. This requires a certain amount of patience ... but the result is very informative.

but you're on econologie.com

[SARTENAER]

Well yes ... it seems logical to post the result of the test on the forum who gave me the idea ... no? And I take the opportunity to compliment the site (and its forum), a veritable mine of information on the subject ...

[bobono]

For those who do not want to spend too it is possible to find not too expensive to former EDF counters. For the same results.

[SARTENAER]

Not too expensive ... it means in how much? A power meter / consomètre such as the one I used really cheap costs ... and has the advantage of being compact and provide adequate connectivity to connect home appliances ...

By cons, it seems that the measurement of cos (phi) is lousy consomètres on many models, which seriously distort the estimation of consumption ... on this point, the use of a magnetic disk could counter be interesting, indeed ...

[bobono]

An electric meter cheap it depends

If you know an EDF 0 cents agent since he constantly outperforming the old model.

If no relationship to 30 50 € on Ebay or another.

Small observation on the table I see 100% savings with solar water heaters made there always a resistance to complete the heater if insufficient overcast or the sun

[SARTENAER]

The DIY stores sometimes offer consomètres on sale for less than € 20.

Regarding electrical backup for hot water ... I'm actually going to install a solar system combined to ensure the joint DHW heating and heating by thermal solar collectors (13 m² + storage tank sensors 1000 of liters) and an oil furnace. It is the boiler that will provide the extra ... which does not mean that I will consume more oil either! According to my calculations (confirmed by a friend already equipped since 1 year), I hope to replace roughly a year (kWh electric 2600 2200 + liters of oil) by (kWh solar 4900 1970 + liters of oil). Installation is expensive (€ 15000) ... but refunded to 60% by regional incentives and tax cuts. Calculated return on investment: 11 years ... and the likely rise in energy prices in the coming years! As for the additional cost of the electricity consumption of more circulators, it is negligible ...