Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

solar_dave · July 2014

Man its hot, Yesterday thermometer on the patio wall said 118F (47.5+C) and today it is close second. The official temp at the airport was 114F. The low last night was 92F (33.3C) and the AC doesn't get much of a break even at dawn.

The two Trane 3 ton AC units are now running near 100% duty cycle, peaks in consumption with the pool pump are about 9000 watts and of that the AC is about 5000 watts for the main house and about 1500 watts for the office building but not 100% duty cycle on the mini split. The Tranes are 2 speed compressors, I see one of them fall back to low speed for about 4-5 minutes then back to full blast.

Thank goodness for the net metering plan here so I can draw off my early year storage of kWh. I see the cars thermal management kick in about once ever 4 hours per car. As of the first of the month I still had about 1900 kWh in the bank,

The weather man says today and tomorrow are going hotter. It is definitely a shut-in time, and I do that so well, just woke from my siesta.

Ah maybe I need a trip to Canada!

PS (I don't know what mama just turned on but it pushed the overall consumption to a new peak of just over 12,000 watts)

Cariboocoot · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

Yeah, come to Canada.
It is pouring rain right now, the temp is 16C (60F), the panels are producing nothing, and the generator is running.

solar_dave · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

126 kWh consumed by 9 PM (62.4 kWh Solar, 63.9 from the grid). Slight rain shower came through cooled things off to 108F but boy it is sticky. Three hours to go yet today and a 6000-7000 watt load is still being drawn. This may turn out to be our highest consumption day in years.

CDN_VT · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

These things that might be normal to come ?
So do we need also to build / design systems with this in mind ?
Better / worse wind speeds to hail/ glass thickness .
I just bought mine at the 4.+ mm thickness , thinking this way .
Just my thoughts
VT
, YMMV

solar_dave · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

To the best of my memory this is the highest day so far, 138.8 kWh with 62.4 from the solar, no car usage yesterday at all. Old record was 135 kWh. If we had run both cars it would have been another 20+ kWh.

From the weather service:

AN EXCESSIVE HEAT WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 8 PM MST /8 PM PDT/ THIS EVENING.

* AFFECTED AREA... THE SOUTHWEST AND WEST-CENTRAL DESERTS IN ARIZONA INCLUDING PARKER... YUMA... TACNA... GILA BEND. THE LOWER DESERTS IN SOUTHEAST CALIFORNIA INCLUDING THE IMPERIAL VALLEY... AND THE CITIES OF EL CENTRO AND BLYTHE.

* TEMPERATURE... AFTERNOON TEMPERATURES WILL RANGE FROM 110 TO 115 DEGREES ACROSS THE LOWER DESERTS TODAY. OVERNIGHT LOWS WILL BE VERY WARM... IN THE UPPER 80S TO LOW 90S AT THE WARMEST URBAN SITES.

* IMPACTS... EXCEEDINGLY HIGH TEMPERATURES CAN CAUSE HEAT RELATED ILLNESS... INCLUDING DEATH... MORE EASILY THAN AN AVERAGE SUMMER DAY. THOSE WORKING OR PLAYING OUTDOORS... AND THOSE WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING ARE MOST VULNERABLE. EVEN HEALTHY INDIVIDUALS ARE AT RISK IN THESE CONDITIONS.

This looks like the last day of the extreme heat, temps will drop back below 110F tomorrow.

ggunn · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

solar_dave wrote: »

Man its hot, Yesterday thermometer on the patio wall said 118F (47.5+C) and today it is close second. The official temp at the airport was 114F. The low last night was 92F (33.3C) and the AC doesn't get much of a break even at dawn.

The two Trane 3 ton AC units are now running near 100% duty cycle, peaks in consumption with the pool pump are about 9000 watts and of that the AC is about 5000 watts for the main house and about 1500 watts for the office building but not 100% duty cycle on the mini split. The Tranes are 2 speed compressors, I see one of them fall back to low speed for about 4-5 minutes then back to full blast.

Thank goodness for the net metering plan here so I can draw off my early year storage of kWh. I see the cars thermal management kick in about once ever 4 hours per car. As of the first of the month I still had about 1900 kWh in the bank,

The weather man says today and tomorrow are going hotter. It is definitely a shut-in time, and I do that so well, just woke from my siesta.

Ah maybe I need a trip to Canada!

PS (I don't know what mama just turned on but it pushed the overall consumption to a new peak of just over 12,000 watts)

Turn off the pool pump during the day?

solar_dave · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

ggunn wrote: »

Turn off the pool pump during the day?

Well my net metering plan is sort of screwy. The banking of kWh is accounted for within a TOU time period. So my banked hours are basically all on peak(1900 kWh as of July 1). I buy off peak every month even though I have thousands of kWh in my on peak bank. Also the service delivery charges are none TOU and are calculated since Jan 1 of the year. (huh) Yes they keep track of your total consumption from the grid and the total pushed to the grid on net metering then when the lines cross you get charged for the delivery. I suspect next month I will be paying for some delivery and will continue to pay until I can get the total back in my favor, most likely in late September or October.

ggunn · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

solar_dave wrote: »

Well my net metering plan is sort of screwy. The banking of kWh is accounted for within a TOU time period. So my banked hours are basically all on peak(1900 kWh as of July 1). I buy off peak every month even though I have thousands of kWh in my on peak bank. Also the service delivery charges are none TOU and are calculated since Jan 1 of the year. (huh) Yes they keep track of your total consumption from the grid and the total pushed to the grid on net metering then when the lines cross you get charged for the delivery. I suspect next month I will be paying for some delivery and will continue to pay until I can get the total back in my favor, most likely in late September or October.

Do you have a demand charge? If so it might make sense to turn off your pool pump during the day so that it doesn't run during peak AC time. Or install a relay that shuts off your pool pump when the AC comes on.

solar_dave · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

ggunn wrote: »

Do you have a demand charge? If so it might make sense to turn off your pool pump during the day so that it doesn't run during peak AC time. Or install a relay that shuts off your pool pump when the AC comes on.

No demand charge on this tariff but there are tariffs that do demand charges and make the per kWh rates substantially lower but there is a pretty high demand charge. For summer it is $13.550 per on-peak kW and winter it is $9.400 per on-peak kW. It pretty much makes no sense for a solar user to consider that rate plan. According to the TED I had a peak demand draw of 15.29 kW so that would be a $206 demand charge before I paid the utility of any generation. I suppose if I had some kind of demand controls I could cut that in half. The 2 big AC units alone can do 5kW.

For billing purposes, the kW used in this rate schedule shall be based on the average kW supplied during the 60 minute period of maximum use during On-Peak hours, as determined from readings of the Company’s meter

Since it is an average of a 60 minute period, it would be pretty hard to control what loads to manage. From the TED data which is clock hours defined, the peak hour of draw was 9.3 kWh over the last 2 days. I guess that would be an average draw of 9.3 kW for that hour of time, it is just unclear how they start the hour timer. I suspect they slide the hour along a 1 or 5 minute intervals to determine the peak.

solar_dave · July 2014

Re: Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

A new official record for the date was set yesterday @ 116F (46.5C). We did slightly better yesterday @ 138.2 kWh total with 61.2 kWh of solar and 77 kWh in a combination of banked kWh and off-peak purchase. We even charged one of the cars a bit which consumed about 9.1 kWh. It is suppose to be about 8-10 degrees Fahrenheit cooler today.

Skippy · January 2016

solar_dave said:

Man its hot, Yesterday thermometer on the patio wall said 118F (47.5+C) and today it is close second.

The two Trane 3 ton AC units are now running near 100% duty cycle, peaks in consumption with the pool pump are about 9000 watts

Ah maybe I need a trip to Canada!

PS (I don't know what mama just turned on but it pushed the overall consumption to a new peak of just over 12,000 watts)

Just a suggestion for ya, but once ya get your pool all sparkling clean and good to swim in, you don't need too run the pump 24/7.

I had a pool for about 5 years, and did not like having that constant draw on my hydro . . When I would first open the pool, the water would be all cloudy . . went to the pool supply guy, and he gave me this stuff that bonds with the fine dust in the water - which is supposed to make it nice and clear . . worked like a charm, added this stuff to the water - turned on the pump for a couple of days then shut it off overnight - went out the next day and there was a layer of "dust" on the bottom of the pool. Vaccumed that out, and it stayed crystal clear. Ran the pump once a week - whenever someone went in for a swim, I would turn the pump on for the day, but after that . . . why longer ? Chlorine is in there too kill the bugs . . vacuum is too clean the bottom . .

Save the hydro. turn it off.

Just my opinion.

Brutal consumption - Nothing but live with it.

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