the base load

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For the next test, I have my refrigerator, freezer and water heater temporarily OFF. These are automatic appliances that come on by themselves if I let them. I want my electricity draw to be as little as possible for this next test.

I don't have air conditioning. My heat source is oil which uses electricity for the compressor, ignition and fan. During summer in Canada I do not need heat. When trying to figure out my energy usage, I find it easiest to have as few appliances coming on by themselves so summer is an ideal time for me. I can concentrate on one at a time.

Today I am going to check my base load, sometimes called "phantom power" but that slightly different. Phantom power in the context of house electric energy is energy to "keep alive" an appliance so that it can come on instantly. More correctly would be called phantom energy. In my case, I need the network to be fully running and the Blueline Bridge to be operation, in order to capture my energy data. I don't need to watch it, I just need to have data captured so the computer and the printers and the scanner and the rest can be OFF and the power bars switched OFF to reduce phantom power. I also went around the house and pulled out a few things that use phantom power. The network is part of what I call my base load, which I need running, not stuff I don't want and can unplug. The base load is always there, always costing money, peak or non-peak, even though it is small.

Base load is the same term that the generators of energy (like OPG and Bruce Power) use. It is always there. They worry about the peaks over the base load.

The sun has gone down. I have only a couple of lights ON and those are LEDs. I visited the washroom using a flashlight rather than the usual house lights. I am not running the microwave, the stereo, a TV, the central vac, or any other major appliance.

For the next test, I am trying to be as quiet as a mouse electrically. What is my electrical energy usage with as little major loads as I can manage?

Over 200 watts! 218 to be precise. Rose to 230 watts while I typed this sentence. I have turned OFF the water heater, fridge and freezer off at 9:45. My background was more in the 350 watt region before that.

This is my electricity usage for the last six hours. The most noticable thing is the spike from the water heater coming on as it should at 6:05pm. As of a couple days ago, my water heater is not allowed to come on (inhibited) during my peak period which is 12:00noon to 6pm.

I was not home during most of this chart. Perhaps just the last 1/2 hour. This is my house doing things on its own. The water heater, the fridge and the freezer, a few lights, a few chargers, two CO2 monitors. All by themselves about 300 watts.

I am typing this one a desktop system, with the network and WIFI running. The Blueline network bridge is relaying my electrical energy information to the cloud. I am connected to the web on machines that eat 110 volts AC from my connection to the grid. Probably my computer and network account for about 150 watts of that, more or less constantly.

And there is a lot of other stuff connected as well. The mobile phone, the microwave oven, a couple of clocks and radios that plug in and are "always on".

I went on a binge and unplugged all of those things about 9:50.

It is shortly going to be 10:15 and I will shut down my computer, but not the network, for (hopefully) 1/2 hour.

This is the result of turning off the compuers and most everything else except for the Blueline bridge and my WIFI and router which are necessary for the Blueline hardware to do it's job.

The small spike just before the shutdown happens because I had to start a second computer from "sleep" in order to shut it down in a true power OFF which included shutting off the power bar which controls some ancillary hard drives and other potential electricity users.

I think I read that as about 50 watts. Not bad to strive for as a minimum during the peak period? Or perhaps even less?

The McMaster study wants to measure changes in behavior with my assigned plan C$0.54 peak/C$0.11 non-peak, no other costs (no delivery cost, debt repayment, etc)

What if my electrical use went to near zero during my peak billing time? This would be worth doing for a 54/11=5:1 ratio in cost! I might be able to achieve that outside of the heating season. A bit of battery backup?

During winter achieving less use will be difficult with the added load of the furnace, water heating (the basement is cooler) and lighting (the nights are longer). Cutbacks in the peak billing period will be more difficult. The base line will probably rise and I will measure it then.

Thanks for your interest.
George Plhak
Lion's Head, Ontario, Canada

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more TOU and dishwasher continued

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I am doing another run of the dishwasher this morning. The dishwasher and appliances like it (my clothes washer for example) have complicated cycles with several stages. The appliance will draw different amounts of energy depending on the program it is following. This is my software real time monitor showing me that at the beginning of the normal-no-heat cycle, when the dishwasher is heating the water, the my house is drawing 1.7kW.

The actual electricity the dishwasher is using is about 300 watts less than this since there are other "always on" things that use electricity in my house right now. The fridge and freezer are the biggest parts of the background. There are a few lights on and the computer I am typing on, a few charges, some CO2 and smoke detectors, the garage door openers a few radios that even though they are off still draw some "keep awake" power as well the network and the Blueline Innovations whole hose energy monitor itself. The background varies constantly from about 150watts to 300watts. I almost started the toaster oven but stopped since it is a big energy user. I am running this test of the dishwasher and want it to be uncomplicated by other heavy use appliances. The dishwasher is almost done.

The dial on the right in the screen shot shows my total usage for the month. Since it is the beginning of July, that dial has just reset. Briefly it was near zero but now marches forward through the billing month. It does not show peak/off-peak but I can see that elsewhere in the software.

This is the remote readout from Blueline. The pic is taken just a minute or so after the previous one. That's the dishwasher in the background. I suppose the idea of the remote is that you can carry it with you while you are trying out an appliance in another room? There are apps but I haven't loaded one yet.
The bottom part of the display shows me the outside temperature and the date and time? That part is not correct. I don't know yet what the 333kWh "estimate" is yet. I guess I'll have to read the manual? I don't know what the buttons do. Clearly I haven't explored the functionality of the remote.

Another part of the Blueline energy monitor is this sensor unit strapped to my electrical meter. A technician came and installed the meter and set up the software but I suppose it could be DIY. I see that the Blueline hardware is available on amazon.ca for C$110.

Now as far as Time of Use relates to the dishwasher, it is very clear to me that I should be running the dishwasher during off-peak. I am not sure I am going to change my behavior as a result of having this power monitor?

This is this morning's recording of the dishwasher (D) and water heater (W). I have also shown what I consider the background at the left side of the chart.

In an earlier run, I found that the water heater started shortly after the dishwasher. This time, I had resolved to turn off the water heater so that it would not start after the dishwasher. I turned off the water heater at the bereaker panel shortly before 6am. Then I started the dishwasher at shortly after 6am. When I got back the the software, I saw that the water heater had already started and had been running for about 10 minutes before I turned it off.

As I pointed out before, the water heater starts if its internal temperature sensor detects that the water is below the set point. The dishwasher draws hot water and the water heater replaces that with cold water from the water supply. The new water is much cooler than the tank and causes the internal temperature to fall triggering the sensor to call for heat.

It is just a coincidence that my water heater, without any hot water having been drawn from it, chose to come on at about 5:20. Funny thing about a water heater is that unless you have one of these whole house meters, you cannot tell that it is running!

Note that the peaks from the water heater are simple ON-OFF shapes while the dishwasher has a rather more complicated signature. I don't know what the small addition square on top of the second water heater peak is? That might be the fridge or the freezer, which are normally buried in the background, becoming visible on top of the water heater.

Now I am going to calculate the total electrical energy used by the dishwasher during this run. To do that, I have divided the area under the curve into a number of blocks. Knowing that the height of the blocks represents the power (kW) and the width represents the time (h) I should be able to multiply the height times the width of each to find the kWh of wach block then add them up and have the total kWh.

I am having the read the data off a screen capture. I am amazed that the software does not do this for me. It does not even know that this is the dishwasher. Well perhaps Plotwatt will one day figure it out but not yet, so I am calculating the hard way. I will use the millimeter measure of 21.24mm = 1 hour to find the width of each block by comparison using the CorelDraw dimension feature.

Here is the calculations for the blocks:
A 1.4x0.202=0.283kWh
B 0.8x0.056=0.045kWh
C 1.4x0.135=0.189kWh
D 0.25x0.095=0.024kWh
E 0.8x0.083=0.066kWh
(there is a little space
F 0.8x0.036=0.029kWh
G 1.4x0.115=0.161kWh
H 0.25x0.109=0.027kWh
I 0.8x0.78=0.63kWh
Total = 1.454 kWh

This does not include the energy used to heat the water in the water heater, the water that was used during this run. That energy is included in the water heater draw, at least for this run.

So 1.454kWh would cost me during the peak-period (1.454kWh x C$0.54/kWh) = $0.78. During non-peak, my cost would be (1.454 x C$0.11) = $0.16!

A lot of calculation and thinking to show me that the dishwasher does not cost much if run off peak. I don't use it very often, although I did run it three times in three days to get a relatively clean signature. I hope I will be able to use my figure to compare to new dishwashers? I don't think they give the cost per run but per year.

Thanks for your interest,
George Plhak
Lion's Head, Ontario, Canada

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more on time of use electricity

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My whole home energy monitor and software allows me to see what is essentially a strip chart recording of my home's electrical energy use. I can go back in time and zoom in for a couple of months, back to when it was installed. It is summer here so I don't need heat and I don't have air conditioning so my data is relatively simple. I am still learning the software by trying to isolate my appliances, essentially taking pictures of their usage on the chart while I run them.

McMaster tells me that the software is learning about me! It is supposed to provide individualized recommendations as shown in the demo at plotwatt. But I am told that it will take a month or two for it to learn about my usage. I am learning about my usage primarily using the BlueLine software from the maker of the hardware. More about the hardware later.

This is my electricity usage over the last 24 hours. I am showing you a screen capture from the BlueLine software. I have added the black info.

The W peaks are my water heater. How do I know this? I have learned to recognize the water heater from its peak and its timing. The water heater uses 3kW. The vertical axis of the chart at the left is labeled in kW. The water heater senses that its internal temperature has fallen to the set point (which I can vary on the heater) and switches on its heating coils about every six hours for about 10 minutes. If I use hot water, it may come on sooner. If I use a lot of hot water, it may run for longer. It is almost like a clock and it uses a lot of power so it stands out on the chart. Before I installed the inhibit timer, the water heater could end up starting during my peak period. The peak is the rectangle I have drawn on the chart. You can see that the water heater starts when it is allowed to, just after 6pm.

The D on the chart is my dishwasher. Unlike yesterday, I went to the breaker panel and turned off the water heater so that it could not start. Yesterday the water heater came on at the same time, I wanted to run another load of dishes to see the electrical use of the dishwasher alone. More about that test in a moment.

I have also labeled two mystery spikes as ? on the chart. One is during my peak time at about 4:30 and the other is earlier, about 10:30 in the morning. Both are big users but only for a very short time. The first spike is greater than 3kW and the second reaches 4.5kW. I don't think I was even at home when the first one occurred and possibly not when the second happened. I was in and out a fair bit yesterday.

The BlueLine software allows me to click and drag to zoom. When I zoom the second spike, the one during my peak period, I see a single data point that lasts only a minute. This is possibly because the sensor and the BlueLine system takes samples probably about every minute and only that one sample showed this 4.5kW. I have no idea what these are caused by but will continue to watch for them.

This is the dishwasher this morning after turning off the hot water heater breaker. It is a fairly complex looking signature to say the least. I will try to compute the kWh used for one wash cycle and add it below later. So perhaps the no heat dry function works sometimes, sometimes not (intermittent) or I was fooled in my guess about the no heat by the operation of the water heater or another appliance? The BlueLine measures everything connected to my meter. To be sure, I would repeat the exact test again. A good experiment needs careful design and measurement, sometimes repeated measurement..

It occurs to me that having this record of the actual energy use of the appliance will help to evaluate the performance of any replacement appliances. It is the actual energy rather than some computed or implied kwhr per year like on the sticker in the showroom or on the web ratings. The yearly total will depend on how often I use the machine but I cannot change the energy per cycle, per use. For example, if I get a new dishwasher with a more efficient motor or something else that saves energy, I should see the result in the chart.

Speaking of being fooled

The BlueLine sensor which is attached to my electric meter on the outside of the house includes a thermometer to read outside temperature. This is presumably so that the software can know how much heating or cooling might be required. The green line on this chart shows the temperature reaching 40C at about 4-5pm. It was hot that day but no way was it 40C (104F) outside! What is going on?

My electric meter is on the north side of my house, the side that almost never gets direct sunlight, or so I thought. At the red arrow you can see the sliver of sunlight that hits the meter from about 4 to 5pm in the afternoon at this time of year! Just at the time of year that cooling might be important, the sensor gets fooled by some stray sunlight. If it mattered to me, I would add a small screen or panel to block the light from that angle. It would only happen for a short part of the year.

It also occurs to me that today, Canada Day is a holiday so my electrical rates are non-peak all day. The water meter inhibit controller that I added earlier in the week knows about weekends, but it does not know about holidays. So today, being a Friday, my water heater is currently inhibited the same as the other week days, from 12 to 6pm. It doesn't concern me though. I know that the stored water in the tank stays very hot even for six hours after it has last been on.

Thanks for your interest.
George Plhak
Lion's Head, Ontario, Canada

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