Night rate or not.

Black_Knight

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Thanks. So my battery will have lost about 25% of its capacity from new. So 24kw -25% = 18kw of battery to be charged. Is this correct or am I taking it up wrong?

I didn't mention anything about battery losing capacity. I just did the math on a 24kw capacity charging from 20% to full.

t8010789

There has been a couple posts about the cost of running certain appliances. Can anyone recommend an accurate energy monitor plug for this?

NIMAN

I got the night meter for the car.

Also set the washing machine to come on at 6am or so, so its complete when we get up.

Clothes can then go into the dryer on the cheap rate too if its a bad day for drying!
Outside of car, dryer, washing machine not much else in the house would work on night rate. Haven't got a dishwasher.

I have an energy monitor but rarely take much heed of it any more.

Black_Knight

t8010789 wrote: »

There has been a couple posts about the cost of running certain appliances. Can anyone recommend an accurate energy monitor plug for this?

Tp link do one. Hs110 is the model number. Harvey Norman do them for about 40 quid. They have a non energy monitoring one too, so don't get the wrong one. Amazon probably have them a bit cheaper, or they regularly appear at a discounted rate on Amazon.

I have one on my washer and dryer. And a 2nd one on the kettle, though I really should repurpose that one. I've a 3rd one I move around from time to time. Had it on my TV/sound bar etc for a while until I realised the TV etc used flip all power. Might move it to the fridge for a while to get an idea what it draws.

Fyi, there's an ampage limit on these plugs. Don't plug your granny cable into one of them to charge the car. It'll probably blow after sustained load.

green123

Black_Knight wrote: »

You reduced the savings because the op wouldn't be at home as much as the average family, but didn't reduce the additional cost of running stuff during the day based on being at the home less.

No i didn't do that.
I did the complete opposite.

I reduced the savings because the op would be home more during the day, and therefore using more at the higher rate if he switches than the average family.

Try to understand what i said and don't misrepresent what i said.

The op often works from and wife is home all day and he says they use alot of electricity during the day.
I used your figures for charging and for the average family usage.
I adjusted only slightly by 10 or 20 euro per year which brings the switching savings to just 20 or 30 euro per year.
In fact i was been conservative and erring on the switching side, if the op does use a lot of electricity during the day the savings will be even less.

Black_Knight wrote: »

You've ignored all the night time base load in the house too. From what I've read the average is around 1/3 your energy usage is at night. In fact, I've just switched over to a new meter and I can pretty much confirm that (no night time charging or washing/drying was part of this). I was basing my average Irish usage on 4200kw per year, so on average 1400kw are used during the night. Savings at 10c per kWh =€140. €30 extra for day usage is €110. This 110 savings is all dependant on how much electricity you use in total, and if you run a few things at night savings can increase. Add the electric car, that's €230 total. 50 standing charge brings us to €190 total savings based on an average house energy usage driving 8k km a year.

Yes, i have ignored the night time electricity usage for a few reasons but mostly because i think for the average family there is very little night usage.

And that's what first prompted me to post in this thread, unkels breakeven post didn't seem right to me and still doesn't.

Unkel went on to say the biggest night usage is a fridge using 2 units during the night which is completely wrong.
As i have already pointed out most fridges use less than 1 unit per day and maybe only a third of a unit during night rate hours.

Safety as has already been pointed out by others is another reason not to use appliances at night, so no saving there.
Maybe the noise in the house and nuisance for neighbours could be another reason for some not to run appliances at night.

I am interested in where you read that a third of average usage is at night?
What is running in the average house during the night using so much electricity?
If it's not fridges then what is it?

I don't think i have anything at all running apart from the fridge and tv/broadband/phones which use very little.
Maybe a half a unit at most, way less than the 3 units unkel says is necessary to break even.

Electricity Unit prices.
15.2 is available on normal day rates.
8.2 is best night rate i can find.

So the gap for electric car charging is not 10 cent per unit, its only 7 cent per unit, which makes a big difference.

So the saving by charging on night rates in toms case is not 120 euro anymore.
if we use the correct figure of 7 cent it is what? Less than 100?

KCross

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Now I am Debating whether it’s worthwhile going to night rate electricity to charge my car at night.

What do ye think,?

Tom, this thread is all over the place and you are no nearer an answer.

It’s fairly easy to work out but it’s different for every house so you need to pull out the last 12 months of bills and tell us how many units you used.

We can take a reasonable guess on your split of day/night but it would also help if you had a monitor that tells you what your background load is or simply go out to your meter and take a reading at midnight and take a new reading at 9am and then you know what the split is.

From there, it’s simple maths as the cost of your 8000km is easily calculated.

Come back with that data and you’ll get a fact based definitive answer.

JPA

Electric Ireland say you need to use 25% of your units at night rate to make a saving.


https://www.electricireland.ie/news/article/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-nightsaver-meter

Sleeper12

JPA wrote:

Electric Ireland say you need to use 25% of your units at night rate to make a saving.

I've been told this by two different companies and bonkers.ie says the same thing.

JohnC.

Are the night rate hours the same across suppliers? I'm not sure if it's even set by them or a network thing.

JPA

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I've been told this by two different companies and bonkers.ie says the same thing.

My point is you'd do this without even planning it, fridge, freezer, kettle, showers. Nevermind washing machines, tumble dryer, dishwasher.

KCross

JPA wrote: »

Electric Ireland say you need to use 25% of your units at night rate to make a saving.


https://www.electricireland.ie/news/article/all-you-need-to-know-about-the-nightsaver-meter

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I've been told this by two different companies and bonkers.ie says the same thing.

Its just a rough guide. It really depends on your usage.

JohnC. wrote: »

Are the night rate hours the same across suppliers? I'm not sure if it's even set by them or a network thing.

Same across all providers, the limitation is the meter as they are pre-programmed with just two times and the providers dont own/install/read the meters so they have no ability to change that.

Smart meter rollout over the next few years will change that though.

Sleeper12

KCross wrote:

Its just a rough guide. It really depends on your usage.

We are heavy users but heavy throughout the day. Even running washing machine, dishwasher & having the immersion on every night during the night rate we'd be miles away from even breaking even. When I eventually get an EV van then things will change but most likely every house in the country will have a smart meter by then.

JPA

Sleeper12 wrote: »

We are heavy users but heavy throughout the day. Even running washing machine, dishwasher & having the immersion on every night during the night rate we'd be miles away from even breaking even. When I eventually get an EV van then things will change but most likely every house in the country will have a smart meter by then.

What are ye doing to use that much electricity?!

Sleeper12

JPA wrote:

What are ye doing to use that much electricity?!

Four adults in the house. It's one of those homes where there is at least one person in the house at any given time. The only difference between daytime use & evening use is we have lights on in the evening but rarely during the day.

NIMAN

Lights are generally irrelevant in the great scheme of things, and definitely not if you have LED bulbs.

JPA

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Four adults in the house. It's one of those homes where there is at least one person in the house at any given time. The only difference between daytime use & evening use is we have lights on in the evening but rarely during the day.

But I'm asking what is being used?

Black_Knight

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Four adults in the house. It's one of those homes where there is at least one person in the house at any given time. The only difference between daytime use & evening use is we have lights on in the evening but rarely during the day.

Anything with an element is going to eat electricity. Electric shower, immersion, kettle, washing machine, drier, dishwasher. some of these can be used at night to save a few quid, but a midnight shower is a bit of a pain.

NIMAN

Think about things that generate heat, thats your big culprits. Obviously.

Some of these you can't use at night rate, or at least not usually. Like electric showers?
Some don't like the idea of a dryer running while they are sleeping.

Sleeper12

My son is a big gamer. Builds his own computer every year or two. He just finished a build. It has the latest & fastest everything & its overclocked too. Build cost is over 3k. I've noticed how much warmer his room has been for the last few weeks. Broadband usage averages 1500 Gb per month. His room alone consumes a lot of juice.

Right now son is gaming in his room, daughter is in her room with a friend either watching TV or gaming & I'm in the sitting room with my wife watching 65" TV. Im watching a DVD but the Sky box is on & the sound always runs through a dedicated DD amp. There is a subwoofer plugged in & turned on. There isn't a light turned on in the house yet as it's afternoon but I'm betting we are using a fair amount of electricity and that's without talking about showers, immersion or boiling a kettle.

NIMAN

Sleeper12 wrote: »

My son is a big gamer. Builds his own computer every year or two. He just finished a build. It has the latest & fastest everything & its overclocked too. Build cost is over 3k. I've noticed how much warmer his room has been for the last few weeks. Broadband usage averages 1500 Gb per month. His room alone consumes a lot of juice.

Right now son is gaming in his room, daughter is in her room with a friend either watching TV or gaming & I'm in the sitting room with my wife watching 65" TV. Im watching a DVD but the Sky box is on & the sound always runs through a dedicated DD amp. There is a subwoofer plugged in & turned on. There isn't a light turned on in the house yet as it's afternoon but I'm betting we are using a fair amount of electricity and that's without talking about showers, immersion or boiling a kettle.

True, but run your dryer for couple hours, or charge your EV for 4hrs and it'll use more than all this combined I'm sure.

n97 mini

My own experience of night rate.

First switched to NR in about 2005. Old analog meter had to be changed to modern digital. No charge.
Immersion on timer, washing machine, dishwasher and (very rarely) tumble dryer all switched over. Savings of around €60 a year. Not much, but savings none the less.

2008, upgraded the gas boiler to a much more efficient one, along with fully zoned plumbing which allows the gas to heat the water only. Also replaced electric cooker with mains gas cooker. With the immersion no longer in use, I examined the electricity bills. We were breaking even sometimes, but other times it would have been cheaper NOT to have night rate.

2009, called energy company, said I wanted to go back to 24hr billing. Long story short, was told there would be a charge to change the meter. I said the meter doesn't need to be changed, just the way I'm billed. ESBN man came out, did nothing except make a note on the system to read the 24hr figure. Asked "Did they tell you there'd be a charge?" and when I gave a positive reply he rolled his eyes. No charge.

2016, in anticipation of getting an EV, called energy company, said I wanted to go back to Night Rate. Long story short, was told there would be a charge to change the meter. I said the meter doesn't need to be changed, just the way I'm billed. ESBN man came out, did nothing except make a note on the system to read the day and night figures. Asked "Did they tell you there'd be a charge?" and when I gave a positive reply he rolled his eyes. No charge.

After 1 year of EV ownership I did the maths. Approx €70 saved from being on night rate.

EDIT: I should add, someone commented on noise of appliances running at night. Currently night ends at 9am. Nothing is running at night, they all run in the morning. Our current day:night usage ratio is around 48:52.

Sleeper12

n97 mini wrote:

After 1 year of EV ownership I did the maths. Approx €70 saved from being on night rate.

How often do you charge the EV at home? I thought your savings would be well in the hundreds.

n97 mini

Sleeper12 wrote: »

How often do you charge the EV at home? I thought your savings would be well in the hundreds.

The savings from running an EV are in the hundreds, because it costs so little per km versus petrol or diesel.

The year we saved €70 by having night rate, we spent approx €100 to charge the car to cover 10,000km. (Not all charging was done at home, but the vast majority)

Sleeper12

n97 mini wrote:

The savings from running an EV are in the hundreds, because it costs so little per km versus petrol or diesel.

I understand that. I figured that you couldn't be charging at home that much with such a small savings on the night rate. I assumed night rate savings in the hundreds for someone charging daily at home. I don't have an EV nor night rate so these assumptions aren't based on personal experience.

n97 mini

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I understand that. I figured that you couldn't be charging at home that much with such a small savings on the night rate. I assumed night rate savings in the hundreds for someone charging daily at home. I don't have an EV nor night rate so these assumptions aren't based on personal experience.

If you need to charge daily, then yes you will probably save hundreds (i.e. €200 or more) as you'll be doing close to the max the range of the car every day, which in an old Leaf24 is ~120-130km, or closer to 200km in an Ioniq. Not a lot of people do that kind of mileage, but I suppose there are a few with long commutes. Our Ampera has a 66km electric-only range and it gets charged every second day.

n97 mini

rolion wrote: »

No offence…. BUT really I wanna see and meet one of you guys that runs washing and dishes and all that noisy machinery in the kitchen at night !!!

"Night" ends at 9am. Our dishwasher (which is virtually silent anyway) starts at 7:30am, washing machine at 8am. In winter they'll start an hour earlier.

tom_tarbucket

Black_Knight wrote: »

It's simple math. 20% would mean 19.2kw required. Say 20kw for losses during charging.
Day rates are what, 18c? Night rates are 8c?
There's €2 in the difference.

Here is my simple maths.

So if I was to charge a car let’s say 300 days of the year

Night Rate : 20kw x 8 cent x 300 nights = 480 Euro
Standard rate: 20kw x 18 cent x 300 nights = 1080 Euro.

The big thing that Jumps out at me here is the actual costs. People are saying you can do 10,000km a year for feck all, 200 Euro or so.

Yet the above does not suggest this at all.

Or maybe I’m doing this wrong?

krissovo

If my math is right for example my I3 is averaging 14.8 KWH per 100kms, x .19 = €2.8

x100 = 10,000 K’s costing €281 using normal rate. There will be some heat loss but you should get the idea.

Pekarirska

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Here is my simple maths.

So if I was to charge a car let’s say 300 days of the year

Night Rate : 20kw x 8 cent x 300 nights = 480 Euro
Standard rate: 20kw x 18 cent x 300 nights = 1080 Euro.

The big thing that Jumps out at me here is the actual costs. People are saying you can do 10,000km a year for feck all, 200 Euro or so.

Yet the above does not suggest this at all.

Or maybe I’m doing this wrong?

You're doing well over 20k km a year if you're putting 20kWh into your car 300 times a year. So yes, the cost would be around €200 a year. And yes again, leave maths to other people

JPA

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Here is my simple maths.

So if I was to charge a car let’s say 300 days of the year

Night Rate : 20kw x 8 cent x 300 nights = 480 Euro
Standard rate: 20kw x 18 cent x 300 nights = 1080 Euro.

The big thing that Jumps out at me here is the actual costs. People are saying you can do 10,000km a year for feck all, 200 Euro or so.

Yet the above does not suggest this at all.

Or maybe I’m doing this wrong?

You are suggesting your battery will be on 0 every single day despite saying you would drive 20- 50 km per day in the OP?

tom_tarbucket

Pekarirska wrote: »

You're doing well over 20k km a year if you're putting 20kWh into your car 300 times a year. So yes, the cost would be around €200 a year. And yes again, leave maths to other people

Fair enough. I am not very familiar with the whole kWh stuff yet. Is there any menu to change the car to kWh per 100km in a gen 1 leaf?

I didn’t notice this when cycling through the menu.

tom_tarbucket

JPA wrote: »

You are suggesting your battery will be on 0 every single day despite saying you would drive 20- 50 km per day in the OP?

Suggesting it’s gone down to 20%

JPA

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Suggesting it’s gone down to 20%

I don't know what this means. In your OP you are talking about a leaf which is down to 80%.

Black_Knight

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Suggesting it’s gone down to 20%

Still. You're making too many assumptions in your calculations.

How many kilometres can your leaf do on a full battery?
Divide that into your annual mileage (8000km).
This is how many full charges your car needs every year. A full charge for your leaf is 24kw (ok there's probably some battery degradation but I'm no expert so I'm not going to try factor that in), so 24kw * the number of full charges = the total power required to keep your car running all year.
Finally, multiply that number by your night or 24hr kWh rate. That's YOUR fuel costs.

Saying you need to charge 300 nights of the year from 20% to 100%, yet you only do 8000km a year does not compute.

Black_Knight

JPA wrote: »

I don't know what this means. In your OP you are talking about a leaf which is down to 80%.

He earlier wanted to know how much electricity used in charging the car from 20% to 100%. Suggesting that he'd charge when the car reached 20%.

A level of confusion has likely set in.

Padraig Mor

rolion wrote: »

No offence…. BUT really I wanna see and meet one of you guys that runs washing and dishes and all that noisy machinery in the kitchen at night !!!
I hate the coffee grinder noise at 6am , not even talking about spinning machinery... dreams !!!

As someone who can't sleep with even the hint of noise, and whose bedroom is directly over the kitchen, the dishwasher (set for ~3am) is no problem at all. Washing machine a bit noisier on spin cycle, so it's set to finish around getting up time.

n97 mini wrote:

"Night" ends at 9am. Our dishwasher (which is virtually silent anyway) starts at 7:30am, washing machine at 8am. In winter they'll start an hour earlier.

The 9 hour night rate here is much handier than the UK, where they only get 7 hours - allows you to get morning showers (if electric) and perhaps breakfast etc at half price.


I have a night meter for a good while now. I was running at a pretty steady 44% night use (I believe 25/30% is break even) when mostly charging at work. Work chargers now too busy for regular use so using home charger more but haven't checked night rate use in a while.

charlieIRL

If you only charged your EV (e-golf) on night rate would it still be worth changing to night rate? Herself won’t turn on anything at night and rightly so - our dishwasher went on fire a few years ago, thankfully it was during the evening and we were there when it happened.

Edit - I’ll be charging the car at work during the day, only need to charge at home at weekends.

Mickeroo

charlieIRL wrote: »

If you only charged your EV (e-golf) on night rate would it still be worth changing to night rate? Herself won’t turn on anything at night and rightly so - our dishwasher went on fire a few years ago, thankfully it was during the evening and we were there when it happened.

Yes, if the EV is the only thing you use at night it will still work out as a saving.

tom_tarbucket

KCross wrote: »

Tom, this thread is all over the place and you are no nearer an answer.

It’s fairly easy to work out but it’s different for every house so you need to pull out the last 12 months of bills and tell us how many units you used.

We can take a reasonable guess on your split of day/night but it would also help if you had a monitor that tells you what your background load is or simply go out to your meter and take a reading at midnight and take a new reading at 9am and then you know what the split is.

From there, it’s simple maths as the cost of your 8000km is easily calculated.

Come back with that data and you’ll get a fact based definitive answer.

This thread is indeed all over the place.
The link below has a screen grab of my usage over the last year and a half.
My bill averages out at about 180 every 2 months.

https://imgur.com/a/7Kul4Xp

KCross

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

This thread is indeed all over the place.
The link below has a screen grab of my usage over the last year and a half.
My bill averages out at about 180 every 2 months.

https://imgur.com/a/7Kul4Xp

ok, thats useful. 5200 units... which is quite large. Average Irish household uses about 3500 so you are a high user.

The next piece of information is crucial to decide if its worth it for you or not and it was in my previous post... "... go out to your meter and take a reading at midnight and take a new reading at 9am and then you know what the split is. "


Do that tonight and report back what the readings were.

Then we'll do the calculations of what it would cost/save you exactly to switch to day/night rate and then also add in the EV stats to see what effect that has.


Everything else is just speculation until you provide that figure.

tom_tarbucket

KCross wrote: »

ok, thats useful. 5200 units... which is quite large. Average Irish household uses about 3500 so you are a high user.

The next piece of information is crucial to decide if its worth it for you or not and it was in my previous post... "... go out to your meter and take a reading at midnight and take a new reading at 9am and then you know what the split is. "


Do that tonight and report back what the readings were.

Then we'll do the calculations of what it would cost/save you exactly to switch to day/night rate and then also add in the EV stats to see what effect that has.


Everything else is just speculation until you provide that figure.

right, so I am a good bit above average, no surprise really with the other half at home all day and heating on during the day a lot during winter, which also needs power.

Will report back on this.

Thanks.

Black_Knight

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

right, so I am a good bit above average, no surprise really with the other half at home all day and heating on during the day a lot during winter, which also needs power.

Will report back on this.

Thanks.

You're heating is electric? Do you have storage heaters or just on/off/timed heaters? Id only guess electric heating is terribly inefficient, and would be coming on during the night. If so, more savings during the colder months if on a night meter.


Great advise from kcross above regarding tracking night usage, though as mentioned moving washing/drying to night time can give more savings on a night rate. Guess we'll try make our best guess based on your usage figures.

tom_tarbucket

Black_Knight wrote: »

You're heating is electric? Do you have storage heaters or just on/off/timed heaters? Id only guess electric heating is terribly inefficient, and would be coming on during the night. If so, more savings during the colder months if on a night meter.


Great advise from kcross above regarding tracking night usage, though as mentioned moving washing/drying to night time can give more savings on a night rate. Guess we'll try make our best guess based on your usage figures.

No. Heating is oil. But the oil boiler needs some power. Then a pellet burner, again needs power. All adds up when someone in house all day during cold weather.

n97 mini

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

No. Heating is oil. But the oil boiler needs some power. Then a pellet burner, again needs power. All adds up when someone in house all day during cold weather.

The biggest electrical loads are the ones that use electricity to generate heat: immersion, tumble dryer, etc. A friend has very high bills because his wife won't allow a clothes line as apparently drying clothes look unsightly, so everything is tumble dried.

NIMAN

Some people are daft

tom_tarbucket

KCross wrote: »

ok, thats useful. 5200 units... which is quite large. Average Irish household uses about 3500 so you are a high user.

The next piece of information is crucial to decide if its worth it for you or not and it was in my previous post... "... go out to your meter and take a reading at midnight and take a new reading at 9am and then you know what the split is. "


Do that tonight and report back what the readings were.

Then we'll do the calculations of what it would cost/save you exactly to switch to day/night rate and then also add in the EV stats to see what effect that has.


Everything else is just speculation until you provide that figure.

Hi

reading at midnight last night = 65,291.9
reading at 9am this morning = 65,294.8

Black_Knight

tom_tarbucket wrote: »

Hi

reading at midnight last night = 65,291.9
reading at 9am this morning = 65,294.8

so... 1095kw used over a year (I rounded up to 3units).

I'm gonna use electric Ireland rates.
Night is €0.0983 a unit
Day is €0.1990 a unit
24 hour is €0.1865 a unit.
Standing charge looks to be about €60 more on night rate.

Estimated KW used by a leaf doing 8000km
I'm no expert, but i'm going to say your leaf will get 100km per charge (guessing based on the battery health you've mentioned)
That's 80 charges a year, using 20kw a charge. That's 1600kWh required.

24 hour rate estimates
5200units at €0.1865 a unit = €969.8
1600units at €0.1865 a unit = €298.4
Total = €1268.20

Night/day rate estimates
1095units at €0.0983 a unit = €107.64
4105units at €0.1990 a unit = €816.89
1600units at €0.0983 a unit = €157.28
Increased standing charge = €60
Total = €1141.81

Start running a few more things at night and you'll see some more savings.
Start driving more and you'll see more savings.

With those figures, go to bonkers.ie and fill out their energy usage form. Find yourself an energy provider that suits you best, I just picked Electric ireland at random.

tom_tarbucket

Thank you black night for the good info.
Food for thought.
Potential savings of 127 Euro. Maybe up to 200 If I use more things at night.

But then have the cost of most likely having to move back to 24 hour meter when I move................. and that can cost about 200 euro. (rented house)

Does anybody know about this move back to standard rate - does the fee only have to be paid if you dont stay with a provider for a year? or do you have to pay it regardless of how long you are with them?

Mickeroo

I don't see why you would be liable to switch the metre back when you move out tbh.

tom_tarbucket

Mickeroo wrote: »

I don't see why you would be liable to switch the metre back when you move out tbh.

you reckon?
Suppose it could be like this, but not sure.