Best Electricity Plan for new EV Owners

Our method is to spin them before putting in the dryer. Outside when possible. Basically minimise dryer use. But as others have said sometimes you've only got a narrow window to do it.

Maybe we should start a new thread. I'm curious enough to be interested in an efficient means of drying clothes in our damp cold weather.

Try the internal dehumidifier with a clothes horse before installing any fancy machinery. I've been using it for years, got a bit of mould before from just drying indoors even with windows open but a simple dehumidifier does the job great. I move it around the house a little bit even apart from clothes drying just to purify the air and keep the place smelling fresh .

100% agree.

There are energy efficient ones on the market that cost peanuts to run.

In my experience (which would echo the others above ) they are amazing and we wouldn’t be without one .

eco air dessicant is what we have and it’s excellent. Around 300 on Amazon

There's 2 main types of dehumidifier, compressor or dessicant.

The compressor ones usually use a lot less energy than dessicant variants, between about a third to a half as much. A decent sized compressor dehumidifier consumes around 200w while an equivalent dessicant is around 600w. Smaller machines of either kind will consume a bit less but might not do the job as well.

Compressors work best if room temperature is typically around 15 degrees or above, but some better ones can work well as far as 10 degrees. They don't add much heat to a room since they're relatively low energy consumers. Dessicant dehumidifiers are much better than compressors at lower temperatures (e.g. colder house or garage) as they're not refrigerant based and don't get iced up at low temps. They also have the added benefit of helping to heat the room they're in due to the higher energy consumption, but obviously costs more to run.

So the choice is dependent on where you're using it - if it's a reasonably warm room/house you'll use it in then a compressor will work well and be cheaper to run. If it's a cooler room/house then a dessicant will work better, will help heat the room but cost more to run.

I bought mine online from CH Marine also - 5 year warranty for the Meaco is good too.

Fcuk that's a great saving, including the standing charge that usage would cost me €400. I'd never be able to shift that many units into the 4 hour window unfortunately, I'm still tempted to go for that plan, maybe they'll drop the 36c a small bit more🫣

Averaging almost 100kwh per day in Winter seems extremely high? Would you empty a large battery EV daily? Any idea of what your heat pump is consuming itself?

I think for any non battery folk that 14c flogs rate is probably your best bet for load shifting to night. I run my heat pump and any EV charging on it. (Lucky enough to have free charging at work so can't complain bit probably need 1 full charge per week outside of work) Recently bought 20L dehumidifier also. Not much else by night bar maybe dishwasher. But in total thats then 50% usage on night rate.

Day rate is 33c so not crippling. 17 x 435w panels going in next week. Would love a battery but if a few big jobs lined up for next year so it will have to wait. But id have to go 15kwh battery at least for that pinenergy rate to make sense.

in my house speed was definitely prioritised by the boss :)

What size battery?

Is the invertor the bottleneck for charging the battery? What type is it?

Surely Energia 2-6am would allow you to charge car and battery and at a cheaper rate? I charge both then and run appliances etc

FYI

I signed up to an Energia Smart Plan last week, heard nothing from them since.

When I called to chase it up, they told me it wasn't being processed due to "an industry wide issue with Day/Night Smart Meters not integrating correctly with suppliers' billing systems". That's the MCC02 meters which they started installing in September.

In any case, they processed my signup on the phone, and gave me 15% discount as opposed to the 10% discount online.

Don't know what the plan is called, but 36c day, 17c night (2300-0800) and 24c FIT all inc VAT.

We'll be mostly charging EV at night at 17c, selling surplus solar to grid at 24c. At least until we pass the tax threshold of 1600kWh exported. After that it may pay to charge from the solar. Can also charge once a week at work which will help. Mileage approx 30k/year, Kona 64.

I am just curious why you didn't go with the smart EV plan with 4 hours @ 8 cent?

A modern heat pump dryer will take 3:30 to dry 8kgs of washed and spun towelling. They use a third of the power of a vented dryer they also operate at a lower temperature.

They are essentially enclosed dehumidifiers, which is funny when people recommend room dehumidifiers over them.