Power bill

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Nightjar

Nightjar

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Home-Waikiki, Prospect-Leonora
Increasing household power bills are in discussions frequently, interested to hear how members are fairing.
Synergy is our supplier in the West and they recently sent info for householders to compare their power bills in equal circumstances.
We don't skimp on airconditioner usage, washing machine and dishwasher, garden bore run for and hour on every allotted day & some.
Two adults, 4x2 with two bathrooms.
The average power bill for same number of occupants and home dimensions in our area is $350.00.
We were all smiles when our latest bill arrived $153.00.
For the gurus out there, how can the average bill be $200 more than what we runup. What could these other couples be running to boost their power usage?
 
We have solar panels and we only use the air con, washing machine etc during the day and we don’t get the 40cents per kw off as some do. Our bill was $125 and happy with that. However, remember if you are thinking of jumping from one supplier to another , there are penalties . Cheers Mackka
 
Our quarterly power bill is around $300.
No solar. All electric stuff like stove, water heater etc.
Skimpy on Aircon, only use it when the heat is up there, mid 30's.
 
No solar panels, 3 living in the house, 2 fridges, 500 litres freezer and heaps of crap on standby power, bills up around 700.00 a quarter for the main house. Better than 1400.00 when everyone lived at home and left on lights, AC units, heater panels 🙄 the list goes on. Plus the beach house and the B&B along with the bore pump in total 4 metres, 3 at home (2 dwellings 1 bore pump) plus the beach house.

To put solar panels on the main house isn't worth the effort, we're considering knocking it down and rebuilding. The B&B is on the cards for solar the bore pump metre has been disconnected. If we don't rebuild solar will definitely go on the main house, if we rebuild it will be totally off grid.
 
Last edited:
Nightjar said:
Increasing household power bills are in discussions frequently, interested to hear how members are fairing.
Synergy is our supplier in the West and they recently sent info for householders to compare their power bills in equal circumstances.
We don't skimp on airconditioner usage, washing machine and dishwasher, garden bore run for and hour on every allotted day & some.
Two adults, 4x2 with two bathrooms.
The average power bill for same number of occupants and home dimensions in our area is $350.00.
We were all smiles when our latest bill arrived $153.00.
For the gurus out there, how can the average bill be $200 more than what we runup. What could these other couples be running to boost their power usage?
Click to expand...
I have a twenty year on three bed two bath house. Early last year I spent 6k on a solar system. My E bill used to be around $350 my last was under $5. I live in Townsville so a,c, is on all night. I am very happy with it so far
 
RM Outback said:
No solar panels, 3 living in the house, 2 fridges, 500 litres freezer and heaps of crap on standby power, bills up around 700.00 a quarter for the main house. Better than 1400.00 when everyone lived at home and left on lights, AC units, heater panels 🙄 the list goes on. Plus the beach house and the B&B along with the bore pump in total 4 metres, 3 at home (2 dwellings 1 bore pump) plus the beach house.

To put solar panels on the main house isn't worth the effort, we're considering knocking it down and rebuilding. The B&B is on the cards for solar the bore pump metre has been disconnected. If we don't rebuild solar will definitely go on the main house, if we rebuild it will be totally off grid.
Click to expand...
Due to the price rises over here I found that running the average Fridge Freezer from Solar saved 560/700w per day ( MY ) Old style fridge ( 20 Years Old )was chewing 1068w in the Summer months ), so if you just ran your fridges and freezer from solar you could save up to 2kwh per day or 182.5 kwh per quarter and if you have good sun hours you could have power to spare, with 1000w / 2000w of panels you could make a lot of power during the daylight hours,

Even over here my brother using 2X 260w-24v panels in Series is making up to 3kwh+ in about 5 to 6 hours, So with the Sun you get and the extra hours you could make 8 to 10 Kwh per day easy,

Having spent the last 3 and a bit years testing this stuff I found the the two biggest Power Chewers are Fridges and freezers or combo's and Flat screen TV's over 32" / 80cm's which chew around 40-45w per hour on the Eco setting and the larger 48" /120cm' TV's chew around 75w per hour in the normal mode, I just bought a Smart TV for the Van with a built in Satellite Tuner plus over 160 built in channels and it Chews around 19 / 21 watts which will run on 12v / 24vDC and 100 v / 240v DC, The point I am making is I have now matched all of my appliances to suit my Solar Power production and all of them can run from a 1000w inverter from the SoGen. 👍
 
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Ridge Runner said:
Due to the price rises over here I found that running the average Fridge Freezer from Solar saved 560/700w per day ( MY ) Old style fridge ( 20 Years Old )was chewing 1068w in the Summer months ), so if you just ran your fridges and freezer from solar you could save up to 2kwh per day or 182.5 kwh per quarter and if you have good sun hours you could have power to spare, with 1000w / 2000w of panels you could make a lot of power during the daylight hours,

Even over here my brother using 2X 260w-24v panels in Series is making up to 3kwh+ in about 5 to 6 hours, So with the Sun you get and the extra hours you could make 8 to 10 Kwh per day easy,

Having spent the last 3 and a bit years testing this stuff I found the the two biggest Power Chewers are Fridges and freezers or combo's and Flat screen TV's over 32" / 80cm's which chew around 40-45w per hour on the Eco setting and the larger 48" /120cm' TV's chew around 75w per hour in the normal mode, I just bought a Smart TV for the Van with a built in Satellite Tuner plus over 160 built in channels and it Chews around 19 / 21 watts which will run on 12v / 24vDC and 100 v / 240v DC, The point I am making is I have now matched all of my appliances to suit my Solar Power production and all of them can run from a 1000w inverter from the SoGen. 👍
Click to expand...
Yes RR, they have been saying for yearsthat fridges and freezers are the colprits but air con is a big user in Qld. We run our off solar till the sun goes down and then turn it off. We are paying more for electricity due to the war and I am calling bullshi$. We are paying more because of closures of coal fired generators and so called new energy. Gas prices in some states are expected to rise 40%+ in the near future, why, because the owners, not the gov’t, can sell it for higher profits overseas due to “the War”. The local market can get stuffed. It don’t understand why the gov’tdoesn’t have control of its resources , but I am getting older and getting to the stage of just becoming and old whinging fart. Mackka
 
as the days are getting shorter now, our solar on the roof (5.6kw) of the house made 33.2kw today, back in December/Jan during the longer days the solar was making 39 to 40kw per day, and on average we use 10kw of this and the rest gets sent to the grid, now at 0.12cents per KW since we have just changed providers, before we were getting 0.05cents/kw for the most part, and our power bill should be just about zero from now on, the last bill from the previous provider was $122.00 for the quarter
 
Mackka said:
Yes RR, they have been saying for yearsthat fridges and freezers are the colprits but air con is a big user in Qld. We run our off solar till the sun goes down and then turn it off. We are paying more for electricity due to the war and I am calling bullshi$. We are paying more because of closures of coal fired generators and so called new energy. Gas prices in some states are expected to rise 40%+ in the near future, why, because the owners, not the gov’t, can sell it for higher profits overseas due to “the War”. The local market can get stuffed. It don’t understand why the gov’tdoesn’t have control of its resources , but I am getting older and getting to the stage of just becoming and old whinging fart. Mackka
Click to expand...
No Macka, I don't think it is whinging or Age related, I think it is more about doing the right thing towards your fellow man and not exploiting the situations from other parts of the globe,, Here peoples power bills have risen to over $9000.00 a year But it has hardly had an impact on me coz I bought low watt appliances and changed how I live, And the Power companies even tried to investigate me and photograph my Meters incase I had bypassed them, LOL,

Thing Is they sent out a book on how to save power so I followed it to the letter and when my power bill dropped they investigated me and hassled me every week at one point for about 6 weeks, And that started my war with them, Now on average my daily power usage is between 600 to 850watts so now they get even less money and I can still go lower,

Before they put up the price of the power PLUS the daily standing Charge my Quarterly power bill was around $40.00 now it's about $120.00.

I just wish someone would make them pull their heads In.
 
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davsgold said:
as the days are getting shorter now, our solar on the roof (5.6kw) of the house made 33.2kw today, back in December/Jan during the longer days the solar was making 39 to 40kw per day, and on average we use 10kw of this and the rest gets sent to the grid, now at 0.12cents per KW since we have just changed providers, before we were getting 0.05cents/kw for the most part, and our power bill should be just about zero from now on, the last bill from the previous provider was $122.00 for the quarter
Click to expand...
Today at just after 11.00am my brothers 2X 260w @ 520w panels wired in series are putting out the massive total of 20watts, so unless the Sun gets brighter it is going to take about 45 to 50 hours to charge up his 1800wh Sogen from Half Full. So he is only making 3.84% of the power they can produce, 😢😭😭😭
 
RR, your brother need more solar panels

we have 14x400w = 5600w and a 5kw inverter

next step is a big battery to harvest and store the excess power during the day and use it at night time so we won't have to buy back our own power we export to the grid during the day at 12cents a unit and buy it back at night for 34cents a unit.

and like you say the standing daily charge to have the metres is now outrageous at $1.65 per day
 
davsgold said:
as the days are getting shorter now, our solar on the roof (5.6kw) of the house made 33.2kw today, back in December/Jan during the longer days the solar was making 39 to 40kw per day, and on average we use 10kw of this and the rest gets sent to the grid, now at 0.12cents per KW since we have just changed providers, before we were getting 0.05cents/kw for the most part, and our power bill should be just about zero from now on, the last bill from the previous provider was $122.00 for the quarter
Click to expand...
We have 10 panels and inverter, where or how do you find info on how much solar power being produced. Nothing shows on our bill?
 
g'day Nightjar, on our power bill it just shows how much solar we exported to the grid, on your/well on our inverter itself the digital screen shows how much solar was generated in total and scroll through the screens it shows how much was generated for the day (today) as well.

our inverter is WiFi and connected to our internet (modem) and we have an App that also show how much was generated for the day and you can scroll back through the days and months etc

for the day here so far
1679269284120.png
cheers dave
 

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