iboost+ and trying to work out if there is a fault using too much power.

[ericmark]

I could turn it off, but my hunt for why we are using so much background power is on going, so I am trying to work out why background use is at moment 416 watts, we are both sitting in our bedrooms, wife playing on phone and myself on laptop.

So I have three plug-in energy monitors, one manual, one monitor only and one monitor and can also switch on/off. The main background use has to be freezers, and fridges, we have 5, the chest freezer has the remote monitor on it at the moment, and average use is 25 watt, run power 65 watt, and this is likely the most power hungry of the 5, so if all running together 325 watt, average 125 watt, so this does not explain the background use.

The peak was when I had a shower, but the software seems to smooth out some spikes, as it is not showing the 3 kW when making coffee, and have made 3 cups of coffee today. For a year now I have been moving my energy monitor around hunting for why background is so high, we have had power cuts, so any computer would have closed down, so two printers on line, one inkjet, one laser, there are SkyQ boxes, the router, three hubs, clocks, including smart central heating control, but these should be no more than one watt each, 4 TV's the same.

Clearly not worried about cooker, microwave, washing machines etc, we know when they are running, we are actively reducing stuff in the freezers, but the main aim is to reduce background use so we can from sun down to 1 am run on 2.88 kWh, this is how much my 3.2 kWh battery will allow us to use, it holds back 10% for UPS use.

Using my clamp on meter, 1.8 amp approx, whole CU, (414 watts) turn off the 16 amp RCBO to immersion drops to 1.5 amp (354 watts) and the solar display did not change, 325 watt, until I returned to PC when it jumped to 493 watt. So it does seem there is a large delay with the solar panel display,

However, before going down to measure with clamp on the iboost+ said "Water tank hot" and on return also "Water tank hot" which means the thermostat on the immersion has turned off. So something on the DHW RCBO is using around 90 watt. So switched off next to tank, when down to measure 1.34 amps, (308 watt) so it does seem the iboost+ may well be using 90 watt even when tank is hot, clearly 90 watt 24/7 x 365 is a lot of power. Specially in the winter months, when the iboost+ never turns on.

So two things, one has anyone else measured what the iboost+ uses when reporting tank hot, and if I turn it off in Winter, will it loose connection to the CT coil?

Note:- The solar panel software is likely monitoring three freezers and central heating, but the clamp on is not, as they don't come from the CU but direct from inverter. It does seem a large delay with the solar software, but the smart meter display is useless, just shows exporting.

 

[fourtytwo]

Ohh for the days of an analogue meter with a spinning disk, you could watch those creeping around to see if there was any parasitic consumption going on but now we are stuck with all this so called smart crap although along with most things what is supposed to be smart about it I cannot fathom.
So I wonder if you are having trouble because of the way the Iboost controls the immersion current, having never seen the innards of one I do not know if it uses a triac/thyristor in burst-fire mode or a Mosfet/IGBT in PWM mode in either case you clamp meter may be sensitive to what it is doing and consequentially display erroneous results.

Where does the graph come from, your inverter ?

 

[big-all]

so any computer would have closed down, so two printers on line, one inkjet, one laser, there are SkyQ boxes, the router, three hubs, clocks, including smart central heating control, but these should be no more than one watt each, 4 TV's the same.

a very wrong assumption anything that is internet connected or seeking content when off can be using perhaps an average 10w
a couple off years ago i changed three tvs i had to disable internet function that i wasnt using to reduce the running consuption by about 1/3[21-14w] but even then would randomly draw 10w or there about when off so automatically unplug every tv
all information gleamed using an energene monitor only a single item plugged in and visual readings' no dialled in or average stored within the moniter used

 

[ericmark]

To @fourtytwo Yes, graph is from inverter. I know the iboost+ feeds the immersion heater with DC, and it can feed it a varying amount of power. It is not in hindsight really required, as once we have the export tariff sorted, the amount we pay zero to 5 am is less than what we get for export during the day, so it would be more cost-effective to have a simple timer and heat the water overnight.

However, now fitted, not going to swap it for a timer just to save a few pence. It will need some testing when the sun is not shining to be sure if using power.

Had not thought about the clamp on giving wrong readings, I have a second one, so can compare. I have noted the smart meter, solar software, and clamp on do not show exactly the same result. The solar uses a China based unit to process some of the data, and know as a result there is a time delay, so software can show importing and getting solar at the same time, as some data delayed and other data real time.

As to smart meter, I tried to read it direct, and it seems I have to press a button to scroll through the data, but in real terms no idea what I am looking at, the solar data may be a few minutes behind, but the smart meter on the phone has for the first time today since being fitted, shown power used today. but lacks time, yesterday more realistic. It cost £2.42 yesterday, of which 59.14p was standing charge, is it really worth worrying about power used, when it cost £1.83? It says max spend £0.32, so that's the cost of having a shower. The inverter can't supply all the power to have a shower, so today 3.410 kW was drawn from the grid for me to have a shower, it shows it used 6.522 kW I am sure my shower is at least 8 kW which is why I realise can't really trust the solar software to be spot on.

As to @big-all to be frank, 10 watt not worth worrying about, what I am looking at is 1.340 amps or 308 watts which does not include the freezers, I can account for 50 watt on stand-by equipment. But 300 watt is going a bit OTT, and I would like it to drop to a level where the battery lasts until cheap rate starts.

As again to smart meter, it shows direct debit of £81.35, and a account balance of +£740.31 and used in June £38.19 including standing charge, £20.45 without, I thought the whole idea of smart meters was you only paid what required, now I know idea is charge more in summer so you have same charge in winter, but I look at the year so far and I think they are holding far too much of my money, think I would perfer to see it in my bank not British Gas's bank.

 

[old duffer]

I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of saying that electricity "flows"

 

[ericmark]

I'm still trying to get my head around the concept of saying that electricity "flows"

I suppose electric flows into household and money flows out.

But yes, when it changes at 50 Hz I suppose one can't really say it flows, the power flows, the current does not flow. I take it you're a student of English? What I want to do is decimate my electrical usage, does that mean reduce it to 90% of the original? Maybe I should learn my native language, Welsh?

 

[fourtytwo]

Yes, graph is from inverter. I know the iboost+ feeds the immersion heater with DC

I would hope not or your thermostat will arc and burn!
I don't understand your statement in original post that inverter directly feeds the freezers, I assume you have a GTI connected in the normal way to the household wiring so it feeds anything connected not just freezers unless you have some custom inverter, if so please can we know what it is ?
It seems you are measuring with many different devices and expecting them to agree, that will never happen, inverters are notoriously inaccurate and so are cheap clamp and plug in power meters particularly when faced with unusual waveforms and power factors.
The ultimate arbiter of how much energy you are paying for is your electricity meter so you should find ways to use that to measure your consumption and ignore everything else.
Apart from the indoor display for smart meters, electronic meters have a led that in my case flashes 1000 times/Kwh (so one flash = 1Wh) and this can be captured with a phototransistor and the simple maths done in a micro-controller to display semi-realtime watts consumed (or you could sit there with a stopwatch & calculator).
I know from my own experience it is frustrating the indoor display does not show export watts and even more frustrating the data on the meters LCD display is both very difficult to access and on the whole crap, having a resolution of only 1Kwh.

 

[ericmark]

The inverter

and the UPS supply from the inverter is fed with SWA to the kitchen, where it supplies three freezers, so the tails to the CU do not carry the supply to freezers, or the central heating, which with a loss of grid power will continue to work.

And yes, the iboost+ feeds the immersion heater with DC. Since not seen it supply it at over a kW, seems unlikely a thermostat designed for 3 kW would have a problem, however you are correct, and I was also surprised to find it supplied DC, however pulsed at 100 Hz is it really any different to AC?

Counting the times LED flashes is not my idea of fun, and how do you know which direction power is flowing? Yes, there is an independent export meter, but that is hardly going to help.

 

[fourtytwo]

Ahh so not a plain GTI then, missing information! Here is an article about arcs that is easy to access https://deringerney.com/ac-vs-dc-arc-extinguishment/ as you can see pulsed DC is not as good as AC but it is somewhat dependent on the dwell time.
As for your missing power presumably the chart is the total of all outputs (both to grid, micro-grid & battery) and may simply be inverter input power.
Do you have an indoor display for your smartmeter that shows actual realtime watts consumed or only that daily bargraph thing for your phone ?

I should add I have a tariff where I pay for exactly what I use every month

 

[ericmark]

I do have an in home display, for all the good it is, during most of my awake hours, it shows how much I am exporting, or is flashing between import and export when the battery is powering things, as dusk has arrived, it may have a short time when battery has reached 10% when it does show power being used, but as the off-peak tariff kicks in, it shows the battery recharging at 3 kW, so unlikely one can see an extra 90 watt.

Freddy Boswell speaks with a forked tongue, tried clapping my hands, it does nothing, hey google turn on living room lights works well, but that is nothing to do with a smart meter, that's down to the Google Nest Mini's. What a load of betony, having a smart meter allows me to have an EV tariff so does save me money, and in the future I hope it will mean being paid for exported power. But all the things which the adverts say, are fiction, and I can't understand why the ASA has not stopped the advert I have no idea, it is far worse than the Mars bar advert or that beer one that said it does you good.