Earth Notes: Saving Electricity and Gas (2018)

2018

2018 data (kWh: e used 1998, e gen -3806, g 3980).

Off-grid 83.0kWh captured by primary (MPPT) solar controller.

See the daily PV generation logs for 2018 as .csv and .png chart.

See gas use kWh and heating degree days (HDD) by time for 2018 as .csv and .png chart.

See gas kWh vs heating degree days (HDD) regression for 2018 as .png chart.

2018-02: this is the coldest February here at 16WW while I have been monitoring. But we're nowhere near our highest gas use, thanks to insulation and to Radbot/OpenTRV!

2018-04-03: according to @Zapaman, ~26.8% of [16WW] household energy is from renewables, 8.1% from nuclear and hence a total 34.8% from low carbon energy.

2018-05-07: on the hottest day over the Early May Bank Holiday weekend (ie since 1978) it is ~27°C in our shaded porch. A snapshot of heating performance from Pilio shows R^2=0.94 and a slope of ~2kWh/HDD (at 15.5°C baseline).

2018-06-10: ignoring the daytime PV flows showing up as consumption, the implication of my fine-grained Loop meter data is that overnight our vampire load is ~80--90W. Though that's likely not very accurate. It includes ~10W for the SmartThings monitoring that I use to cross-check OpenTRV devices. It probably excludes ~16W for the networking gear, since it's been mainly off-grid. Maybe ~40W is from the fridge, leaving ~40W for all other vampires. Still a little higher than I'd like, but not too shabby. (And possibly a figment of the Loop meter's imagination anyway!)

2018-07-10: I am contemplating grid-attached storage again. In principle something Tesla Powerwall 2 size should retain any generation for use in the house October to February inclusive, so no exports. Equally, such a beast should avoid any imports March to September. That relies on the storage system having both enough energy (kWh) and power (kW) capacity to absorb most/all generated PV and cover all loads. But a much smaller unit may get much of the same effect, maybe even as small as 1kWh/260W such as the Enphase AC Battery.

Notice how the 'excess' generation in June alone (a little under 500kWh) is about the same as the electricity deficit Oct to Feb inclusive... A mere 10t of containerised lithium battery could cover it. (Self-discharge of <3%/M helps.)

2018-07-26: DUKES Chapter 5 table 5D "Estimated carbon dioxide emissions from electricity supplied 2015 to 2017" shows tCO2/GWh (equivalently gCO2/kWh) of 335, 265, and 225. Those are different to those produced for the Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI). Those numbers may not include transmission and distribution losses. It may be time to revisit the weightings applied to electricity and gas for computing 16WW overall energy footprint.

An Enphase AC Battery was fitted a couple of days ago, and seems to be working as intended. The night flows seem to have been reduced by about 20W according the Loop, and the Enlighten interface indicates less than ~20W of overnight consumption. (It is not yet clear if that is actual gross consumption or residual grid imports, though is probably the former.)

Looking at Enlighten I also see that my synthetic load pattern for our dishwasher is roughly confirmed. Looking at Loop I see various events including ~3kWh of gas for a bath for one of the kids this evening.

2018-08-28: looking at PV generation and exports in the morning, I see generation start at about 05:30:

20180828T03:00Z 0
20180828T05:32Z 6
20180828T05:33Z 9
20180828T05:34Z 9
20180828T05:35Z 10
20180828T05:36Z 11
20180828T05:37Z 12
20180828T05:38Z 11
20180828T05:39Z 12
20180828T05:40Z 11
...
20180828T07:00Z 170
20180828T07:01Z 177
20180828T07:02Z 206
20180828T07:03Z 227
20180828T07:04Z 244
20180828T07:05Z 259
20180828T07:06Z 275
20180828T07:07Z 284
20180828T07:08Z 293
20180828T07:09Z 301

Generation exceeds the capacity of the Enphase AC Battery to absorb it (and so starts to spill to grid) about 1.5h later:

20180828T06:59Z consumption.readingTime 1535439530 consumption.net.wNow 21.79 consumption.total.wNow 197.884 production.wNow 176.094 storage.percentFull 41 storage.wNow -154 storage.readingTime 1535439384
20180828T07:04Z consumption.readingTime 1535439830 consumption.net.wNow 5.823 consumption.total.wNow 269.748 production.wNow 263.925 storage.percentFull 42 storage.wNow -157 storage.readingTime 1535439688
20180828T07:09Z consumption.readingTime 1535440130 consumption.net.wNow -45.651 consumption.total.wNow 281.107 production.wNow 326.758 storage.percentFull 43 storage.wNow -256 storage.readingTime 1535439989
20180828T07:14Z consumption.readingTime 1535440430 consumption.net.wNow -91.038 consumption.total.wNow 293.419 production.wNow 384.457 storage.percentFull 45 storage.wNow -269 storage.readingTime 153544028

Note that in August, due to worries about travel problems after a messy Brexit, we suspended our normal travel rule and flew to Majorca. The flights generated ~1tCO2 in total (ie four return flights), or ~2tCO2e including radiative forcing effects.

While we were away at the end of August, with almost everything possible turned off, base consumption was ~1.6kWh/d (1.4--1.8kWh/d), with a large excess of generation each day, and residual imports of ~0.16kWh/d. Minimum load (ie with fridge not running) ~20W.

With a flattish load (fridge/freezer largely) and ~12h/d useful PV generation, 0.8kWh/d imports would be expected, as seen last year. Reduction by ~80% ie ~0.65kWh/d is thus quite good! Another way of looking at this is self-consumption rising from ~50% to ~90%, almost as if the sun still shone at night!

Some software tweaks were also made to the off-grid system to work in concert with the Enphase which may have the effect of adding as much as 0.1kWh/d extra import avoidance. The overall first priority is to minimise imports (or maximise exports) to the grid when grid carbon intensity is high. The next priority is to minimise total imports and thus grid flows. Each of these two may save carbon emissions from electricity generation.

2018-10: shading from the regrowing tree to our south-east is causing some dip in mid-morning generation, as it did before the trim.

2018-11-26: I note from supply/generation meter reading tonight that over the last week, while total generation has been a very feeble ~10kWh, only ~2kWh was exported. So the Enphase battery is doing a decent job of maximising self-consumption, minimising wasteful export and re-import.