Habeck claims anyone could quite easily use 10% less energy

[MikeMelga 7,345]

3 hours ago, mtbiking said:

we’ve never had mould problems. Our houses have always been OK insolated, how much gas do you use per year? We used 22 MWh in 2020 and 2021 for a 188 m2 living area, so 117 kWh/m2. This year we’re using less but I’ll wait until January until I can tell for sure by exactly how much.

Unsure about amount of gas, but my bill is around 700€. Which is great for a 150sqm house with 3 fronts!

[scook17 292]

3 hours ago, mtbiking said:

we’ve never had mould problems. Our houses have always been OK insolated, how much gas do you use per year? We used 22 MWh in 2020 and 2021 for a 188 m2 living area, so 117 kWh/m2. This year we’re using less but I’ll wait until January until I can tell for sure by exactly how much.

On 19/04/2022, 21:19:08, robinson100 said:

 

Actually saw a report on the TV once, about saving money - apparently, by filling the fridge, you do save money by not losing so much cold air when you open the door, as Dembo said.

The solution shown was to put clothing in there that wasn´t really dirty, but needed to be freshened up a bit - it filled the spaces, and the cold air helped neutralise smells in the clothing.

 

The 20 year old freezer was pulling 400w, vs todays one which is 100w or at least 3-4x cheaper. 

 

I ditched the old freezer. best choice ever.

 

One question. when they say xxx kwh/m2. Is the m2 the total area or the living area?

 

How is the kfw 50 or so calculated, 50% of an average house/flat. I guess this assumes a certain kwh/m2? A single family house vs an apartment is way different. You have in an apartment only two external walls, perhaps more if top or bottom. A terrance house a similar issue if in the middle.

 

What is actually a comparison for 'average'? What would be considered good/bad? Just curious as to how to work things out.

[mtbiking 1,914]

1 hour ago, MikeMelga said:

Unsure about amount of gas, but my bill is around 700€. Which is great for a 150sqm house with 3 fronts!

Ok, we spent €1100/year in 2020 and 2021 in a house with four fronts. Multiplying by 150/188 it’s equivalent to €860/year, so more than you but not a huge difference - specially being a detached house. Our house likely runs colder than yours but we don’t have mold and are comfortable like this, my wife is German after all and therefore almost genetically programmed to avoid it 

[LukeSkywalker 7,662]

10 hours ago, Krieg said:

It is still 20C during the day.   Why did so many people switched it on already?

Well, here in Munich it was already 10-12 degrees for several days in a row during the day. My 2-room apartment is Altbau (1905). I had a shirt on and pullover. I work in home-office. It was chilly. I air my apartment 2x per day 20-30 minutes. I never had mould issues. BTW- 25 degrees would be far too hot for me being from the North 😀.

[wien4ever 447]

On 9/4/2022, 3:05:41, Gambatte said:

From what I read around, 120qm and 22000 kWh/yr is unfortunately very realistic if the house is old. Number of people in the households plays only a small role. Best thing to do is probably to invite an Energieberater for a consultation on how to improve energy efficiency. I would expect the Energieberater can say which is best suited (most cost effective) for her particular household, and which other instead is "also ok, but not as good".

 

We are 3, house is 117qm, built 2019, takes ca 9700 kWh/yr.

 

I share my older building as not everyone has the latest in insulation.

 

We have 4 people, 113qm, semi-detached, built 1962 (crappy exterior walls by today's standards of insulation), new roof insulation 2021, and use 12200 kWh/yr (900 liters = 8200kWh heating with oil and 4000kWh for electric water heating and all other home electric, e.g. fridge, washer, dryer, dishwasher, stove+oven, etc).  I still need to insulate basement ceiling , hoping to get another 10% reduction. 

[jeba 4,364]

7 hours ago, LukeSkywalker said:

BTW- 25 degrees would be far too hot for me being from the North 😀.

You can adapt easily. Nowadays, after having lived in Cyprus for 6 years, I´ll put on a long-sleeved pyjama if the temperature in my bedroom is below 25°C. When I was still living in Germany, I´d have opened the windows to cool the room down. Btw: My total energy cost per year is below € 150 due to having switched off central heating (which uses oil) and using my aircons for heating instead (with electricity provided by my PV system, which uses the public grid as a battery).

[Gambatte 980]

15 hours ago, scook17 said:

The 20 year old freezer was pulling 400w, vs todays one which is 100w

 

I find even 100W for a fridge, still huge.

When nobody is at home, our whole household consumes 1 kWh/day (just checked my Excel, with the last 3yr of data, day by day), so ca 42W.

 

[Gambatte 980]

5 hours ago, jeba said:

aircons for heating instead (with electricity provided by my PV system, which uses the public grid as a battery).

 

Can you please elaborate?

Specifically: how much of the electricity consumed by your aircons, for heating, actually comes from your PV?

Our 9kWp PV-Anlage, produces ca 7kWh/yr. When I look at my own numbers, what you wrote seems not realistic:

 

December 2021:

sold to the grid: 18 kWh

gas bought : 1606 kWh

 

June 2022:

sold to the grid: 1090 kWh

gas bought : 35 kWh

 

So again what I wrote many times: PV produces electricity when the demand for heating is miniscule. And viceversa. No need for a physics PhD to appreciate that since photovoltaic requires photons / light / radiation, it produces much when there is much sunshine (and it's warm), and it produces little when it's dark (and it's cold).

 

[Krieg 15,102]

7 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

 

Can you please elaborate?

Specifically: how much of the electricity consumed by your aircons, for heating, actually comes from your PV?

Our 9kWp PV-Anlage, produces ca 7kWh/yr. When I look at my own numbers, what you wrote seems not realistic:

 

 

He lives in Cyprus.   When he says "heating" he probably means going from 23C to 25C

[Gambatte 980]

1 minute ago, Krieg said:

He lives in Cyprus.   When he says "heating" he probably means going from 23C to 25C

 

Ah, thanks, I probably should have known but it was not on my radar. Makes a little more sense then.

[jeba 4,364]

8 hours ago, Gambatte said:

Can you please elaborate?

 

 

8 hours ago, Krieg said:

 

He lives in Cyprus.   When he says "heating" he probably means going from 23C to 25C

Well, let´s say from 15°C to 22°C. But the main advantage offered by the Cypriot Electricity Authority is that you can use the public grid as a battery. Whatever my PV-system produces above my consumption will be credited and I can get it back for free (except for a 2.8 Cents/kW fee for network usage) whenever I need it. I don´t understand why Germany isn´t offering the same. That way it wouldn´t matter that a PV system isn´t working optimally in winter. I´ve never had to pay for energy since I´ve installed my 4 kWp system (generating 6000 - 7000 kW/year) 5 years ago (except for the network usage fee) even though I´m living in a house with no insulation.

 

 

[Krieg 15,102]

3 minutes ago, jeba said:

But the main advantage offered by the Cypriot Electricity Authority is that you can use the public grid as a battery. Whatever my PV-system produces above my consumption will be credited and I can get it back for free (except for a 2.8 Cents/kW fee for network usage) whenever I need it. I don´t understand why Germany isn´t offering the same.

 

I wish that was possible in Germany but you have to understand it is a problem of scaling it to a big country.   If you do a bit of research about how an electric grid works and how they keep it balanced you would be scared, that thing is literally kept together with bandaids, it is a surprise it does not go down every second day.   And I don't mean Germany in particular, it is like that everywhere.  So if you are going to "store" a bunch of new energy in the grid all produced at the same time you will have a big headache.

[Dembo 525]

35 minutes ago, Krieg said:

 

I wish that was possible in Germany but you have to understand it is a problem of scaling it to a big country.   If you do a bit of research about how an electric grid works and how they keep it balanced you would be scared, that thing is literally kept together with bandaids, it is a surprise it does not go down every second day.   And I don't mean Germany in particular, it is like that everywhere.  So if you are going to "store" a bunch of new energy in the grid all produced at the same time you will have a big headache.

 

It's a bigger problem than that as the grid is basically all of the mainland EU + Switzerland + Turkey that all have to be synchronised.

But that's not the point. People "store" surplus power in the grid now; it's just that the price you get is a lot less than you pay when you want some back. Forcing the energy suppliers to make it more or less equal, as it apparently is in Cyprus, would incentivise the energy suppliers to make use of it better and solve the problems you talk about (e.g. a lot more battery storage). And more importantly, it would encourage a lot more householders to invest in solar.

[emkay 10,338]

Just a reminder for anyone who’s gas or electricity price increases 1st October. Wish I’d thought of this a few months ago when our gas price increased 🙄.

 

‘Submit a meter reading NOW, Britons are warned: Households should record their energy usage before rates rise on Saturday to avoid being overcharged – and not leave it to the last minute in case phone lines and websites crash’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11259861/Submit-meter-reading-Britons-warned-Households-record-usage-rates-rise.html#comments

[kiplette 8,800]

It would work if we had just had winter.

 

Or if you put in inflated figures now, so essentially buying in advance the gas you'll use over the next few weeks. 

 

Ah - the Mail is talking about avoiding having all the gas you used charged later at the higher price. I don't think that happens here. 

[pappnase 2,654]

13 minutes ago, kiplette said:

I don't think that happens here

The problem is if they don't know exactly what the reading was when the price changed (and unless you have a smart meter then they don't) then they have to estimate it somehow.

There are a bunch of different ways they could legitimately do that, and some are more likely to be advantageous to the gas company whilst others will be advantageous to the customer.

If the reading is as accurate as possible on the day of cutover then it is less likely to be impacted by this guesswork.

I have no idea what the rules are for calculating this, but you can bet the gas company is going to act in it's own best interest.

In reality the difference is going to be fairly small and I don't think I can be bothered to do anything, but it does sort of make sense if you are concerned about it.

 

[murphaph 9,854]

Yep. The Stiftung Warentest also advised people to take electricity meter readings the day before the EEG-Umlage was abolished as it is known the companies will use the estimation methods most advantageous to them. A slightly dishonest person covered by a price guarantee could have given them a lower reading than was actually on the meter to take advantage of the discount on electricity they had already consumed ;-)

[kiplette 8,800]

Well, we'll put ours in now before the next price rise then, thanks chaps.

 

Brennholz - Bayerische Forstwirtschaft (bayerische-forstwirtschaft.com)

 

energy related, but different question. I am trying to compare on this BF website specifically the 40cm 3 Ster pallet. The Ster is new to me, but using the info on that page it looks like about 2 RM of wood, which is stupid cheap for 109€ even by last year's prices. The rest of the page is not bad value for this year, shocking for last. So I assume I'm being dim. Anyone bored/interested in calculations or firewood enough to take a squizz?

Apparently delivery is free. Too good to be true? The website is crashy, so maybe the advert has popped up all over and people like me are trying to do the maths 

[emkay 10,338]

1 hour ago, kiplette said:

It would work if we had just had winter.

 

Or if you put in inflated figures now, so essentially buying in advance the gas you'll use over the next few weeks. 

 

Ah - the Mail is talking about avoiding having all the gas you used charged later at the higher price. I don't think that happens here. 

I understood it to mean that without a meter reading before 1st October, then they will just estimate at time of price increase. Undoubtedly this is most likely to be beneficial to them though could work the other way! 
 

I don’t know if this is a general thing though from people I’ve spoken to, none have been advised by their energy supplier to increase the monthly payments in-line with the price increases.  Maybe they can only make these changes with annual bills? We always keep our payments at a bare minimum….better in our pocket than theirs. But, nasty bills with high back payment will catch up.  

[murphaph 9,854]

It is never a good idea to pay these energy companies in advance. They go bust all the time and then your prepayments are gone. Pay the bare minimum each month and put the "top up" in a separate bank account for this purpose. We got burned when BEV went bust. Lesson learned. It's always better to owe them money than the other way around.