Habeck claims anyone could quite easily use 10% less energy

[Gambatte 925]

3 hours ago, Astridx said:

Could a self installed garage solar system be used to charge an electric car?

Well, I don't see why not.

Charger for the car is extra cost, I think ca 1k (1keur buys me 3yr of benzin).

 

3 hours ago, Astridx said:

Would it be too be connected to the main house electric system?

Well, it SHOULD get connected to the main house (more: it should be connected to the grid).

What's the point of installing photovoltaic and not using it...?

 

 

 

[fraufruit 42,165]

9 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

(1keur buys me 3yr of benzin)

 

How many kilometers do you have to drive your car per year?

[Astridx 40]

35 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

Well, I don't see why not.

Charger for the car is extra cost, I think ca 1k (1keur buys me 3yr of benzin).

 

Well, it SHOULD get connected to the main house (more: it should be connected to the grid).

What's the point of installing photovoltaic and not using it...?

 

 

 

I thought perhaps you could just setup some panels in isolation and connect with a car charger.

[Gambatte 925]

2 hours ago, fraufruit said:

How many kilometers do you have to drive your car per year?

Many years I drove like 5000km/yr, but it included summer vacation driving the whole length of Germany and back. 

But I gave that up, for many reasons, train is much better.

So last year was 3000km, 2023 likely will be less.

 

[Gambatte 925]

1 hour ago, Astridx said:

I thought perhaps you could just setup some panels in isolation and connect with a car charger.

I don't know if it's possible but I guess it is.

But even if that is at all possible, what advantage do you actually see in NOT connecting the modules to the house, or to the grid???

[dstanners 1,539]

12 hours ago, Gambatte said:

But even if that is at all possible, what advantage do you actually see in NOT connecting the modules to the house, or to the grid?

Just a guess, but I imagine they might be thinking of simplicity - buy panels online, self-install and use what you produce. My understanding is that in Germany that is not possible though, as you need some sort of approval for installing and producing your own electricity. I'd be happy if I was wrong on that point.

[Dembo 525]

14 hours ago, Astridx said:

I thought perhaps you could just setup some panels in isolation and connect with a car charger.

 

If you have an inverter with a normal wall power socket then you can plug your car straight into that. Should work. There seem to be plenty you can buy for camping with 100W or so of output which will charge your EV in about 7-14 days.

[Krieg 15,027]

16 minutes ago, Dembo said:

 

If you have an inverter with a normal wall power socket then you can plug your car straight into that. Should work. There seem to be plenty you can buy for camping with 100W or so of output which will charge your EV in about 7-14 days.

 

You are a bit optimistic there, you will need around four to six months to charge the car.  Longer if winter is involved.

[emkay 10,193]

On 25/02/2023, 14:08:37, emkay said:

Just curious about this….at the end of last year, our electricity supplier hiked the price by about 50% at the end of our contract. Switching supplier wasn’t possible as at that time as new contracts were much more expensive. 
 

The new price is not subject to a price guarantee.  Options were then available for new contracts with price guarantee. We decided against these as the price was much higher. Now however, the price we are paying is a lot more than new contracts with the same supplier and that of Grundversorgung. My question is, are contracts without price guarantee eligible for price reduction? 

Just in case this helps anyone else.  After trying to contact our electricity supplier many times, today I got lucky.  Our kWh price was set in December 2022 to 46.72 cents. Annual Grundpreis 120€. At that time, this was significantly less than the price of changing supplier. 

 

Their own kWh price for new customers is 32.76 cents, similar annual Grundpreis. Grundversorgung price is now slightly higher. 
 

I asked which cheaper tariff we could change to given that our contract wasn’t  price guaranteed. Initially, I was offered 41.00 cents, same Grundpreis with 2 year price guarantee. That wasn’t viable. After a little friendly chat, I was then offered new customer price of 32,76 cents. About a 30% reduction as of 1st March. Price guarantee for 1 year. For January and February 2023, a discount to 40.00 cents kWh for 80% of usage will be calculated retrospectively due to the government price capping.

 

This change saves us around 70€ per month. It’s certainly worth challenging current prices and contracts.

[mtbiking 1,894]

On 6.2.2023, 09:19:02, mtbiking said:

My own consumption (gas):

2020: 21.7 MWh

2021: 22.4  MWh

2022: 16.5 MWh

 

For a 190 m2 detached house built in 1990 (well kept and insolated), two adults, two children.

 

 

And now the result of engineering the fuc.. out of the problem  :

 

Our year to year gas (end March 2022 - end March 2023) consumption was12 MWh - which means that my optimization reduced the gas consumption roughly 50% and we're getting around €1500 back from the gas supplier. My extra costs during the last 12 montths were:

- €150 Wartung (nothing major, the last time had been 2 years ago, they just cleaned the boiler a bit).

- €90 for three "intelligent" thermometers  for the living room and bedrooms.

- ~€150 in wood burned in those really cold days. 

 

also, I have a ROI =  284% and the nice cozy feeling of doing my bit to annoy Russia. The living areas were kept at  19-20°C and the bedrooms at 17°C.  

 

Incidentally, I'm now going to prepay €110/ month instead of €215 (that was in any case too much but I wasn't given a choice) as in the last 12 months, even though my gas price per kWh was increased again from 8.2 ct to 10.2 ct. 

 

[Gambatte 925]

2 hours ago, mtbiking said:

Our year to year gas (end March 2022 - end March 2023) consumption was12 MWh - which means that my optimization reduced the gas consumption roughly 50%

 

Thanks for sharing. But now I'm just curious.

How big your house? And when built?

And exactly what "optimization" did you actually do?

[Krieg 15,027]

4 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

 

Thanks for sharing. But now I'm just curious.

How big your house? And when built?

And exactly what "optimization" did you actually do?

 

It is all there, house built in 1990, 190m2.  Optimizations: introduction of smart thermostats, keeping the temperature in the "lowish" side and a bit of wood for the chimney.

 

I would add that the winter was really mild.   I do not have detailed values because we heat with oil, we used normally anything from 1500 to 2000 liters a year (heating and hot water) and I only topped up 1000L before the winter to make sure we could make it and the level is still far from where it was before I topped it up.   We as well kept the rooms at 19C, which is a bit low for my tropical wife preferences.  Three long months of listening to her complaints, but we made it in one piece.

[mtbiking 1,894]

1 hour ago, Krieg said:

 

It is all there, house built in 1990, 190m2.  Optimizations: introduction of smart thermostats, keeping the temperature in the "lowish" side and a bit of wood for the chimney.

 

I would add that the winter was really mild.   I do not have detailed values because we heat with oil, we used normally anything from 1500 to 2000 liters a year (heating and hot water) and I only topped up 1000L before the winter to make sure we could make it and the level is still far from where it was before I topped it up.   We as well kept the rooms at 19C, which is a bit low for my tropical wife preferences.  Three long months of listening to her complaints, but we made it in one piece.

 

Yep, you're right. The mild winter has helped and I can't really factor in how much. I could try to correlate the average weekly temperatures with the gas consumption of the last years, but that's a bit too much work right now. We also had our windows and doors newly fitted and insolated in the Summer of 2021.

 

I actually have the yearly consumption in MWh since 2017, though. There's some fluctuation but the drop of these last 12 months is clear:

year	consumption
2017	26,5
2018	19,4
2019	20
2020	21,7
2021	22,4
2022	16,5

 

*we moved in in Oktober 2017.

 

[Gambatte 925]

 

54 minutes ago, Krieg said:

I do not have detailed values because we heat with oil

Of course you DO have the info, provided you record your tank readings or whatever. After all 1kWh is always the same amount of energy, no matter how you convert it into heat. 

Sure, you would have to find the conversion factor from liters to kWh for your particular oil, but this is probably 1-sec work for Google or ChatGPT.

[Krieg 15,027]

32 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

 

Of course you DO have the info, provided you record your tank readings or whatever. After all 1kWh is always the same amount of energy, no matter how it get converted into heat.

Sure, you would have to find the conversion factor from liters to kWh for your particular oil, but this is probably 1-secs work for google or ChatGPT.

 

Which tank readings?  It is all analogue and the shape of the tank make it very difficult to calculate anything.  Within the years I have put some marks but it is not really accurate.  

 

BTW,  several years ago I found a company based in Berlin that sells a tank lid that allows you to estimate how full the tank is using sonic technology.   The problem was they use their own app and didn't have a way to integrate it with other systems, like homeassistant.   I didn't feel like paying their high price because it didn't offer me what I really needed, so I contacted them and offered them that if they borrow me one for a couple of months I would try ti write for them an integration with homeassistant and homebridge, for free.  They refused, but at least they replied.  They still do not have any integration with anything, I guess they want you to use their app because they probably have some sort of deal with the "24" biggest place where you can buy oil.

[Gambatte 925]

15 minutes ago, Krieg said:

Which tank readings?  It is all analogue and the shape of the tank make it very difficult to calculate anything.  Within the years I have put some marks but it is not really accurate.  

 

Pity.

Perhaps you can still collect all your info during the years, like you bought a total of X liters of oil during the last Y years...

[mtbiking 1,894]

7 hours ago, Krieg said:

 

Which tank readings?  It is all analogue and the shape of the tank make it very difficult to calculate anything.  Within the years I have put some marks but it is not really accurate.  

 

BTW,  several years ago I found a company based in Berlin that sells a tank lid that allows you to estimate how full the tank is using sonic technology.   The problem was they use their own app and didn't have a way to integrate it with other systems, like homeassistant.   I didn't feel like paying their high price because it didn't offer me what I really needed, so I contacted them and offered them that if they borrow me one for a couple of months I would try ti write for them an integration with homeassistant and homebridge, for free.  They refused, but at least they replied.  They still do not have any integration with anything, I guess they want you to use their app because they probably have some sort of deal with the "24" biggest place where you can buy oil.

Have you considered a Coriolis flow meter? Isn’t there a pipe or connector somewhere where you can install one?*

 

*PS: It just occurred to me that they may be too expensive for private use. I only know them from work. I’d still try to measure the mass flow. 
 

*PPS: what about a pressure sensor at the bottom of the tank? And then correlate to the total volume via p = p0 + rho.g.y and some empirical data. It’s a pity that the tank doesn’t have a straight shape but with  some data points you’ll soon get to the formula Volume(y).