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Since switching to three phase my consumption has rocketed to 25,000KWH per annum, despite no significant additional load.

adam spearing

We moved to three phase 3.5 years ago an anticipation of electric cars (which we don't have). 

Since then We have been consuming around 25,000KWH pa according to the meter. 

I've had a second meter fitted and it's validated these numbers. 

When I switch all the RCDs off it stops, so clearly it's my side of the RCDs. 

The house is around 10 years old with gas heating and gas cooking. We have low energy light bulbs. 

The overnight consumption seems to show we're using 4+KWH per hour when we're asleep. 

Load balancing was mentioned and I vaguely remember it from my degree but I don't believe that's it. 

Large donation to charity if you can help me work this one out

thanks in advance 

Adam

  • 0 in reply to mapj1
    mapj1 said:
    The idea of an 'always on' heater to mimic an always lit fireplace sounds like an odd solution.

    Daughter loves her "Everhot" cooker. IIRC, it allows heat to escape at the rate of 900 W. It has to be turned off in the summer and with only a 13 A plug for supply, it must take a while to heat up again for roasting or baking.

    The real problem is that the oven is hopeless. Either that, or Daughter is a hopeless cook!

  • 0 in reply to adam spearing

    'only £100 a month'? Astonished My own electric bill is only around £60 at the moment! But then I'm not running a hot tub in the garden... Wink

  • 0 in reply to Sparkingchip

    We'll all need larger supplies soon

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10459349/One-three-homes-face-35-000-bill-green-heat-pumps.html

    Z.

  • 0

    I do hope we find the outcome of this 'problem'.

  • 0

    "When I switch all the RCDs off it stops, so clearly it's my side of the RCDs"

    I'd be asking for an appraisal of the metering CT's etc. from the supplier. Major Industrial consumers install check metering to be sure, to be sure; even then they can't be - as a man with 2 watches never knows the correct time.

    Jaymack

      

  • 0

    Sorry for the delay but we've been working on this !

    Clamp meters showed two problems (3kw greenhouse heater with broken themostat and Hot Tub with an issue)

    Turning them off has reduced the load BUT it still remains very high esp overnight

    Next suggestion is to rent data loggers to record the load ...

    The other suggestion is that because of the un balanced load the electricity company (Ecotricity) *might* be charging 3x the highest phase and not per phase. The Billing department seemed surprised that we only had ONE reading for KWHs on the meter... any one have a view on this ???

  • 0 in reply to adam spearing

    Is your meter a true 3 phase meter (ie. it has 8 wires in the bottom) or is it done by using 3 x single phase meters?

    If it is a true 3 phase meter, then it will correctly integrate the sum of the powers over the three phases into one composite kWh reading - it does not take "three times the highest" which seems to be a common myth.

  • 0

    Hi All, we did the clamp metering and found two bad loads (3kw heater with broken thermostat and hot tub problem). 

    These have reduced the load quite a bit - however we're still using 15kwh annual equivalent and the overnight load is still super high

    One suggestion is it's how the power company charge for 3 phase and they might be billing 3 x the highest load - does anyone have a view on this? The billing department seemed surprised we only had one reading for KWH on the meter ... 

    Here's what it looks like now 

  • 0 in reply to adam spearing

    A properly wired 3 phase meter will always correctly add out of balance single phase loads as if it were the sum of the 3 loads - if they did not there would have been riots years ago as almost every commercial and industrial premises has a mix of single and 3 phase wiring. The meter actually has 3 sets of sensors inside.

    Do the clamp meter readings in amps stack with the kilowatt hours ? for the purpose of ready -reckoner checks approx 4 amps is a touch over a kilowatt .

    If you are concerned, what is the model of the meter, we can look it up for you.

  • 0 in reply to adam spearing

    I am not quite sure what I am looking at here. The date is obvious. I assume that the second column is the time and the third is the meter reading. The fourth column appears to be the consumption since the last reading and the fifth column appears to be the number of hours since, with the 6th column showing the average consumption.

    The night of 2/3 Feb drew an average of 1.33 kW, which is a lot unless there are loads of electric blankets. Then the daytime consumption on 5 Feb was 2 kW, falling back to 1.39 kW that night, and similar again the following day. So what is being switched on and off?

    I agree with AdrianWint - 3-phase meters measure why you consume. Taking the highest phase an multiplying by 3 is not only a complete myth, but would probably be unlawful.

    Incidentally, the other day I found that somebody had left a heated towel rail on in the guest bathroom. I hope that it wasn't since we had guests in the first half of December!

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