Smart meter starting at 70pence

[anonymous-user]

Hi all

As a retired sparky I kind of understand a little about electric yet my recently installed smart meter is somewhat confusing. . . .

When I get up in the morning it's already showing 69 or 70pence of electric used, I have a shower, make breakfast for us two and wash up after all the toaster, kettle, boiler etc use it shows about 76pence give or take.

I have a fridge freezer plugged in all night, the wifi router is also on permanently and I turn the light on through the night on my way to the bathroom, no charges are plugged in and nothing is on standby at night, so I'm finding it hard to believe a fridge and a router is using 70pence in 7 hours when I only use 6pence to wash and make breakfast while using a coffee machine, microwave, toaster, kettle etc

Just wondering if anyone can shed some advice as to what is going on?

Thanks in advance

[droopsnoot]

Daily standing charge, I would expect. Mine shows around £1.29 by the time I get up, even though it's done nothing other than powering the fridge, but there's a note in the manual that says the standing charge is added "somewhere between midnight and 1am".

[MervJnr]

Could it be including the standing charge for the day?

[silentbrown]

Some of its standing charge, but don't forget the other stuff that's on 24/7, like smoke alarms, boiler, even your smart meter's in home display. TV/Xbox on standby also, maybe?

Fag packet maths. If you get up at 7am and it shows 70p...

Deduct 50p standing charge, so 20p usage which on typical tariff is about 0.7kwh, so your 'base' load is about 100 watts.

YMMV.

Edited by silentbrown on Friday 23 June 09:23

[boyse7en]

I found that the amp that my Echo Dot is plugged in to was pulling about 50W on standby, so i turn it off overnight as often as i remember.
My TV/Amp setup in the lounge was pulling a similar amount, so i have got that plugged in to a Smart Plug with voice control linked to Alexa so I can turn my old dumb TV on by saying "Alexa turn on TV".

Not massive savings, but say 1kw/hr per day, which adds up over a year

[snotrag]

mgsontour said:

When I get up in the morning it's already showing 69 or 70pence of electric used, I have a shower, make breakfast for us two and wash up after all the toaster, kettle, boiler etc use it shows about 76pence give or take.

Power shower or from the Hot water tank?

I live in a pretty typical modern house, with energy effiicent appliance, LED lights etc. I also have the data from our smart meters to accurately see whats being used and when, and thus work out by what.

There are two, absolute standout spikes in our Electricity usage, often by a magnitude over our base usage. The coffee machine - and the power shower. both of which use resistive elements to turn Electricity into hot water.

If you have an electric power shower, I can almost guarantee thats the source of the majority of your usage from midnight to morning.

[silentbrown]

boyse7en said:

I found that the amp that my Echo Dot is plugged in to was pulling about 50W on standby, so i turn it off overnight as often as i remember.
My TV/Amp setup in the lounge was pulling a similar amount, so i have got that plugged in to a Smart Plug with voice control linked to Alexa so I can turn my old dumb TV on by saying "Alexa turn on TV".

Not massive savings, but say 1kw/hr per day, which adds up over a year

If you have 1 Watt demand, 24/7, 365 days, it's costing you about £3/year. So your 50W *standby* amp would be costing you £150 a year just to keep switched on.

I'd suggest smart plugs on both, with a schedule to force switch-off at midnight whenever.

[silentbrown]

snotrag said:

If you have an electric power shower, I can almost guarantee thats the source of the majority of your usage from midnight to morning.

AIUI he took the reading before the shower.

But yes, all electricity usage effectively converts into heat, regardless of it being a TV, lightbulb or kettle. If something feels warm, it's using electricity.

[CubanPete]

silentbrown said:

boyse7en said:

I found that the amp that my Echo Dot is plugged in to was pulling about 50W on standby, so i turn it off overnight as often as i remember.
My TV/Amp setup in the lounge was pulling a similar amount, so i have got that plugged in to a Smart Plug with voice control linked to Alexa so I can turn my old dumb TV on by saying "Alexa turn on TV".

Not massive savings, but say 1kw/hr per day, which adds up over a year

If you have 1 Watt demand, 24/7, 365 days, it's costing you about £3/year. So your 50W *standby* amp would be costing you £150 a year just to keep switched on.

I'd suggest smart plugs on both, with a schedule to force switch-off at midnight whenever.

If you think how warm an incandescent bulb costs, which is 40-60w, I'd be very surprised if an Alexa was drawing anything close to 50w

[B'stard Child]

CubanPete said:

silentbrown said:

boyse7en said:

I found that the amp that my Echo Dot is plugged in to was pulling about 50W on standby, so i turn it off overnight as often as i remember.
My TV/Amp setup in the lounge was pulling a similar amount, so i have got that plugged in to a Smart Plug with voice control linked to Alexa so I can turn my old dumb TV on by saying "Alexa turn on TV".

Not massive savings, but say 1kw/hr per day, which adds up over a year

If you have 1 Watt demand, 24/7, 365 days, it's costing you about £3/year. So your 50W *standby* amp would be costing you £150 a year just to keep switched on.

I'd suggest smart plugs on both, with a schedule to force switch-off at midnight whenever.

If you think how warm an incandescent bulb costs, which is 40-60w, I'd be very surprised if an Alexa was drawing anything close to 50w

He didn't say the alexa was - he said the "Amp" it was attached to...........

Smart plugs are a solution for things with over 5W of constant consumption as most of them have 4.5 w of draw on their own (just being smart)

[silentbrown]

B'stard Child said:

Smart plugs are a solution for things with over 5W of constant consumption as most of them have 4.5 w of draw on their own (just being smart)

Closer to 1-2W, but still a fair point. Smart bulbs are similar, which is another reason for me to hate them.

[B'stard Child]

silentbrown said:

B'stard Child said:

Smart plugs are a solution for things with over 5W of constant consumption as most of them have 4.5 w of draw on their own (just being smart)

Closer to 1-2W, but still a fair point. Smart bulbs are similar, which is another reason for me to hate them.

All mine were just under 5W when I was doing an evaluation of electric usage - as most were just convenience plugs (Alexa turn on etc) I took them all out

If there are ones that just consume 1.2 w it would be worth me going back to that

Interesting on the smart bulbs - I couldn’t get any of the ikea ones we have to register on the meter - I know they have to use some electricity but it wasn’t enough to get a reading

[Trustmeimadoctor]

B'stard Child said:

All mine were just under 5W when I was doing an evaluation of electric usage - as most were just convenience plugs (Alexa turn on etc) I took them all out

If there are ones that just consume 1.2 w it would be worth me going back to that

Interesting on the smart bulbs - I couldn’t get any of the ikea ones we have to register on the meter - I know they have to use some electricity but it wasn’t enough to get a reading

ZigBee ones use less than WiFi ones usually

Also make sure the in home display and is actually using the correct rate quite often they are wrong but it doesn't matter as it isn't used for your bill

But for me I have a background usage from midnight of 1kwh so 30p + 48p standing charge up to 6am

[silentbrown]

B'stard Child said:

All mine were just under 5W when I was doing an evaluation of electric usage - as most were just convenience plugs (Alexa turn on etc) I took them all out

If there are ones that just consume 1.2 w it would be worth me going back to that

Teckin one, ~5 years old shows 2W. I'd expect newer ones to be a bit better.


I probably need a better meter, though.

My desk at home has 2 monitors, powered speakers, powered USB hub and PC. All switched off at night automatically from a single smart plug.

[WhiskyDisco]

The pump on a boiler will consume electricity.

[Essel]

Our smart meter shows about 70 watts just before I go to bed, with everything switched off - apart from router and all the devices on standby or showing the time (this includes smart plugs, cameras, Google hub and minis, cookers.. the list goes on!) Walk around the house in the dark and you'll realise how many there are. Then the fridge freezer kicks in intermittently, that's another 2/300 watts. Probably at least a unit overnight. I did trim it by finding the stereo system (rarely used and in a cupboard on standby taking a relatively large draw, presumably because it's an old system.