Lost Electricity -2

[Steve IA]

Thanks to all who have thought on this and offered your opinions. What I've concluded so far is that this is not just my problem. At least

10 neighbors experienced the same thing. This tells me that it isn't just a leaky extension cord. A 20% reduction in the # of days with electricity means that on the days I did have power I would have had to use 20% more each and every day to maintain the monthly average of the previous 5 years. I was indeed 10% colder for the month of DEC 07 than average, but heating is a small part of our (collective) electric usage. the neighbors heat with LP, Oil , wood, or corn none use electric heat or heat pumps.

Someone mentioned higher voltage being pumped through the lines. Does this make sense to you who are not electrically challenged? How about more Hz?

My plan now is to gather more anecdotal evidence (oxymoron?) and question the REC on Monday.

1. Did they estimate Dec's reading. (or other months)?
2. What could have caused this average monthly (31 day)usage when we were all without power at 20% of the time?

Further thoughts and notions appreciated.

Steve Southiowa

[Ralph Mowery]

The frequency (HZ) is very closely controlled. It may vary slightly during heavy loads or periods of light loads. Over a months time, it will average almost exectally the same. If it did not , the clocks would all be off by some large ammount.

It is doubtful they could raise the voltage enough to make that much differance without causing lots of problems such as burnt out light bulbs.

[CJT]

The Hz should be very closely regulated. Otherwise many clocks wouldn't tell time correctly. So although an aberration in Hz could affect the efficiency of some devices (if you're interested, Google "hysteresis losses"), I doubt that's your problem.

Whether the voltage makes a difference depends on the load. Electric heating (at least from the perspective of the consumer) is 100% efficient, so if higher voltage led to a higher rate of consumption, as long as the total heat called for were the same, the time the heater was running would adjust downward so that the total power consumption would be unchanged. However, there are loads that essentially "waste" some of their power during the course of their operation (typically via heat sinks on regulators). Those might be less efficient at higher voltage. I doubt it's 20%.

Make sure the billing cycles were the same length. They vary from month to month and year to year.

I agree with the other contributors to the thread who suggest a difference in weather is the most likely candidate.

If it was cold enough to keep you indoors watching TV, I'd check the power consumption of the TV. :-)

That's another definite possibility.

+/- 30% isn't all that unusual under normal circumstances -- you could look at your bills for several years if you have them.

[Joseph Meehan]

If your neighbors are reporting like problems, there are some possibilities, but I don't think they would cause your problems with the meters. They can cause over or under voltage. I suggest you and one or more of your neighbors may want to monitor the voltage carefully. A common time for the variation is when a nearby industrial plant or commercial building is powering up or down.

[CJT]

Oops! I see you beat me to it...

[Steve IA]

CJT wrote

It wasn't that great, and , again, electricity is not a great factor in heating our home. i.e. 1/3hp (246 watts) furnace blower which runs only a brief time as the wood burner (even with it's tiny blower fan) supplies the lion's share of our heat.

No more than normal. We're pretty set in our routine. Even around the 'holidays'.

Re read the original post. I've tracked Usage for the past 6 years by month. That's how I calculated the average and spread.

Thanks

[Too_Many_Tools]

Ask to personally talk to the meter reader...and see if someone shows up.

TMT

[daestrom]

Well, this won't explain your bill or anything, but if you have a 20% reduction in the number of days with electricity, to get the monthly total to come out the same you would need to use 25% more (not 20% more) each day you do have electricity. Just a quirk of the math. (80% * 125% = 100%)

daestrom

[HeyBub]

I think your meter is the wind-up kind. Every month when the meter "reader" comes by, he sticks in a special key, winds up the meter, and it runs, like an old-fashioned mantle clock.

The meter doesn't know that the power's off.

[Neon John]

Well, here's the bottom line. Excluding the almost infinitesimal possibility of mass meter error (essentially impossible if mechanical meters are involved), you and your neighbors used more power. What we (at least those of us who know the utility business) are trying to do is suggest where that extra usage came from.

It is a known fact that power usage tracks degree-days even with homes that don't primarily heat with electricity. Why? Got me. Just how it is. It is also a known fact that people use more electricity after an outage, what your co-op called recovery usage. Why? Got me. I can speculate but since that's not my specialty I don't have any details. I just know that it is true. It probably is a combination of catching up on activities such as washing clothes combined with the disruption of your normal habits.

Another factor very well may be slightly higher voltage. For practical purposes, your use will scale with voltage. A 5% increase in voltage might not be unusual if, in the process of rebuilding what the storm damaged, the co-op installed up-rated equipment.

It's most likely a combination of all the above. It is effectively impossible to determine the exact cause after the fact. The co-op person that you talk to will tell you that same thing, couched in consumer-friendly verbiage.

John

-- John De Armond See my website for my current email address

[Steve IA]

Yeah, my math seemed to simple and reasonable. Thanks for the correction. I knew if I was wrong some faithful usenetter would set me straight. ;-)

Which strengthens my argument.

Steve southiowa

[Steve IA]

That's as good an explanation as I've gotten from the REC.

:-)

Steve

[Steve IA]

Yeahbut, 25% more each and every day we were on line? Including the 10 billing days prior to the outage? There were only 14 days left of the billing period after the power was restored. Ooh, Ooh, let's calculate that:

Day 1-10 average use (based on 6 years of dec.data) = 22 kwh/day = 222kw Day 11-17 0 usage day 18-31 682kw- 222kw used the 1st 10 days = 460 kw. / 14 days = 32.9 kw/day.

150% usage for each of 14 days between the restoration and the end of the cycle? Huh-uh; didn't happen. There's more than cold weather and 'recovery' to this equation. I just haven't figgered it out yet.

Not 150% more for 14 days. Remember I said that when I got the bill I immediately checked the meter and found it to be in normal usage from the date of reading to the day I got the bill for ~21. kwh/day usage. Thankfully I'm not still using at the 150% rate. Whatever it was went away.

That's an interesting thought. My K-A-W meter only shows 120-121 vac on all my tests so far. I've tested line voltage occasionally over the years with a multitester and as I recall it was always close to 120.

Well, maybe a combination, but we still feel there's something we're not being told. Maybe I better get my tin-foil hat out.

Thanks again.

Steve

[Ann]

Did you have your main breaker(s) off all during the outage? Soon after I moved here, there a super-brownout (incandescent light bulbs just barely glowed) that went on for hours. After that, I'm careful to disconnect anything that might be damaged by low voltage whenever the power gets squirrely.

There is some validity to the "recovery" thing. A common example is the household water heater. The savings achieved by shutting off a modern, well insulated heater set at 120F - say, while occupants are away during the day - are disappointing. It doesn't take that much energy to maintain the standby temperature. Your wood stove maintained the temperature in some of your house, but not all of it. Assuming you ran your furnace after the power came on and before the meter was read, a house is a lot of mass to warm back up to its standby temperature in the winter.

[trader4]

Along the way here, someone asked if the previous month had been estimated. That is just as important as if the current month were estimated, because if they estimated Nov on the low side, then it gets added on when they do the next actual reading. If they added it to Dec, then the usage is going to be higher. Also, along the same lines of reasoning, what was the usage shown for Nov compared to the avg for Nov? If it was below avg, that lends credence that somehow some Nov demand is showing up in Dec.

Also, have you read the meter yourself to see how much you've used now in Jan? I know they said they didn't estimate it in Dec, but if they did estimate and it was higher than actual, that would show up now by the current reading being lower than expected.

Another possibility might be that due to storms the meter readers were unable to make their usual schedule. Perhaps they came a week later than they should have and the date of the Dec reading wasn't correctly reflected on the bill.

In any case, these bills are undoubtedly attributable to some combination of estimate vs actual, meters being read for a diff number of days this cycle, much colder weather, etc, not some strange electrical phenomenon. I'd be very interested to hear the current reading results.

[Terry]

This recovery usage was an interesting topic. I tried Googling for it and lost interest before I found anything. It doesn't seem too common.

[Steve IA]

No, didn't think of it. I'd probably be running out to the pole every few minutes to 'see if it's on'. ;-)

With a fairly open floor plan and a lofted master bedroom it kept all but the den (closed the door) and the spare bedroom (always closed)as warm or warmer than we normally keep the house. The outside temps during the outage were normal 20-40s, not like it is now, -5F. In fact, we had to curtain off the loft as a lot of heat was going up there making it

+75F which is too darn hot for sleeping.

Assuming you ran

It's the old question of night-time furnace setback. Only longer. It does save energy.

Steve

[Steve IA]

Actually, Nov was higher than the 6 year average which kinda futzes the estimate theory.

Yes, immediately after getting the bill I checked the meter. It was in line with 21 kwh/day usage which is January 6-year average.

All I can go by is the reading dates on the bill. Another customer had a different reading date than I did. .

"Current reading results". HA, I get it. I'll let you all know what the 'charge' is for Jan. when the bill comes on 'line'.

Steve

[Ann]

Yes, it does. And turning it off entirely at night would save even more. I tried that for a while this Fall and the colder it got, the longer it took to get the house warmed up to where it was approaching comfortable. And there was a strong temptation to set the thermostat higher than normal to get it to stay warm sooner.

But it does look like in your case there wasn't much to warm up.

[danny burstein]

Ummmmmmm...... except in a very few cases with specialized heating systems [a], moving the thermostat to a higher temperature isn't going to speed things up.

[a] multi stage furnaces/boilers, and heat pumps with additional resistance or fossil fuel input.