Kill-O-Watt readings for HTPC

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Bagal

That's interesting, over in the UK it tends to be the opposite, you pay more for the first so many kwh's and then after that the price goes down, looking at my current Electric bill (for Dec and Jan) I paid 22.77p for the first 146 kwh and then 9.925p for everything after that.

brilliant . . . I still think we're getting hosed in SoCal

[Fuzzy]

I'm not saying the tiered rates are the right way to do it, because, quite frankly, I believe it should be set by supply and demand (which, subsequently, would RAISE the price for the part of electricity that is deemed 'necessary'). The thing is, you DO have a choice in how much electricity you use. I live in a much warmer climate than you, have 3 adults and 2 kids living in the house, and tend to keep my usage at about 180% of baseline. If I didn't have an extensive set of computers/servers/tv's, etc, I would be running at about 120% baseline. I choose to use the electricity above that point, and understand that it is a cost. If I'm choosing to do so, I can't correctly say I'm being screwed. If you can't afford to use that much electricity, than stop using it. The less electricity everyone else uses, the cheaper it will be for me... :-)

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

Really? Funny that the "socialists" to the north seem to be able to make a profit at .09 cents max. Fascinating.

http://www.hydroone.com/TOU/Pages/default.aspx

...or maybe I'm reading that wrong.

Unless I'm mistaken, they don't have to pay for fuel to generate their power.

or, maybe I started this thread because my friend in Toronto told me he paid $160 month with four kids, four servers that run 24/7, a wife, the laundry, the cold ... sorry dude, they're making a BIG profit in SoCal. I guess we're paying for Erin Brokivichs' victory.

Part of the problem is instead of building new generation to keep up with demand, we're trying to discourage use. I think part of the high prices in CA is to discourage use so as to avoid blackouts.

I'd have to check my bill, but my second tier rate might actually be lower than my first tier too.

[wrems]

Power is a fickle thing. They can’t store it. Therefore they have to predict reliably how much to make at a given time. If they make too much or too little they can get into trouble. The power created has to go somewhere or money is lost. They’ll pipe it to surrounding cities to get rid of it without losing too much money. So a smaller plant can effectively get their power cheaper from a distant place and shut down there production and come out ahead. So one never really can know where their power comes from. Just because you live 1 mile from a plant doesn’t mean that is where your energy was generated from. The tiering is probably based along those lines somehow. My father-in-law explained this to me a while a go so my facts might not be 100% but fairly close to what I explained. He worked for the power company for years.

[wayner]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Unless I'm mistaken, they don't have to pay for fuel to generate their power.

Yes they (we) do - in Ontario our power comes from: Nukes (37%), Coal+Oil(29%), Hydro-electric(26%), NatGas(7%) and a whopping 1% in wind and solar.

or, maybe I started this thread because my friend in Toronto told me he paid $160 month with four kids,

The bills are not that low - I live in Toronto and my monthly power bill averages about $600 but I have a very large house with about 4 PCs running 24x7, a hot tub, two fridges, swimming pool, etc.

To me the biggest energy waste is that I am heating my pool and cooling my house for most of the spring and summer. It would be great to be able to pump the heat from my house into my pool.

[Opus4]

Originally Posted by wayner

To me the biggest energy waste is that I am heating my pool and cooling my house for most of the spring and summer. It would be great to be able to pump the heat from my house into my pool.

I have no idea what the weather is like by you, but I use solar panels (essentially black plastic tubes; not the same as the big internet tubes) for my pool -- the only heating cost is running the pool's pump. If it gets too warm, I run it at night instead of the day & use it a a radiator. Here in NJ, that allows the pool to be 80+ from early May to late Sept; it is 85+ for most of that time. Our back yard is in full sun; if your yard is heavily shaded, it may not be worth considering.

- Andy

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by Opus4

SageTV already does that. There is a PDF manual installed with SageTV -- check out the "Using Windows Power Management with SageTV" section on p. 21. (I'm not sure about non-Windows systems)

- Andy

I've tested this using standby, and it seems to work. I assume it CAN'T wake up the computer from full hibernation, or is that supposed to work as well? So far, I haven't been able to achieve that.
Any thoughts?

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

Yes they (we) do - in Ontario our power comes from: Nukes (37%), Coal+Oil(29%), Hydro-electric(26%), NatGas(7%) and a whopping 1% in wind and solar.

The bills are not that low - I live in Toronto and my monthly power bill averages about $600 but I have a very large house with about 4 PCs running 24x7, a hot tub, two fridges, swimming pool, etc.

To me the biggest energy waste is that I am heating my pool and cooling my house for most of the spring and summer. It would be great to be able to pump the heat from my house into my pool.

ah - he doesn't have a pool, or two fridges. But he sent me his bill and it was what he said - $156 for 1135kwh (ok, he lives near Oshawa - does that make a big difference?).
Have you explored GeoThermal yet? Another friend in Prince Edward County installed one and is having good success
PS - $600 month is epic, even compared to California

[tmiranda]

Originally Posted by wrems

Power is a fickle thing. They can’t store it. Therefore they have to predict reliably how much to make at a given time. If they make too much or too little they can get into trouble. The power created has to go somewhere or money is lost. They’ll pipe it to surrounding cities to get rid of it without losing too much money. So a smaller plant can effectively get their power cheaper from a distant place and shut down there production and come out ahead. So one never really can know where their power comes from. Just because you live 1 mile from a plant doesn’t mean that is where your energy was generated from. The tiering is probably based along those lines somehow. My father-in-law explained this to me a while a go so my facts might not be 100% but fairly close to what I explained. He worked for the power company for years.

When I lived in Europe they amount I paid for electric depended on when I used it. It was more expensive at peak times and less expensive off-peak. This seems the most reasonable pricing mechanism given the inability to store electric.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by tmiranda

When I lived in Europe they amount I paid for electric depended on when I used it. It was more expensive at peak times and less expensive off-peak. This seems the most reasonable pricing mechanism given the inability to store electric.

that's how Ontario does it - peak vs. non-peak

[wayner]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

PS - $600 month is epic, even compared to California

I have a big house and lots of toys. The house was expanded in 1992 and I have two furnaces, two (gas) water heaters and two A/Cs. Good for redundancies and multi-zone HVAC, not so good for the electrical bill. I also have some very cool landscape lighting such as mercury vapor lights in several trees. But I knew that when I bought the house so I am not complaining.

In Ontario the electrical utility (FKA Ontario Hydro) was owned by the provincial government. The government always tried to make people think that this was a crown jewel but they ran this company very inefficiently which resulted in a "stranded debt" of $20.9 Billion when the company was restructured about a decade ago. Even now the government sometimes subsidizes electrical bills - so your bill stays the same but your taxes go up!

And every month we pay a charge for the "stranded debt" so the current generation is paying for their parents' electric power.

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by tvmaster2

that's how Ontario does it - peak vs. non-peak

It's also an optional billing method in California for pretty much every utility company. depends on how you use your electricity if it's worth it or not.

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by wayner

I have a big house and lots of toys. The house was expanded in 1992 and I have two furnaces, two (gas) water heaters and two A/Cs. Good for redundancies and multi-zone HVAC, not so good for the electrical bill. I also have some very cool landscape lighting such as mercury vapor lights in several trees. But I knew that when I bought the house so I am not complaining.

In Ontario the electrical utility (FKA Ontario Hydro) was owned by the provincial government. The government always tried to make people think that this was a crown jewel but they ran this company very inefficiently which resulted in a "stranded debt" of $20.9 Billion when the company was restructured about a decade ago. Even now the government sometimes subsidizes electrical bills - so your bill stays the same but your taxes go up!

And every month we pay a charge for the "stranded debt" so the current generation is paying for their parents' electric power.

yeah, my brother-in-law worked for OH for a long time. lots of inside stories

[panteragstk]

This is interesting. I've wanted to learn more about how power is calculated and what rates are good or not. Thanks for the education. So I pay about $0.14 for the first 600kwh and $0.13 after that. My bill was $201.23 for 1329. I have TXU in Dallas, TX and I use gas heating and electric everything else. I'm guessing my server and client are the main power draws, and I've also noticed that my usage went up after getting my CRT 55". I'm going to have to grab a kill-o-watt to see what the actual draw of all this stuff is. My bill gets close to $500 in the peak summer months, but I like it pretty cool in my house.

[bastafidli]

Originally Posted by panteragstk

So I pay about $0.14 for the first 600kwh and $0.13 after that.

I recommend to use powertochoose.org to research available rates. I am in Dallas as well and have rate under 0.10 for 100% renewable energy.

[baudfather]

My setup drew about 140 watts (including cable box and UPC) last I checked...

Here in BC, we've been pretty lucky to have some of the lowest rates in North America... 6.27 cents/kWh for the first 1,350 kWh used over a two-month billing period and 8.78 cents/kWh above that. Rates will be going up substantially over the next few years to pay for infrastructure improvements, as we've only recently had to import power to make up for the growing demand (nearly entirely hydroelectric sourced with 1 nat. gas thermal plant on demand). Here's an interesting look at rates across North America: PDF Rate comparison.

Rates are low here and I can't complain. My only gripe is that there are zero incentives to produce your own power. Even power smart appliances are no longer tax exempt.

[davephan]

Originally Posted by wayner

I also have some very cool landscape lighting such as mercury vapor lights in several trees. But I knew that when I bought the house so I am not complaining.

You might check out replacing the mercury vapor lights with high pressure sodium lights. I installed high pressure sodium lights at a previous house a couple decades ago. At the time, I calculated the cost to replace mercury vapor lights with high pressure sodium lights. The difference in electrical costs made the 'payback' time period 16 months. If you drive around at night or fly over a city, almost all of the outdoor lighting you see is from high pressure sodium lights. Many decades ago mercury vapor lights dotted the landscape, but they are gone now, just like the corner phone booth.

Dave

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by baudfather

My setup drew about 140 watts (including cable box and UPC) last I checked...

Here in BC, we've been pretty lucky to have some of the lowest rates in North America... 6.27 cents/kWh for the first 1,350 kWh used over a two-month billing period and 8.78 cents/kWh above that. Rates will be going up substantially over the next few years to pay for infrastructure improvements, as we've only recently had to import power to make up for the growing demand (nearly entirely hydroelectric sourced with 1 nat. gas thermal plant on demand). Here's an interesting look at rates across North America: PDF Rate comparison.

Rates are low here and I can't complain. My only gripe is that there are zero incentives to produce your own power. Even power smart appliances are no longer tax exempt.

.0878 above 675 kwh monthly? WOW - it's .23 on those numbers where I am. Maybe it's time to buy an umbrela and a Canucks jersey

[bjterry62]

Hello all. I checked all my PCs (those on 24/7) last year to see how much they were contributing to my bill. Here is what I have and their current consumption per month:

Unraid Server 37.2kWhrs $6.37
Main Sage HTPC 59.5kWhrs $10.12
Living room Sage Client 37.2kWhrs $6.37
Bedroom Sage Client 26.0kWhrs $4.42

$27.28 each month. Not to bad, but it could get better. The Bedroom client is a new Zacate build. I would like to change the LR client to one of these, but the savings doesn't outway the cost. When it's time comes, I will change. The unRAID server is running on an old socket 754 Mobile Athlon 2ghz 35W processor and I have 6 hdds inside. It is for ripped DVD storage. The main Sage box does all the recording and conversions, so it has the most horsepower. However, the processor is an older Athlon X2 7750 that I may replace soon with a lower wattage Athlon II. I see a lot of folks making storage servers using Atom MBs and they seem to be pretty efficient. This is what I'm thinking of for the replacement of my MB/proc when the time comes. If Zacate has matured enough by then, I may use it.

BT

[tvmaster2]

Originally Posted by bjterry62

Hello all. I checked all my PCs (those on 24/7) last year to see how much they were contributing to my bill. Here is what I have and their current consumption per month:

Unraid Server 37.2kWhrs $6.37
Main Sage HTPC 59.5kWhrs $10.12
Living room Sage Client 37.2kWhrs $6.37
Bedroom Sage Client 26.0kWhrs $4.42

$27.28 each month. Not to bad, but it could get better. The Bedroom client is a new Zacate build. I would like to change the LR client to one of these, but the savings doesn't outway the cost. When it's time comes, I will change. The unRAID server is running on an old socket 754 Mobile Athlon 2ghz 35W processor and I have 6 hdds inside. It is for ripped DVD storage. The main Sage box does all the recording and conversions, so it has the most horsepower. However, the processor is an older Athlon X2 7750 that I may replace soon with a lower wattage Athlon II. I see a lot of folks making storage servers using Atom MBs and they seem to be pretty efficient. This is what I'm thinking of for the replacement of my MB/proc when the time comes. If Zacate has matured enough by then, I may use it.

BT

Wow - what price per kwh are you associating with these? I used my high-rate, which is .23 per kwh. At that price, my SINGLE, 65w Athlon based unit generates $16 per month. Are you turning them on and off, running in standby, what exactly?