$700-a-year increase running an airconditioner & snap price rises of as much as 15,000 %

[poppa smurf]

lets just say that I do have a lot of "internal" knowledge of power systems with years of actual hands on experience in this exact subject, this would possibly account for my "self assurance".

you are talking hypotheticals as well as differing power system (american) as well as twisting the conversation into non existent Hypothetical boundaries which would be impossible to replicate without multiple failures of multiple systems.

we shall leave the debate there I think.

[Franco Cozzo]

Why would anyone agree to that test lol?

Yeah no worries chuck this box on my house and you can turn A/C compressor on and off when ever you feel like it, like this 45 degree day coming up, feel free to not let me use my A/C when I need it.

[kaniSS]

Touch my aircon in summer and Ill break your fingers.

[NC1183]

Whenever an electrician installs anything like an AirCon etc they are supposed to notify the supply authority to allow them to ensure the network is adequate.

Solar is having a huge unreported impact on the electrical network, areas where there were problems with the voltage being to low are now suffering with the voltage being to high with the seer number of local generation sites feeding into the grid.

Blackouts in summer aren't caused by power lines melting due to overloads, you might get a connector failing, or a piece of "bridging" but not the lines themselves. They do melt if they get hit by lightning but then so do most things.

[Charliewool]

My take on this entire fiasco is bloody greedy privately owned providers who do buggerall to keep up with, not just a growing population, but a more 21st century power reliant population... We pay pay pay pay until it hurts..
Their input as far as infrastructure upgrades or future planning is nonexistent (or minimal at best)
A damn disgrace I reckon!

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by Charliewool

My take on this entire fiasco is bloody greedy privately owned providers who do buggerall to keep up with, not just a growing population, but a more 21st century power reliant population... We pay pay pay pay until it hurts..
Their input as far as infrastructure upgrades or future planning is nonexistent (or minimal at best)
A damn disgrace I reckon!

Speaking for Victoria only our mate Jeff kennet mandated that power prices to be capped for about 10 years when the SEC was privatised by the power companies in 2000, for the last 5 years these companies are now playing catch up on price hikes & like all privatised companies maintenance will be minimal to maximise profits.

[danzvtil]

www.sapowernetworks.com.au/public/download.jsp?id=11891

Google DEMAND MANAGEMENT, the link above outlines the beginning of the trial, the jist of it is copied below.

4.3.3.1 Direct Load Control Phase I

This trial which was completed in March 2006

19 was reported in some detail in Interim

Report No 1. It sought to:

•

determine customer perception of change in comfort levels resulting from the

remote management of domestic air conditioners;

•

determine the impact on aggregate demand for the sites in the trial;

•

gain experience in the installation and operation of proprietary technology;

•

test the performance of selected control technology; and

•

gain experience in quantification, metrics and verification.

A sample size of 20 customers was selected from a pool of 50 customers in the

Adelaide metropolitan area that represented a cross section of the community in

terms of: house type; age of house; occupants’ lifestyle; metropolitan geographic

location and size and type of air conditioner.

The results of the trial confirmed that external control of air conditioners had taken

place and that customers felt no perceptible reduction in comfort levels.

In terms of aggregate demand, the trial confirmed that forced cycling of airconditioner

compressors reduced aggregate demand in the sample group by about

17% from a peak of approximately 30 kW. Also ETSA Utilities gained useful experience,

albeit on a limited scale of: roll out of controllers; control cycle times; customer

behaviour; communications reliability and management and storage of metered

data.

These important learnings were used to inform the larger scale Phase II & III trials.

[danzvtil]

Originally Posted by danzvtil

www.sapowernetworks.com.au/public/download.jsp?id=11891

Google DEMAND MANAGEMENT, the link above outlines the beginning of the trial, the jist of it is copied below.

4.3.3.1 Direct Load Control Phase I

This trial which was completed in March 2006

19 was reported in some detail in Interim

Report No 1. It sought to:

•

determine customer perception of change in comfort levels resulting from the

remote management of domestic air conditioners;

•

determine the impact on aggregate demand for the sites in the trial;

•

gain experience in the installation and operation of proprietary technology;

•

test the performance of selected control technology; and

•

gain experience in quantification, metrics and verification.

A sample size of 20 customers was selected from a pool of 50 customers in the

Adelaide metropolitan area that represented a cross section of the community in

terms of: house type; age of house; occupants’ lifestyle; metropolitan geographic

location and size and type of air conditioner.

The results of the trial confirmed that external control of air conditioners had taken

place and that customers felt no perceptible reduction in comfort levels.

In terms of aggregate demand, the trial confirmed that forced cycling of airconditioner

compressors reduced aggregate demand in the sample group by about

17% from a peak of approximately 30 kW. Also ETSA Utilities gained useful experience,

albeit on a limited scale of: roll out of controllers; control cycle times; customer

behaviour; communications reliability and management and storage of metered

data.

These important learnings were used to inform the larger scale Phase II & III trials.

The start of this trial goes back to 2006, with how fast technology has progressed, smart meters etc have rendered obsolete some of the actions taken here.

[Franco Cozzo]

I cracked the ***** with my car because it wouldn't blow less than 6 degrees out the vents with the A/C on, now I've got it down to 1.5 degrees so I'm going to notice if A/C goes off somewhere in someones house.

You could also save a lot of load on the grid if you forced refrigeration systems to use hydrocarbon refrigerants as they cool more effectively and are easier for the compressor to compress so less load, they spend more time off as a result as they can maintain cooler temperatures with less effort.

But that would hurt a certain synthetic refrigerant industry under the guise of "safety" because they are flammable, which is their main propaganda for their war on the hydrocarbon refrigerant industry.

[ute83]

Anybody buying a new ac unit should check under the cover where it gets wired up. There is another connection there that says " to smart meter ".

[Road_Warrior]

Originally Posted by ute83

Anybody buying a new ac unit should check under the cover where it gets wired up. There is another connection there that says " to smart meter ".

O rly

Didn't know that.

Good luck pulling the plug on my 15 year old evaporative system, Govco

[jpblue1000]

Why is this a surprise, why is this an issue that isn't understood.
I believe the Australian people should own our power generation. But we sold it to private companies years ago for a short term cash injection.
Every private company has the drive to make profit, as yours does or would if you worked for yourself.

Philosophical question time!

Why are profits acceptable when you receive them but not acceptable when you have to pay for them.
If you don't like the price buy elsewhere or find alternates or use less!
Who says you have a right to cheap power?


JP

[danzvtil]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

Why is this a surprise, why is this an issue that isn't understood.
I believe the Australian people should own our power generation. But we sold it to private companies years ago for a short term cash injection.
Every private company has the drive to make profit, as yours does or would if you worked for yourself.

Philosophical question time!

Why are profits acceptable when you receive them but not acceptable when you have to pay for them.
If you don't like the price buy elsewhere or find alternates or use less!
Who says you have a right to cheap power?


JP

Yes, good question, while essential services "should" be run for the good of the people by govco, they are extremely inefficient at doing so, the private sector are better. The only exception I take to privatization is where an energy company in SA has "guaranteed profit" built into their agreement which is a license to print money and roger the consumer in one go.

[Itsme]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

Why is this a surprise, why is this an issue that isn't understood.
I believe the Australian people should own our power generation. But we sold it to private companies years ago for a short term cash injection.
Every private company has the drive to make profit, as yours does or would if you worked for yourself.

Philosophical question time!

Why are profits acceptable when you receive them but not acceptable when you have to pay for them.
If you don't like the price buy elsewhere or find alternates or use less!
Who says you have a right to cheap power?


JP

Don't mind paying for the energy costs rises but as long as the companies can justify the increases & guarantee of services, atm costs are sky rocketing with threats of power black outs is just not on imo!!!

[2011G6E]

The awkward fact that no government wants to own up to is that in a tiny country like ours (by world standards...we have less people than some large urban areas overseas), there just isn't the population base to allow for several companies to all be offering the same service efficiently.

With our small population, the government should run everything...power, water, communications, postal service...and just wear it on the chin if it isn't "massively profitable". As long as it breaks even that's all that matters...and maybe not even then in some areas.

If you try and hand it over to private enterprise because of claims they can "do it better" you're just asking for huge hikes in bills and lack of service to unprofitable areas. We simply don 't have the population base to indulge that sort of foolishness.
Once you give it to a public company, with shareholders, only one thing matters: not customer satisfaction, not a pleasant corporate image, not giving back to the community...the only thing that matters is "return to shareholders", and if shareholders don't see a rise year on year, they'll jump ship, so any staff cuts and putting off of maintenance is justified in keeping that bottom line growing.
"Competition"? Not outside the capital cities...we've actually had people move here from Brisbane and honestly ask "who's the best power company to go with up here for a good deal?"...and the answers are usually "Well you have the choice of Ergon, Ergon, Ergon...or...umm...Ergon". Either everyone should be able to benefit from this amazing world of competition we hear about, or no one should. It's no use for the government to shout about this wonderful world of free market competition if everyone can't get in on it and benefit from it equally, no matter where they are.

In a fair Australia with our small population, the government would run power, water, and other essential services, not worry about profitability, and subsidise things to keep the long suffering taxpayer as happy as possible.


Couldn't work? No? Take this as a mental exercise: Say they privatized "for the sake of efficiency" the postal service.
Do you think you'd pay the same price for a stamp in Darwin as you do in Sydney...?
Or take power supply...people in Brisbane benefit from competition and a wide choice of power companies because of privatization. Now...this is only done because of a concentration of population in that corner of the state. Say the whole state power system was privatised (leased out, whatever...).
How much do you think people in far flung corners of the state would be paying for power where there isn't the population base to make it "pleasant" for the poor old shareholders/investors? How much maintenance would the company be bothered to do out in the bush where a power outage might annoy a couple of hundred people, as opposed to tens of thousands down in Brisbane/Gold Coast area...?

You're very very naive if you think private companies would even worry about dodgy power supplies for country areas...

[dragons90]

If they turn off the air conditioner in a neighborhood off for 30 minutes what happens when they turn them back on won't there be a big spike when they all turn on. Aren't inverter air cons more efficient because they run not stop not constantly stoping and starting.

[2011G6E]

I think I may have come up with a reason why they're doing this...

Forget the "official" reasons...they're rubbish.

Consider this: Summertime in Queensland...peoples houses are hot as hell, you want a bit of comfort so turn on your air conditioners. They work like buggery, consuming heaps of power while they work hard to get the house or room down to the temperature you set...even if you set it at the most efficient 25 degrees. Once down to that temp the air cons work a lot more efficiently and use less power.

Now remotely turn off everyones air cons for that four hour "busy period" and their houses will warm up...and when they go back on, what do you think happens to power usage (and everyones bills) for that area for another long period while the houses are cooled down again...?


Nice way for the companies to make a bit of extra coin...

[poppa smurf]

^^^^ you don't belong in this debate.......I'm sighting you for sprouting too much common sense.

can't have too much of that now can we!....get out!

[2011G6E]

Originally Posted by poppa smurf

^^^^ you don't belong in this debate.......I'm sighting you for sprouting too much common sense.

can't have too much of that now can we!....get out!

The realization came to me purely by accident. We had the air con going in the morning when the heat really began to build, and after a couple of hours of working hard you could hear how the air conditioner evened off and wasn't working near as hard once the temperature inside got down to 25. We then went out for a few hours...turning the air con off when we left...and on returning the inside/outside weather station I have said it was back up to 31 degrees inside. Turn air con on again and it worked it's ring out cooling the room down, taking quite a while to get the temp down again. This was after only a couple of hours.

Then it struck me..."Hey...wait a minute..."

[Road_Warrior]

Originally Posted by 2011G6E

The realization came to me purely by accident. We had the air con going in the morning when the heat really began to build, and after a couple of hours of working hard you could hear how the air conditioner evened off and wasn't working near as hard once the temperature inside got down to 25. We then went out for a few hours...turning the air con off when we left...and on returning the inside/outside weather station I have said it was back up to 31 degrees inside. Turn air con on again and it worked it's ring out cooling the room down, taking quite a while to get the temp down again. This was after only a couple of hours.

Then it struck me..."Hey...wait a minute..."

I think all that is happening there is the fan slows down once the set temperature is reached. I think the refrigerant pump etc is still working so the difference in power draw would be minimal.

[Agile]

Here is another issue you may want to investigate. A new client of mine needed a range hood replaced so in doing the removal and install I had to get into the roof space. About 36 degrees outside so she had the air going flat out. I did notice that her termostat was set at 19 degrees so I jokingly said to her, we are going to freeze in here. She said even though the aircon was only 18 months old it didnt seem to work as well as most of her friends home aircons.
So I get into the roof to find that the replacement indoor unit was " matched up to" the original ducting with about 10 km,s of grey duct tape, which had OFF COURSE !!! failed. The result. Return air was sucking stinking hot air into the unit and the outlet side was blowing cold air [sort of] straight into the roof space. I would say 50% of the cooled air.
I made some temp repairs with some MORE duct tape and a couple of old bed sheets.Resulted in termastat now running at 25 degrees and it aparently is freezing inside the house. I would estimate that her power bill will probably be halved.
The shonky BAR STEWARDS who had ripped her off had also done the worst install I have ever seen. Almost $6000 for a system I can buy for $3600 and have my air guy install in about .5 of a day. Anybody who is using a reasonably reputable NE suburban airconditioning company in Adelaide, check your install!!

[poppa smurf]

Originally Posted by Agile

Here is another issue you may want to investigate. A new client of mine needed a range hood replaced so in doing the removal and install I had to get into the roof space. About 36 degrees outside so she had the air going flat out. I did notice that her termostat was set at 19 degrees so I jokingly said to her, we are going to freeze in here. She said even though the aircon was only 18 months old it didnt seem to work as well as most of her friends home aircons.
So I get into the roof to find that the replacement indoor unit was " matched up to" the original ducting with about 10 km,s of grey duct tape, which had OFF COURSE !!! failed. The result. Return air was sucking stinking hot air into the unit and the outlet side was blowing cold air [sort of] straight into the roof space. I would say 50% of the cooled air.
I made some temp repairs with some MORE duct tape and a couple of old bed sheets.Resulted in termastat now running at 25 degrees and it aparently is freezing inside the house. I would estimate that her power bill will probably be halved.
The shonky BAR STEWARDS who had ripped her off had also done the worst install I have ever seen. Almost $6000 for a system I can buy for $3600 and have my air guy install in about .5 of a day. Anybody who is using a reasonably reputable NE suburban airconditioning company in Adelaide, check your install!!

I had to look twice when our installer ran the duct tape, a full roll was used on each outlet, half a roll on the inner duct and the other half on the outer insulation.

when queried on this he said "I don't want to have to come back because one blew off!"

must use an awful lot of duct tape, used a box of them just on my install.......I shoulda bought shares in duct tape.

[buggerlugs]

Originally Posted by Agile

Here is another issue you may want to investigate. A new client of mine needed a range hood replaced so in doing the removal and install I had to get into the roof space. About 36 degrees outside so she had the air going flat out. I did notice that her termostat was set at 19 degrees so I jokingly said to her, we are going to freeze in here. She said even though the aircon was only 18 months old it didnt seem to work as well as most of her friends home aircons.
So I get into the roof to find that the replacement indoor unit was " matched up to" the original ducting with about 10 km,s of grey duct tape, which had OFF COURSE !!! failed. The result. Return air was sucking stinking hot air into the unit and the outlet side was blowing cold air [sort of] straight into the roof space. I would say 50% of the cooled air.
I made some temp repairs with some MORE duct tape and a couple of old bed sheets.Resulted in termastat now running at 25 degrees and it aparently is freezing inside the house. I would estimate that her power bill will probably be halved.
The shonky BAR STEWARDS who had ripped her off had also done the worst install I have ever seen. Almost $6000 for a system I can buy for $3600 and have my air guy install in about .5 of a day. Anybody who is using a reasonably reputable NE suburban airconditioning company in Adelaide, check your install!!

Is that an "Irish" fitting, a termostat

[blueoval]

You would think a/c companies would design a duct system that interlocks and doesn't require the use of the mediocre/unreliable duct tape solution.

[jpblue1000]

Originally Posted by blueoval

You would think a/c companies would design a duct system that interlocks and doesn't require the use of the mediocre/unreliable duct tape solution.

I think its got more to do with people not paying for the fancy interlocking system as duct tape is cheap and 'does the job'

JP

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by jpblue1000

I think its got more to do with people not paying for the fancy interlocking system as duct tape is cheap and 'does the job'

JP

Perhaps. Although, I'd pay for it if it were offered to me as an option.

[vztrt]

Originally Posted by blueoval

Perhaps. Although, I'd pay for it if it were offered to me as an option.

You do realise that each company would make with locking systems different to keep you with their brand and you would have to buy their ducting. It'll become more fun if the brand went under.

[snowcone]

I'm spewing. Just got my power bill for this quarter.
$950 which includes $200 off for discounts and fast paying.
There are only 2 of us in the house and we have gas hot water and hotplate.
Both work full time so nothing on through the day.
Big house with ducted air but we used to have 2 split systems which we took out for the ducted.
I am tempted to tell them to shove everything and go off the grid at this rate.
I'll shop daily and use eskies and cheap ice, cook on the BBQ, shower at work, recharge the phones and iPads in the car. I'll show em!!! It will come to this for sure at this rate.

[poppa smurf]

Originally Posted by snowcone

I'm spewing. Just got my power bill for this quarter.
$950 which includes $200 off for discounts and fast paying.
There are only 2 of us in the house and we have gas hot water and hotplate.
Both work full time so nothing on through the day.
Big house with ducted air but we used to have 2 split systems which we took out for the ducted.
I am tempted to tell them to shove everything and go off the grid at this rate.
I'll shop daily and use eskies and cheap ice, cook on the BBQ, shower at work, recharge the phones and iPads in the car. I'll show em!!! It will come to this for sure at this rate.

have you checked your daily usage data?, are there any discrepancies or mistakes?.

make sure everything is above board and if you find a blue contact your supplier.

[blueoval]

Originally Posted by snowcone

I'm spewing. Just got my power bill for this quarter.
$950 which includes $200 off for discounts and fast paying.
There are only 2 of us in the house and we have gas hot water and hotplate.
Both work full time so nothing on through the day.
Big house with ducted air but we used to have 2 split systems which we took out for the ducted.
I am tempted to tell them to shove everything and go off the grid at this rate.
I'll shop daily and use eskies and cheap ice, cook on the BBQ, shower at work, recharge the phones and iPads in the car. I'll show em!!! It will come to this for sure at this rate.

That's insanity. Especially if you aren't using said appliances.

This is what Im doing of late - Switch off all appliances at the switch even if they are on standby. Standby uses power. Consider fitting fans in the house. I already have them fitted and they work well. They are far more energy efficient than a/c and will still make life bareable in moderate heat. Only consider using the a/c in heat waves and only in spurts during off peak times. Apply a 'no pants' rule to the house to accommodate the no a/c rule.

I am also considering an external mist kit for outdoor use to use during gatherings. Has a timer to operate in time intervals and drops the temp in an alfresco or balcony by up to 10deg compared to the ambient temp. Uses little water.