Mains power voltage drop to reduce usage?...

[David Wade]

On 07/11/2022 18:07, Sam E wrote:

[snip]

They don\'t use those for heaters, only motors.  Why would you need it
for a resistive heater?

I have it on my heat pump.

Heat pumps are not resistive!  That would defeat the whole purpose.

Heat pumps don\'t work well at very low temperatures. IIRC, the emergency
heat is normally resistive.

[snip]

Air-2-Air heat pumps loose efficiency below about 4C but modern ones
continue to provide some output down to -4c. None that I am aware of
have resistive heaters, but of course some folks will have separate
resistive heaters should the temp drop below -4.

Dave

 

[Cindy Hamilton]

On 2022-11-07, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 16:08, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On 2022-11-07, upsidedown@downunder.com <upsidedown@downunder.com> wrote:

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

Was this in the US with \"pigs\" in the poles ?

It\'s in the U.S.

To my understanding the medium voltage feed is three phase open wire
in delta configuration (no neutral). The \"pig\" is a single phase
transformer with the primary connected between two phase wires in the
medium voltage feed. The third phase wire is not used by this
transformer, but most likely in the next pig. The secondary is center
tapped with 2 x 120 V. The cent re tap is connected to neutral and
ground.

Are you sure that the wire between pig secondary CT to your house
neutral was broken ?

I could see both ends of the break. The entire bundle of wires
is one of these:

https://www.prioritywire.com/specs/Triplex%20Service%20Drop.pdf

Sorry. I picked the first link that had triplex. No way for me to know
it was geoblocked, but I probably should check my browser\'s security
settings.

--
Cindy Hamilton

 

[Jeroen Belleman]

On 2022-11-07 20:49, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 20:24:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 16:47, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:30:36 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2022-11-06, Ralph Mowery <rmowery42@charter.net> wrote:
In article <op.1u73hbz8mvhs6z@ryzen.home>, CK1@nospam.com says...

Not necessarily. We have a \"guaranteed\" minimum and maximum supply
voltage. Why should a company spend extra designing and installing
protection against supplies (not temporary aberrations) outside them?

Because other things could cause lower voltage, like a wiring fault in the device or the building. Especially in dual voltage countries like the US where you can lose one live.




If the neutral line is lost or a bad connection the line voltage in a
house could have one side to be very low and the other side very high in
the US system.

Funny you should mention that. Our neutral broke in high winds
yesterday. Both remaining legs seem to be well balanced.

That happened to me once. We had 90 and 135 vrms on various outlets.
The PG&E guys didn\'t want to believe me but I finally convenced them
(some of the lights were BRIGHT) and they fixed a splice on the wires
outside.
[...]


Me too! I have three-phase at home. I had a world of difficulty convincing
the supplier that his neutral was broken. I ended up with several low power
devices broken by overvoltage. No smoke, no fires, fortunately.

This seems to happen much more often than it should. In France, it\'s
common to have aluminium cabling between the power pole and the customer\'s
main breaker. Bad idea. A bad crimp turned out to be the cause.

Jeroen Belleman

My case was an old Victorian built in 1892. The neutral was grounded
to an old gas pipe that was pretty rusted out, so maybe I didn\'t have
a local, redundant neutral connection.

Shocking that the whole thing didn\'t blow up. I eventually bought the
special tool to shut off the gas under the sidewalk and replaced the
gas entry pipes.

We have two phases 120-N-120 with, ideally, N connected to a good
ground at our breaker panel, and the neighborhood N grounded multiple
places. Our new house has a serious ground rod.

Does your system have a local N-G connection? That should prevent the
imbalance.

No, it doesn\'t. I believe the star point of three-phase pole pigs
is grounded, but that, of course, did not help me here.

Ground fault interrupters here work by summing the currents in the
hot and neutral lines and are combined with the main breaker. The
neutral must be grounded upstream w.r.t. the GFI for that to work,
so it\'s out of my hands.

Jeroen Belleman

 

[Bob F]

On 11/7/2022 1:51 PM, David Wade wrote:

On 07/11/2022 18:07, Sam E wrote:

[snip]

They don\'t use those for heaters, only motors.  Why would you need it
for a resistive heater?

I have it on my heat pump.

Heat pumps are not resistive!  That would defeat the whole purpose.

Heat pumps don\'t work well at very low temperatures. IIRC, the
emergency heat is normally resistive.

[snip]

Air-2-Air heat pumps loose efficiency below about 4C but  modern ones
continue to provide some output down to -4c. None that I am aware of
have resistive heaters, but of course some folks will have separate
resistive heaters should the temp drop below -4.

The air source heat pump I had, had 15KW a resistive heater for cold
weather and also. IIRC for the defrost cycle (switchable) so it would
not blast cold air into the house. That was many years ago.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

mandag den 7. november 2022 kl. 20.49.34 UTC+1 skrev John Larkin:
> We have two phases 120-N-120

Ackchyually ..

if they 180 degrees apart (240V between two hots) it is it is split phase and doesn\'t count as different phases

if they are 120 degrees apart (208V between two hots) they are two out of three phases

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:49:55 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:52, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:40:12 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:55, Commander Kinsey wrote:
It\'s only illegal if you\'re caught. You could blow up your neighbour\'s
meter.

Hardly. My meter is inside my house.

Unusual with modern housing (including my 1979 one). It makes it harder
for them to inspect/read the meter.

It is not a modern house.
And precisely because of that, a smart meter was very welcome. I no
longer have to open them the door to read the meter.

It would take great delight in inconveniencing them having to return if I\'m out.

Even if you don\'t get caught, they
would replace with another smart meter. You gain nothing.

But they would lose the cost of a meter.

And me would be without electricity for weeks.

Just connect a wire between the 2 points and say it fell into place when the meter melted.

 

[David Wade]

On 07/11/2022 22:35, Bob F wrote:

On 11/7/2022 1:51 PM, David Wade wrote:
On 07/11/2022 18:07, Sam E wrote:

[snip]

They don\'t use those for heaters, only motors.  Why would you need it
for a resistive heater?

I have it on my heat pump.

Heat pumps are not resistive!  That would defeat the whole purpose.

Heat pumps don\'t work well at very low temperatures. IIRC, the
emergency heat is normally resistive.

[snip]

Air-2-Air heat pumps loose efficiency below about 4C but  modern ones
continue to provide some output down to -4c. None that I am aware of
have resistive heaters, but of course some folks will have separate
resistive heaters should the temp drop below -4.


The air source heat pump I had, had 15KW a resistive heater for cold
weather and also. IIRC for the defrost cycle (switchable) so it would
not blast cold air into the house. That was many years ago.

It does sound old. I have new air2air Mitsubishi in the UK, fairly
recent Fujitsu General and older Daikin in Spain. None of these have any
resistive heating element, but of course in Spain they are mostly for
cooling.

The Mitsubishi are supposed to produce heat down to an outside temp of
-16C but I don\'t suppose it will produce much at that temp....

... but I see that suppliers can supply auxiliary heaters for air2water
heat pumps, but say generally not needed in the uk...

Dave

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 22:35:59 -0000, Bob F <bobnospam@gmail.com> wrote:

On 11/7/2022 1:51 PM, David Wade wrote:
On 07/11/2022 18:07, Sam E wrote:

[snip]

They don\'t use those for heaters, only motors. Why would you need it
for a resistive heater?

I have it on my heat pump.

Heat pumps are not resistive! That would defeat the whole purpose.

Heat pumps don\'t work well at very low temperatures. IIRC, the
emergency heat is normally resistive.

[snip]

Air-2-Air heat pumps loose efficiency below about 4C but modern ones
continue to provide some output down to -4c. None that I am aware of
have resistive heaters, but of course some folks will have separate
resistive heaters should the temp drop below -4.


The air source heat pump I had, had 15KW a resistive heater for cold
weather and also. IIRC for the defrost cycle (switchable) so it would
not blast cold air into the house. That was many years ago.

Mine seems to make a quieter lower grumbling noise when defrosting, no idea what it\'s doing. Sounds mechanical. The fans are all stopped, there\'s nothing else in there to make a noise, so I assume the compressor runs slowly or something?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 23:35:40 -0000, David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> wrote:

On 07/11/2022 22:35, Bob F wrote:
On 11/7/2022 1:51 PM, David Wade wrote:
On 07/11/2022 18:07, Sam E wrote:

[snip]

They don\'t use those for heaters, only motors. Why would you need it
for a resistive heater?

I have it on my heat pump.

Heat pumps are not resistive! That would defeat the whole purpose.

Heat pumps don\'t work well at very low temperatures. IIRC, the
emergency heat is normally resistive.

[snip]

Air-2-Air heat pumps loose efficiency below about 4C but modern ones
continue to provide some output down to -4c. None that I am aware of
have resistive heaters, but of course some folks will have separate
resistive heaters should the temp drop below -4.


The air source heat pump I had, had 15KW a resistive heater for cold
weather and also. IIRC for the defrost cycle (switchable) so it would
not blast cold air into the house. That was many years ago.
It does sound old. I have new air2air Mitsubishi in the UK, fairly
recent Fujitsu General and older Daikin in Spain. None of these have any
resistive heating element, but of course in Spain they are mostly for
cooling.

The Mitsubishi are supposed to produce heat down to an outside temp of
-16C but I don\'t suppose it will produce much at that temp....

.. but I see that suppliers can supply auxiliary heaters for air2water
heat pumps, but say generally not needed in the uk...

I question whether a heatpump is worth it. They cost so much to buy, just to save some electricity when the temperature is favourable for it. Using mine for heating aswell as AC, I wore it out in under 2 years and had to repair it, so I just use it for AC now, since the valve to switch it over is jammed inside.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 03:37:33 -0000, Clare Snyder <clare@snyder.on.ca> wrote:

On Sun, 6 Nov 2022 22:07:51 -0000 (UTC), danny burstein
dannyb@panix.com> wrote:

In <op.1u8ec8x9mvhs6z@ryzen.home> \"Commander Kinsey\" <CK1@nospam.com> writes:

[snip]

I wasn\'t aware Spain was communist.

Do you really want a meter which can overread by a factor of 5, in parti=
cular on eco-stuff like LED lights!

Do your teachers, especially physics, math, and social studies,
know how dumb you\'re sounding these days?
Anyone who has ever seen ANYTHING Kinsey has posted/written KNOWS how
dumb he IS - not just how dumb he SOUNDS.

Then killfile me you silly woman.

And I can\'t be dumb for quoting a fact you can backup with google.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:56:41 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:54, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:44:28 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:57, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electric cooker is 8kW.

Mine is 1.8 Kw, induction. Very fast.

Induction doesn\'t make it more than 100% efficient.

You are badly informed

Only a heatpump can give you more out than you put in. Just think about it.

Does everyone in
your country have cold food and cold showers or use gas?

Nope, nope, and maybe.

Sissies, sissies, and I thought the EU was banning gas?

We have so much gas that we have to tell gas ships to wait for days to
be unloaded while we burn some gas to make free space to get more gas :-D

Not what I heard - refusing to buy from Russia and Russia refusing to sell it, etc.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 09:57:25 -0000, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 02:59, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:45:14 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:58, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:45:03 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-07 00:29, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:06:29 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2022-11-06 22:37, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Do you really want a meter which can overread by a factor of 5, in
particular on eco-stuff like LED lights!

Where do you get that idea?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4288180/Smart-meters-readings-SEVEN-times-high.html

\"smart meters can give readings that are SEVEN times too high because
dimmer switches and LED bulbs confuse the devices
Smart meters can be confused by modern dimmer switches and LED bulbs
Meters come up with readings that are 582 per cent higher than they
should be
It comes after an SSE had to apologise to customers earlier this week
after malfunctioning smart meters handed them bills for as much as
£44,000 a day
The Government wants them installed in all 26million homes by 2020\"

That last line, ROFL! It\'s now 2022 and only half of us have one..


Well, no such thing here. This is a modern country :-D

Didn\'t you recently have a terrible poverty? About a decade ago?

Nope.

Spain, right? I watched a Top Gear episode about 10 years ago which
showed completely empty areas of Spain where you\'d all moved out.

LOL.

Are you telling me that never happened?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:15:57 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

On 06/11/2022 21:02, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 20:50:10 -0000, Tim+ <tim.downie@gmail.com> wrote:

As has been explained, reducing voltage is a crap idea. You can email
folk
and ask them to reduce consumption at peak time though. I got refunds
last
December for doing this.

Not so accurate though. Could they get you to turn things off at a few
seconds notice?

Eventually when we’re all on smart meters, more variable tariffs will
become available that will encourage this behaviour will become the norm.

No smart meter will ever be installed in this house.

I don\'t have one personally, but the supply to the common areas of my
block does and the supplier erroneously turned it off a couple of weeks
ago. It was three days before they could be persuaded to turn it back
on, so we lost the door entry system, porch and flood lights, lights in
the stairways and passages - the emergency lighting failed after a few
hours: before nightfall, the TV aerial distribution system and the fire
brigade were ringing up the management agents complaining that the fire
alarm was out of action.

[shakes head in disbelief]

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:38:48 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

On 06/11/2022 18:48, Tim+ wrote:
Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

Even without that the motor would be on for longer as they have thermostats.

Actually my fridge freezer might as well not have one as it rarely turns
off. Ice forms inside the fridge part and you can just about freeze
vodka in an ice cube tray so it must be about -25C.

Have you measured how much that is costing you? Fridges are potentially a
fairly major household power consumer these days now that lighting has
become so much more efficient. You really don’t want a fridge that’s
working harder than it needs to 24/7.

A power monitoring plug can be had for less than £15 and is a useful tool.

I\'m not in a position to replace it as it came with the flat. And it\'s a
bit of a squeeze to fit in the alcove. I can\'t clean the fridge part
properly as the door doesn\'t open past 90 degrees or so I can\'t remove
the shelves or drawer.

I tried to measure the consumption by timing the spinning wheel of the
meter: I used 104W with it on and 58W with it off so I suppose the FF
uses 46W or so.

An amp clamp is a wonderful device. Wrap it round a meter tail and observe the change as someone turns things on and off. I just did this to measure my parents\' oil boiler electricity consumption to fit an appropriately sized backup battery.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 11:46:03 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

On 06/11/2022 19:49, Bob F wrote:
On 11/6/2022 9:53 AM, Max Demian wrote:
On 06/11/2022 17:05, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 16:49:13 -0000, David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid
wrote:

Even a modern fridge has in effect a switched mode PSU so a variable
frequency
inverter drive to the motor.

Even without that the motor would be on for longer as they have
thermostats.

Actually my fridge freezer might as well not have one as it rarely
turns off. Ice forms inside the fridge part and you can just about
freeze vodka in an ice cube tray so it must be about -25C.

Have you considered adjusting it?

It\'s set to 1, which is next to off, so I assume that\'s the minimum
refrigeration.

Sounds like the thermostat is fucked, will your landlord replace it?

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 12:05:20 -0000, Max Demian <max_demian@bigfoot.com> wrote:

On 06/11/2022 23:57, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:42:56 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2022-11-07 00:31, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 23:09:41 -0000, Carlos E.R.
robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
On 2022-11-06 23:09, Commander Kinsey wrote:

What is your peak load? Is this certain times of day only? I can
draw 24kW, if that reduced I\'d be fucking angry.

LOL

Of course I don\'t often use that much, I\'ve never gone over 18kW, and
not over 8kW for any long period.

What do you need that much electricity for, you run a forge at home? :-D

An electric shower is 9kW. An electric cooker is 8kW. Does everyone in
your country have cold food and cold showers or use gas?

In my case, a supercomputer.

What\'s that, a ZX81 with a 16kB RAM pack?

It\'s 2 foot deep, 6 foot tall, 6 foot wide, has 100 CPU cores and 12 GPUs. Total RAM about 300GB.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 13:05:37 -0000, <hubops@ccanoemail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 02:02:18 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\"
CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 01:51:16 -0000, <hubops@ccanoemail.com> wrote:

It\'s not just distribution stations that are supplied from
the sub-transmission feeders - commercial, industrial,
residential, etc .. much with fixed tap transformers.

Why are they still fixed tap?

Cost and reliability, I\'d guess.
The feeder voltage is well regulated.

My local substation (was? they just replaced it after it got damaged
due to somebody shorting something - no fuses, doh!) is fixed tap,
but adjustable manually.
They refused to adjust it to lower my high voltage
because they\'d give someone else low voltage.


There are always fuses < or breakers > - sometimes they
are a little slow or sometimes the nature of the fault is such
that catastrophic damage occurs regardless. I\'ve seen the
aftermath of a 500 kV ~750 MVA transformer splitting open
and spilling it\'s guts .. poop happens.

An appropriate breaker or fuse should be present to protect all wiring and transformers. The worst one I saw was where I used to live, next door was a very old house with the cable going in through the eaves of the roof. It came loose and shorted in his attic. Enough to cause sparks to fly from the pole mounted transformer across the road for a considerable time, and lots of loud buzzing. Nothing tripped, his house burnt down. He didn\'t give a shit, he got a lot off the insurance. I hope the insurance fined the fuckwit electricity supplier (and the fuckwit fire brigade who had no key to turn off the supply, and no equipment/skills to put out a live fire).

The solution for your high voltage vs low end-voltage
can be complicated and expensive to resolve - involving
installing in-line regulating transformers or capacitor banks ..
possibly on more-than-one feeder ..

It\'s all in parallel. Three live cables (one per phase, each with neutral/earth armour plating) come out of the transformer and run all the way along the street under the pavement. They branch to each house. It would be difficult to add stuff like you suggest.

I sorted it myself with a UPS for anything delicate, which lowers the voltage accordingly.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 14:01:10 -0000, Wim Ton <wim.ton@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sunday, 6 November 2022 at 22:10:41 UTC, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:07:51 -0000, danny burstein <dan...@panix.com> wrote:

In <op.1u8ec...@ryzen.home> \"Commander Kinsey\" <C...@nospam.com> writes:

[snip]

I wasn\'t aware Spain was communist.

Do you really want a meter which can overread by a factor of 5, in parti=
cular on eco-stuff like LED lights!

Do your teachers, especially physics, math, and social studies,
know how dumb you\'re sounding these days?
I\'m 47. And the 5 factor is a fact.
Electronic meters (of which smart meters are a subset) can react strangly on distorted currents, depending on the sensor (shunt resistor, Hall, Rogowsky coil). See the research from the Technical University Twenthe. All within the borders of the laws governing measurements for billing.

How can the law permit you being charged 5 times too much?

Shit, my meter is digital. They changed it several years ago when I went to two-rate supply.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 08:50:37 -0000, Martin Brown <\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co..uk> wrote:

On 06/11/2022 22:39, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sun, 06 Nov 2022 22:33:44 -0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 06/11/2022 14:23, Commander Kinsey wrote:
Instead of rolling blackouts when there\'s a power shortage, why don\'t we
just allow (or deliberately) the voltage and frequency to drop?
Wouldn\'t that make a lot of devices use less?

Not any more.

Apart from resistive loads and motors almost all other consumer items
like TVs will simply draw more current at the lower voltage to maintain
a constant power output. My PC and other office kit will quite happily
run on 110v as will the LED lights. Incandescent lights are visibly
orange on that voltage and a kettle takes forever to boil.

But you\'re referring to small things that use very little power.
Normally, I can draw 6kW for computers.

They still make up the bulk of the load that domestic consumers present
to the grid.

Not true. The average annual electricity bill is £2500. You can\'t spend that with a fridge.

This happens in rural locations when one phase out of two supplying a
village goes down and the remaining live phase is left taking the strain.

TWO?!

Yes! In rural UK the main distribution is full three phase on the main
lines but small villages are typically on spurs with just two live taps
and earth. Farmers have been quoted insane prices to be put on 3 phase..

Why two? Why not one?

I believe the farmers can create three phase, but that could also be expensive.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Mon, 07 Nov 2022 13:12:22 -0000, <hubops@ccanoemail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 08:50:37 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

This happens in rural locations when one phase out of two supplying a
village goes down and the remaining live phase is left taking the strain.

TWO?!

Yes! In rural UK the main distribution is full three phase on the main
lines but small villages are typically on spurs with just two live taps
and earth. Farmers have been quoted insane prices to be put on 3 phase.

Are you sure it isn\'t 1 primary phase ? plus neutral -
which feeds center-tapped transformers that provide
2 hots + neutral to the customer.
that is the North American way
.. which would save many millions of miles of primary conductor
and insulators ... compared to 2 primary lines.

No, in the UK we have proper power. One voltage, no messing about with extra conductors.