Why is an EV\'s backup power less than it\'s driving power?...

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:52:14 AM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2022-11-18 11:23, Martin Brown wrote:
On 17/11/2022 19:18, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 2:12:13 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R.
wrote:
On 2022-11-17 17:12, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:39:52 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to
fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t
cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d
say more like 500 dollars.

Yep, a couple of quid for the battery, a few more quid for
the casing, employ some untrained monkey on minimum wage to
fit it to the grid with bell wire, a small inverter and a
suicide lead to plug it back into a convenient 3 pin socket
when the backup is needed.

What battery? The battery is already in the car. All you need
is a convertor from 400VDC to 240VAC, and if you want it
automated, a big contactor to switch to the car and back.
A Tesla powerwall battery ~14kWh intended for home use has an
inverter that can only output about 7kW peak and 5kW
continuous.

https://electrek.co/2021/04/22/tesla-increasing-powerwall-power-capacity/



Yeah, they are a bit limited too. Try using one as your primary backup.
When it kicks in, your electric use is suddenly limited.
Mine would be more than doubled. A typical home here has 3.6 or 4.8
KW max.

3.6 kW is only 15A at 240V. I\'m told that in the UK, when an
important football game is on, there\'s a power surge from the 9 amp
kettles going on during commercials. I guess where you live, they

Half time at a major sporting event is a major coherent spike in grid
power usage and they need to be ready for it.

They are not 9A kettles either. The typical UK kettle now is 2.4kW/10A
although many older kettles like mine are 3kW/13A. The maximum load that
a nominal 13A socket can take continuously has been recently downgraded..

Too many cheap and nasty Chinese ones melted with continuous 13A loads.
Notably with increased use of 3kW fan heaters to heat a single room
(causing other problems as well in this energy crisis).

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/15/cost-of-living-crisis-fire-safety-warning-over-electric-heaters-17753200/

Becoming a problem right now as rising energy prices mean people turn
off CH and heat just one room with an old electric fan heater to save
money. Older ones are invariably 3kW and the modern \"13A\" sockets are
made down to a price and not really up to it. Once they start to fail by
overheating the damage quickly becomes exponentially bad.

Warming up a room from cold with a solid 3kW 13A continuous load
stresses some sockets beyond the point where they become serious hot
after an hour or so.
Me, I refuse to run a heater at more than 1 KW. 2 KW if the room is very
cold and nothing big is using electricity at the same time. Yes, it will
take longer to warm up, but it gets there (not talking of my house).

How can you use 2 kW for the heater and run a refrigerator and anything else when your total feed is just 2.4 kW?

But it is difficult to find a heater of less than 2 KW, which is weird
considering the typical max power of houses here. Perhaps it is a
conspiracy by manufacturers to make us contract more power and make the
grid owners rich

It sounds like your power grid is run by the cell phone companies.

have to turn off the TV to run the kettle. Or maybe they unplug the
refrigerator?

When we lived in Japan it was the same. A kettle was a thermally
insulated vessel that kept water near ready to use temperature and
consumed energy 24/7 to keep it that way. It took forever to get hot
boiling water after refilling it with just 500W peak consumption. You
gave it a boost to go from 90+C to boiling prior to use.
I have not seen those kettles here. Now that I think, I saw one in
Lancaster, long ago, at an YMCA place :-D

It was big and hooked on the wall, to make tea for many people and fast.

Fast and low power do not go together.

Me, I use a thick iron pot on the induction range to make tea. Quite
fast, I barely have time to prepare the strainer with the leaves.

https://images.app.goo.gl/TKS8FR2a26ezf53B9

Like that one, but cheaper.

So you heat up the heavy iron pot every time you want hot water for tea?

Having aircon, immersion heater and washing machine on at the same time
would take out the MCB for overload. We found that out the hard way.
Indeed.

Yeah, I don\'t have that problem. Once in a while, a storm will take out the power, but it\'s back up in 5 to 60 minutes normally. I charge my car off an outlet at 1.44 kW. Someday I should put in a 7.7 kW connection, but I would hate to think how many homes in Spain would lose power.

--

Rick C.

-+-+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:10:54 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:

fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 11.37.56 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
I live in an apartment, I don\'t know what the feed is but in my panel is 4*10A fuses

I assume you are not in the US? I\'ve never heard of 10A circuits. Even a hair dryer would blow that breaker.

Clearly you have separate heat and A/C, also hot water and range/oven. I assume you have gas.

Base load 24/7 is 70W typical daytime load ~300W peak maybe 6kW.
My house has 100 amp service. But we have a gas stove and water
heater, and oil heat. No electric heat. My shop runs off 220 Vac,
but the big machines are only used intermittently, but will need a
lot of power when doing something heavy.

Do you have a 240V to 220V transformer? If not, you have excessive
voltage drop coming to your house and should ask the power company to
fix that.
UK says it has 240v but in reality all of Europe uses a ~230v nominal
voltage with an asymmetric tolerance band see for example:

www.spenergynetworks.co.uk/pages/voltage_changes.aspx#:~:text=declared,216.2%20volts%20to%20253.0%20volts.
I believe it has been changed to a symmetric +/-10%

In the US grid voltage tolerance is ±5% or +6% and -13% for different rates of occurrence.

Most appliances (including air conditioners) are 120 Vac and 15 or
20 amps. Things like clothes dryers are 220 Vac. Many people have
electric water heaters. also 220 Vac.

If you have 120V on the low voltage outlets, how do you get 220V on
the high voltage circuits? Is your line not balanced with one at
120V and the other at 100V?
It is likely that as in the UK confusion reigns about actual mains
voltage - so few consumers ever measure it and think they have 240v. It
could in reality be as low as 216 or high as 253 and still (just) in spec.

In most of Europe it is likely to be 230v nominal 115v-0-115v balanced
or it could be full three phase supply to industrial premises.
here (Denmark) everyone has three phase

They bring three phase into the home? That\'s a big boost in power! Do they provide 230V off each leg of the three phase to neutral? Or is it 230V between each pair of three phase legs?

--

Rick C.

-++- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-++- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-11-18 20:26, Ricky wrote:

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:52:14 AM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-18 11:23, Martin Brown wrote:
On 17/11/2022 19:18, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 2:12:13 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R.
wrote:
On 2022-11-17 17:12, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:39:52 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to
fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t
cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d
say more like 500 dollars.

Yep, a couple of quid for the battery, a few more quid for
the casing, employ some untrained monkey on minimum wage to
fit it to the grid with bell wire, a small inverter and a
suicide lead to plug it back into a convenient 3 pin socket
when the backup is needed.

What battery? The battery is already in the car. All you need
is a convertor from 400VDC to 240VAC, and if you want it
automated, a big contactor to switch to the car and back.
A Tesla powerwall battery ~14kWh intended for home use has an
inverter that can only output about 7kW peak and 5kW
continuous.

https://electrek.co/2021/04/22/tesla-increasing-powerwall-power-capacity/



Yeah, they are a bit limited too. Try using one as your primary backup.
When it kicks in, your electric use is suddenly limited.
Mine would be more than doubled. A typical home here has 3.6 or 4.8
KW max.

3.6 kW is only 15A at 240V. I\'m told that in the UK, when an
important football game is on, there\'s a power surge from the 9 amp
kettles going on during commercials. I guess where you live, they

Half time at a major sporting event is a major coherent spike in grid
power usage and they need to be ready for it.

They are not 9A kettles either. The typical UK kettle now is 2.4kW/10A
although many older kettles like mine are 3kW/13A. The maximum load that
a nominal 13A socket can take continuously has been recently downgraded.

Too many cheap and nasty Chinese ones melted with continuous 13A loads.
Notably with increased use of 3kW fan heaters to heat a single room
(causing other problems as well in this energy crisis).

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/15/cost-of-living-crisis-fire-safety-warning-over-electric-heaters-17753200/

Becoming a problem right now as rising energy prices mean people turn
off CH and heat just one room with an old electric fan heater to save
money. Older ones are invariably 3kW and the modern \"13A\" sockets are
made down to a price and not really up to it. Once they start to fail by
overheating the damage quickly becomes exponentially bad.

Warming up a room from cold with a solid 3kW 13A continuous load
stresses some sockets beyond the point where they become serious hot
after an hour or so.
Me, I refuse to run a heater at more than 1 KW. 2 KW if the room is very
cold and nothing big is using electricity at the same time. Yes, it will
take longer to warm up, but it gets there (not talking of my house).

How can you use 2 kW for the heater and run a refrigerator and anything else when your total feed is just 2.4 kW?

Didn\'t you read? I said \"not talking of my house\".

But it is difficult to find a heater of less than 2 KW, which is weird
considering the typical max power of houses here. Perhaps it is a
conspiracy by manufacturers to make us contract more power and make the
grid owners rich

It sounds like your power grid is run by the cell phone companies.


have to turn off the TV to run the kettle. Or maybe they unplug the
refrigerator?

When we lived in Japan it was the same. A kettle was a thermally
insulated vessel that kept water near ready to use temperature and
consumed energy 24/7 to keep it that way. It took forever to get hot
boiling water after refilling it with just 500W peak consumption. You
gave it a boost to go from 90+C to boiling prior to use.
I have not seen those kettles here. Now that I think, I saw one in
Lancaster, long ago, at an YMCA place :-D

It was big and hooked on the wall, to make tea for many people and fast.

Fast and low power do not go together.


Me, I use a thick iron pot on the induction range to make tea. Quite
fast, I barely have time to prepare the strainer with the leaves.

https://images.app.goo.gl/TKS8FR2a26ezf53B9

Like that one, but cheaper.

So you heat up the heavy iron pot every time you want hot water for tea?

Certainly. It keeps hot for long. It is only about 1 KW, anyway.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 2:40:14 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2022-11-18 20:26, Ricky wrote:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:52:14 AM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-18 11:23, Martin Brown wrote:
On 17/11/2022 19:18, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 2:12:13 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R.
wrote:
On 2022-11-17 17:12, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:39:52 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to
fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t
cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d
say more like 500 dollars.

Yep, a couple of quid for the battery, a few more quid for
the casing, employ some untrained monkey on minimum wage to
fit it to the grid with bell wire, a small inverter and a
suicide lead to plug it back into a convenient 3 pin socket
when the backup is needed.

What battery? The battery is already in the car. All you need
is a convertor from 400VDC to 240VAC, and if you want it
automated, a big contactor to switch to the car and back.
A Tesla powerwall battery ~14kWh intended for home use has an
inverter that can only output about 7kW peak and 5kW
continuous.

https://electrek.co/2021/04/22/tesla-increasing-powerwall-power-capacity/



Yeah, they are a bit limited too. Try using one as your primary backup.
When it kicks in, your electric use is suddenly limited.
Mine would be more than doubled. A typical home here has 3.6 or 4.8
KW max.

3.6 kW is only 15A at 240V. I\'m told that in the UK, when an
important football game is on, there\'s a power surge from the 9 amp
kettles going on during commercials. I guess where you live, they

Half time at a major sporting event is a major coherent spike in grid
power usage and they need to be ready for it.

They are not 9A kettles either. The typical UK kettle now is 2.4kW/10A
although many older kettles like mine are 3kW/13A. The maximum load that
a nominal 13A socket can take continuously has been recently downgraded.

Too many cheap and nasty Chinese ones melted with continuous 13A loads.
Notably with increased use of 3kW fan heaters to heat a single room
(causing other problems as well in this energy crisis).

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/15/cost-of-living-crisis-fire-safety-warning-over-electric-heaters-17753200/

Becoming a problem right now as rising energy prices mean people turn
off CH and heat just one room with an old electric fan heater to save
money. Older ones are invariably 3kW and the modern \"13A\" sockets are
made down to a price and not really up to it. Once they start to fail by
overheating the damage quickly becomes exponentially bad.

Warming up a room from cold with a solid 3kW 13A continuous load
stresses some sockets beyond the point where they become serious hot
after an hour or so.
Me, I refuse to run a heater at more than 1 KW. 2 KW if the room is very
cold and nothing big is using electricity at the same time. Yes, it will
take longer to warm up, but it gets there (not talking of my house).

How can you use 2 kW for the heater and run a refrigerator and anything else when your total feed is just 2.4 kW?
Didn\'t you read? I said \"not talking of my house\".

Yes, that\'s the problem. I never know what you are talking about. You refuse to run more than 1 kW in other people\'s houses?

This is the sort of micromanaging of electrical use that *you* can get used to, but for no real purpose. Your utility is creating problems with the \"high\" charges for larger service. Although, I have no idea what you mean by \"high\". I think my base rate for being connected is $14 a month. Would a 10 kW connection be significantly more than that? My connection is 200A or 50 kW. I pay around $0.10 a kWh.

I can assure you the difference in rates is not because of some fundamental issues. In the US we have regions that charge as much as $0.25 a kWh because they don\'t have access to the lower cost generation. Is your cost higher than this? Even in Puerto Rico who has to import every BTU of fuel to generate power, is only around $0.25 per kWh. The cost of the connection does not need to be so high, unless your definition of \"high\" is very different from mine.

But it is difficult to find a heater of less than 2 KW, which is weird
considering the typical max power of houses here. Perhaps it is a
conspiracy by manufacturers to make us contract more power and make the
grid owners rich

It sounds like your power grid is run by the cell phone companies.


have to turn off the TV to run the kettle. Or maybe they unplug the
refrigerator?

When we lived in Japan it was the same. A kettle was a thermally
insulated vessel that kept water near ready to use temperature and
consumed energy 24/7 to keep it that way. It took forever to get hot
boiling water after refilling it with just 500W peak consumption. You
gave it a boost to go from 90+C to boiling prior to use.
I have not seen those kettles here. Now that I think, I saw one in
Lancaster, long ago, at an YMCA place :-D

It was big and hooked on the wall, to make tea for many people and fast.

Fast and low power do not go together.


Me, I use a thick iron pot on the induction range to make tea. Quite
fast, I barely have time to prepare the strainer with the leaves.

https://images.app.goo.gl/TKS8FR2a26ezf53B9

Like that one, but cheaper.

So you heat up the heavy iron pot every time you want hot water for tea?
Certainly. It keeps hot for long. It is only about 1 KW, anyway.

LOL! It\'s nearly half your maximum power!!!

This is the sort of back and forth where you minimize something in one comment, then talk about how extreme things are in another. I don\'t think you are ever going to explain what you really mean.

--

Rick C.

--+++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--+++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2022-11-18 21:54, Ricky wrote:

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 2:40:14 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-18 20:26, Ricky wrote:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:52:14 AM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-18 11:23, Martin Brown wrote:
On 17/11/2022 19:18, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 2:12:13 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R.
wrote:
On 2022-11-17 17:12, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:39:52 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to
fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t
cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d
say more like 500 dollars.

Yep, a couple of quid for the battery, a few more quid for
the casing, employ some untrained monkey on minimum wage to
fit it to the grid with bell wire, a small inverter and a
suicide lead to plug it back into a convenient 3 pin socket
when the backup is needed.

What battery? The battery is already in the car. All you need
is a convertor from 400VDC to 240VAC, and if you want it
automated, a big contactor to switch to the car and back.
A Tesla powerwall battery ~14kWh intended for home use has an
inverter that can only output about 7kW peak and 5kW
continuous.

https://electrek.co/2021/04/22/tesla-increasing-powerwall-power-capacity/



Yeah, they are a bit limited too. Try using one as your primary backup.
When it kicks in, your electric use is suddenly limited.
Mine would be more than doubled. A typical home here has 3.6 or 4.8
KW max.

3.6 kW is only 15A at 240V. I\'m told that in the UK, when an
important football game is on, there\'s a power surge from the 9 amp
kettles going on during commercials. I guess where you live, they

Half time at a major sporting event is a major coherent spike in grid
power usage and they need to be ready for it.

They are not 9A kettles either. The typical UK kettle now is 2.4kW/10A
although many older kettles like mine are 3kW/13A. The maximum load that
a nominal 13A socket can take continuously has been recently downgraded.

Too many cheap and nasty Chinese ones melted with continuous 13A loads.
Notably with increased use of 3kW fan heaters to heat a single room
(causing other problems as well in this energy crisis).

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/15/cost-of-living-crisis-fire-safety-warning-over-electric-heaters-17753200/

Becoming a problem right now as rising energy prices mean people turn
off CH and heat just one room with an old electric fan heater to save
money. Older ones are invariably 3kW and the modern \"13A\" sockets are
made down to a price and not really up to it. Once they start to fail by
overheating the damage quickly becomes exponentially bad.

Warming up a room from cold with a solid 3kW 13A continuous load
stresses some sockets beyond the point where they become serious hot
after an hour or so.
Me, I refuse to run a heater at more than 1 KW. 2 KW if the room is very
cold and nothing big is using electricity at the same time. Yes, it will
take longer to warm up, but it gets there (not talking of my house).

How can you use 2 kW for the heater and run a refrigerator and anything else when your total feed is just 2.4 kW?
Didn\'t you read? I said \"not talking of my house\".

Yes, that\'s the problem. I never know what you are talking about. You refuse to run more than 1 kW in other people\'s houses?

For a room heater, yes.

This is the sort of micromanaging of electrical use that *you* can get used to, but for no real purpose. Your utility is creating problems with the \"high\" charges for larger service. Although, I have no idea what you mean by \"high\". I think my base rate for being connected is $14 a month. Would a 10 kW connection be significantly more than that? My connection is 200A or 50 kW. I pay around $0.10 a kWh.

It is 0,083627€/kW a day. So about 6.5€ a month plus taxes for my 2.2
KW, or 12.5€ for a 4.6kw contract. Plus the actual electricity used
(0,138801€€/kWh) and other concepts like meter rent, taxes, extra taxes,
insurance, whatever.

Your 50KW contract would be 125€ a month. Plus every other thing.

I can assure you the difference in rates is not because of some fundamental issues. In the US we have regions that charge as much as $0.25 a kWh because they don\'t have access to the lower cost generation. Is your cost higher than this? Even in Puerto Rico who has to import every BTU of fuel to generate power, is only around $0.25 per kWh. The cost of the connection does not need to be so high, unless your definition of \"high\" is very different from mine.


But it is difficult to find a heater of less than 2 KW, which is weird
considering the typical max power of houses here. Perhaps it is a
conspiracy by manufacturers to make us contract more power and make the
grid owners rich

It sounds like your power grid is run by the cell phone companies.


have to turn off the TV to run the kettle. Or maybe they unplug the
refrigerator?

When we lived in Japan it was the same. A kettle was a thermally
insulated vessel that kept water near ready to use temperature and
consumed energy 24/7 to keep it that way. It took forever to get hot
boiling water after refilling it with just 500W peak consumption. You
gave it a boost to go from 90+C to boiling prior to use.
I have not seen those kettles here. Now that I think, I saw one in
Lancaster, long ago, at an YMCA place :-D

It was big and hooked on the wall, to make tea for many people and fast.

Fast and low power do not go together.


Me, I use a thick iron pot on the induction range to make tea. Quite
fast, I barely have time to prepare the strainer with the leaves.

https://images.app.goo.gl/TKS8FR2a26ezf53B9

Like that one, but cheaper.

So you heat up the heavy iron pot every time you want hot water for tea?
Certainly. It keeps hot for long. It is only about 1 KW, anyway.

LOL! It\'s nearly half your maximum power!!!

So?

I don\'t see the issue. I know what I can plug and when. I\'m not saying
my 2.3 KW is normal, but it is what I have.

And for me, a 15 KW backup battery with inverter at home, would be very
nice. Don\'t you see why?

This is the sort of back and forth where you minimize something in one comment, then talk about how extreme things are in another. I don\'t think you are ever going to explain what you really mean.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 20.38.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:10:54 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 11.37.56 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
I live in an apartment, I don\'t know what the feed is but in my panel is 4*10A fuses
I assume you are not in the US? I\'ve never heard of 10A circuits. Even a hair dryer would blow that breaker.

Denmark, 230V

Clearly you have separate heat and A/C, also hot water and range/oven. I assume you have gas.

no AC, no gas, heating and hot water is hydronic district heating

Base load 24/7 is 70W typical daytime load ~300W peak maybe 6kW.
My house has 100 amp service. But we have a gas stove and water
heater, and oil heat. No electric heat. My shop runs off 220 Vac,
but the big machines are only used intermittently, but will need a
lot of power when doing something heavy.

Do you have a 240V to 220V transformer? If not, you have excessive
voltage drop coming to your house and should ask the power company to
fix that.
UK says it has 240v but in reality all of Europe uses a ~230v nominal
voltage with an asymmetric tolerance band see for example:

www.spenergynetworks.co.uk/pages/voltage_changes.aspx#:~:text=declared,216.2%20volts%20to%20253.0%20volts.
I believe it has been changed to a symmetric +/-10%
In the US grid voltage tolerance is ±5% or +6% and -13% for different rates of occurrence.
Most appliances (including air conditioners) are 120 Vac and 15 or
20 amps. Things like clothes dryers are 220 Vac. Many people have
electric water heaters. also 220 Vac.

If you have 120V on the low voltage outlets, how do you get 220V on
the high voltage circuits? Is your line not balanced with one at
120V and the other at 100V?
It is likely that as in the UK confusion reigns about actual mains
voltage - so few consumers ever measure it and think they have 240v. It
could in reality be as low as 216 or high as 253 and still (just) in spec.

In most of Europe it is likely to be 230v nominal 115v-0-115v balanced
or it could be full three phase supply to industrial premises.
here (Denmark) everyone has three phase
They bring three phase into the home? That\'s a big boost in power! Do they provide 230V off each leg of the three phase to neutral? Or is it 230V between each pair of three phase legs?

230V phase to neutral, 400V phase to phase

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 5:03:01 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:

fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 20.38.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:10:54 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 11.37.56 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
I live in an apartment, I don\'t know what the feed is but in my panel is 4*10A fuses
I assume you are not in the US? I\'ve never heard of 10A circuits. Even a hair dryer would blow that breaker.
Denmark, 230V

Clearly you have separate heat and A/C, also hot water and range/oven. I assume you have gas.
no AC, no gas, heating and hot water is hydronic district heating

Same difference. The point is you have no high use electric loads, other than possibly an electric car which is only as high use as your driving.

--

Rick C.

-+--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 4:32:14 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2022-11-18 21:54, Ricky wrote:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 2:40:14 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-18 20:26, Ricky wrote:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 7:52:14 AM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2022-11-18 11:23, Martin Brown wrote:
On 17/11/2022 19:18, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 2:12:13 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R.
wrote:
On 2022-11-17 17:12, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:39:52 AM UTC-5, Martin Brown
wrote:
...
And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to
fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t
cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d
say more like 500 dollars.

Yep, a couple of quid for the battery, a few more quid for
the casing, employ some untrained monkey on minimum wage to
fit it to the grid with bell wire, a small inverter and a
suicide lead to plug it back into a convenient 3 pin socket
when the backup is needed.

What battery? The battery is already in the car. All you need
is a convertor from 400VDC to 240VAC, and if you want it
automated, a big contactor to switch to the car and back.
A Tesla powerwall battery ~14kWh intended for home use has an
inverter that can only output about 7kW peak and 5kW
continuous.

https://electrek.co/2021/04/22/tesla-increasing-powerwall-power-capacity/



Yeah, they are a bit limited too. Try using one as your primary backup.
When it kicks in, your electric use is suddenly limited.
Mine would be more than doubled. A typical home here has 3.6 or 4..8
KW max.

3.6 kW is only 15A at 240V. I\'m told that in the UK, when an
important football game is on, there\'s a power surge from the 9 amp
kettles going on during commercials. I guess where you live, they

Half time at a major sporting event is a major coherent spike in grid
power usage and they need to be ready for it.

They are not 9A kettles either. The typical UK kettle now is 2.4kW/10A
although many older kettles like mine are 3kW/13A. The maximum load that
a nominal 13A socket can take continuously has been recently downgraded.

Too many cheap and nasty Chinese ones melted with continuous 13A loads.
Notably with increased use of 3kW fan heaters to heat a single room
(causing other problems as well in this energy crisis).

https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/15/cost-of-living-crisis-fire-safety-warning-over-electric-heaters-17753200/

Becoming a problem right now as rising energy prices mean people turn
off CH and heat just one room with an old electric fan heater to save
money. Older ones are invariably 3kW and the modern \"13A\" sockets are
made down to a price and not really up to it. Once they start to fail by
overheating the damage quickly becomes exponentially bad.

Warming up a room from cold with a solid 3kW 13A continuous load
stresses some sockets beyond the point where they become serious hot
after an hour or so.
Me, I refuse to run a heater at more than 1 KW. 2 KW if the room is very
cold and nothing big is using electricity at the same time. Yes, it will
take longer to warm up, but it gets there (not talking of my house).

How can you use 2 kW for the heater and run a refrigerator and anything else when your total feed is just 2.4 kW?
Didn\'t you read? I said \"not talking of my house\".

Yes, that\'s the problem. I never know what you are talking about. You refuse to run more than 1 kW in other people\'s houses?
For a room heater, yes.

This is the sort of micromanaging of electrical use that *you* can get used to, but for no real purpose. Your utility is creating problems with the \"high\" charges for larger service. Although, I have no idea what you mean by \"high\". I think my base rate for being connected is $14 a month. Would a 10 kW connection be significantly more than that? My connection is 200A or 50 kW. I pay around $0.10 a kWh.
It is 0,083627€/kW a day. So about 6.5€ a month plus taxes for my 2.2
KW, or 12.5€ for a 4.6kw contract. Plus the actual electricity used
(0,138801€€/kWh) and other concepts like meter rent, taxes, extra taxes,
insurance, whatever.

So you are paying less for your connection (although you conveniently left out the meter rental) than I do and you pay a bit more for the electricity (that varies more than 2:1 from what I\'ve seen).


> Your 50KW contract would be 125€ a month. Plus every other thing.

Taxes are taxes, but the meter rent is not a tax. Otherwise, you could get a lot more service if you weren\'t so tight. The $14 I pay would get you 5..8 kW. But you are too tight to pay that much for convenience, and would rather inconvenience yourself. Ok, that\'s your choice. You have both said you are typical and are not typical, so I can\'t say anything about others in your country. But I can treat your example as an outlier because you acknowledge the limitation you suffer and most people would like to live otherwise.

I can assure you the difference in rates is not because of some fundamental issues. In the US we have regions that charge as much as $0.25 a kWh because they don\'t have access to the lower cost generation. Is your cost higher than this? Even in Puerto Rico who has to import every BTU of fuel to generate power, is only around $0.25 per kWh. The cost of the connection does not need to be so high, unless your definition of \"high\" is very different from mine.


But it is difficult to find a heater of less than 2 KW, which is weird
considering the typical max power of houses here. Perhaps it is a
conspiracy by manufacturers to make us contract more power and make the
grid owners rich

It sounds like your power grid is run by the cell phone companies.


have to turn off the TV to run the kettle. Or maybe they unplug the
refrigerator?

When we lived in Japan it was the same. A kettle was a thermally
insulated vessel that kept water near ready to use temperature and
consumed energy 24/7 to keep it that way. It took forever to get hot
boiling water after refilling it with just 500W peak consumption. You
gave it a boost to go from 90+C to boiling prior to use.
I have not seen those kettles here. Now that I think, I saw one in
Lancaster, long ago, at an YMCA place :-D

It was big and hooked on the wall, to make tea for many people and fast.

Fast and low power do not go together.


Me, I use a thick iron pot on the induction range to make tea. Quite
fast, I barely have time to prepare the strainer with the leaves.

https://images.app.goo.gl/TKS8FR2a26ezf53B9

Like that one, but cheaper.

So you heat up the heavy iron pot every time you want hot water for tea?
Certainly. It keeps hot for long. It is only about 1 KW, anyway.

LOL! It\'s nearly half your maximum power!!!
So?

I don\'t see the issue. I know what I can plug and when. I\'m not saying
my 2.3 KW is normal, but it is what I have.
And for me, a 15 KW backup battery with inverter at home, would be very
nice. Don\'t you see why?

You are doing what you accuse me of, assuming everyone in your country is like you, and doesn\'t care about the extreme power restrictions.

Yes, I see exactly why you would want to spend tons of money getting around these restrictions, except for one thing. They are actually self imposed. I don\'t know where you got a 15kW backup battery or how much energy it holds or why you want it. If it is to allow you to get around the monthly cost of the larger meter connection, that would need to be a very inexpensive backup system to be cheaper than just paying a couple of bucks more a month.

--

Rick C.

-+--+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+--+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 23.24.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 5:03:01 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 20.38.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:10:54 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 11.37.56 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
I live in an apartment, I don\'t know what the feed is but in my panel is 4*10A fuses
I assume you are not in the US? I\'ve never heard of 10A circuits. Even a hair dryer would blow that breaker.
Denmark, 230V

Clearly you have separate heat and A/C, also hot water and range/oven. I assume you have gas.
no AC, no gas, heating and hot water is hydronic district heating
Same difference. The point is you have no high use electric loads, other than possibly an electric car which is only as high use as your driving.

sure, never said otherwise, and charging an electric car would be a bit inconvenient since I park on the street and live on the second (third) floor

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 6:08:53 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:

fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 23.24.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 5:03:01 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 20.38.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:10:54 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 11.37.56 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
I live in an apartment, I don\'t know what the feed is but in my panel is 4*10A fuses
I assume you are not in the US? I\'ve never heard of 10A circuits. Even a hair dryer would blow that breaker.
Denmark, 230V

Clearly you have separate heat and A/C, also hot water and range/oven. I assume you have gas.
no AC, no gas, heating and hot water is hydronic district heating
Same difference. The point is you have no high use electric loads, other than possibly an electric car which is only as high use as your driving.

sure, never said otherwise, and charging an electric car would be a bit inconvenient since I park on the street and live on the second (third) floor

What exactly was the point of your post about your electrical connection? You kinda did the Larkin thing, posting data with no explanation. Just more data with no particular point?

Even so, if you multiply 4 * 10A, that\'s 10 kW. Nothing to sneeze at for lighting and outlets.

I don\'t know what people are going to do when they don\'t have a choice other than driving a BEV and they can\'t charge at home. Sitting at chargers just to charge sucks. That\'s why I use chargers by places where I can get food or do shopping. That\'s ok once in a while, but every week would get boring.

In most of the western world, there won\'t be a choice in buying ICE by 2030 or 2035. There will be so few ICE cars on the road at some point that it won\'t be profitable to sell gas, so the stations will close. Then it\'s BEV or Shank\'s ponies.

--

Rick C.

-+-+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Fri, 18 Nov 2022 10:37:40 +0000, Martin Brown
<\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Well, actually 100-amp is very common, and 200-amp for larger homes.
By split-phase, we do not mean polyphase of any kind. We mean that we
take power from a single phase and pass it through a transformer with
a center-tapped transformer secondary, with the center connection
(power neutral, white wire in the US) being held very close to earth
ground (green wire in the US). The two ends of the center-tapped
winding may be both black, or sometimes red and black. In three-phase
systems, the wires usually have different colors for each of the
phases. There is a rule that I don\'t remember.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

Yes, exactly. But do not call them phases - this is single-phase, so
they are not phases.


>My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW

About the same. But if I wanted to run a US tea water heater, I\'d
have to run a 220-volt line to the kitchen, but with maybe 10-amp
fuses. Which I have seen. There is a US plug for that, which does
not resemble UK plugs.

Base load 24/7 is 70W typical daytime load ~300W peak maybe 6kW.

I don\'t offhand know our average. I\'ll hunt up a bill or two.

My house has 100 amp service. But we have a gas stove and water
heater, and oil heat. No electric heat. My shop runs off 220 Vac,
but the big machines are only used intermittently, but will need a
lot of power when doing something heavy.

Do you have a 240V to 220V transformer? If not, you have excessive
voltage drop coming to your house and should ask the power company to
fix that.

There is no transformer. The US definition of \"220 Volt supply\" is
loose enough to allow 240 Vac. I\'ll have to measure what we are
getting. I certainly can get the utility to change that, if it\'s out
of spec. Which I very much doubt.

UK says it has 240v but in reality all of Europe uses a ~230v nominal
voltage with an asymmetric tolerance band see for example:

www.spenergynetworks.co.uk/pages/voltage_changes.aspx#:~:text=declared,216.2%20volts%20to%20253.0%20volts.

A similar story in the US.

Most appliances (including air conditioners) are 120 Vac and 15 or
20 amps. Things like clothes dryers are 220 Vac. Many people have
electric water heaters. also 220 Vac.

If you have 120V on the low voltage outlets, how do you get 220V on
the high voltage circuits? Is your line not balanced with one at
120V and the other at 100V?

It is likely that as in the UK confusion reigns about actual mains
voltage - so few consumers ever measure it and think they have 240v. It
could in reality be as low as 216 or high as 253 and still (just) in spec.

Same kind of story in the US. Might be the same exact limits.

In most of Europe it is likely to be 230v nominal 115v-0-115v balanced
or it could be full three phase supply to industrial premises.

Ahh. What you call \"balanced\" sounds like the US split phase.

Joe Gwinn

 

[Lasse Langwadt Christensen]

lørdag den 19. november 2022 kl. 00.41.34 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 6:08:53 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 23.24.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 5:03:01 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 20.38.53 UTC+1 skrev Ricky:
On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 1:10:54 PM UTC-5, lang...@fonz.dk wrote:
fredag den 18. november 2022 kl. 11.37.56 UTC+1 skrev Martin Brown:
On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
I live in an apartment, I don\'t know what the feed is but in my panel is 4*10A fuses
I assume you are not in the US? I\'ve never heard of 10A circuits. Even a hair dryer would blow that breaker.
Denmark, 230V

Clearly you have separate heat and A/C, also hot water and range/oven. I assume you have gas.
no AC, no gas, heating and hot water is hydronic district heating
Same difference. The point is you have no high use electric loads, other than possibly an electric car which is only as high use as your driving..

sure, never said otherwise, and charging an electric car would be a bit inconvenient since I park on the street and live on the second (third) floor
What exactly was the point of your post about your electrical connection? You kinda did the Larkin thing, posting data with no explanation. Just more data with no particular point?

yes just another datapoint , what is you point in complaining about more data?

> Even so, if you multiply 4 * 10A, that\'s 10 kW. Nothing to sneeze at for lighting and outlets.

yes it is plenty, I think I would have to max out my cooktop, oven, and kettle to even get close to that

I don\'t know what people are going to do when they don\'t have a choice other than driving a BEV and they can\'t charge at home. Sitting at chargers just to charge sucks. That\'s why I use chargers by places where I can get food or do shopping. That\'s ok once in a while, but every week would get boring.

I\'d charge at work

 

[Ricky]

On Friday, November 18, 2022 at 6:50:32 PM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn wrote:

On Fri, 18 Nov 2022 10:37:40 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

On 17/11/2022 19:00, Ricky wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 11:59:31 AM UTC-5, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:39:36 +0000, Martin Brown
\'\'\'newspam\'\'\'@nonad.co.uk> wrote:

10kW is a fairly reasonable figure for powering a home. Over
engineering it to do 20kW or 40kW continuous would not be good
value for money.
In the UK, perhaps. In the US, lots of homes have gone to 100-amp
220 Vac split phase, or 22 KW. Some have twice that.

No home in the US have gone to 100-amp, 220VAC split phase. The
nominal voltage in the US is 240V. I expect very few homes in the US
have been built with 100 amp service in the last 50 years. In the
70s, there was a big push to use more electric appliances, including
electric radiant heat! You aren\'t getting that with 100 amp
service.
Well, actually 100-amp is very common,

Everything I\'ve seen says 200 amps is the norm for new home installations. 100 amps is outdated and will limit the ability to expand electrical use without having to redo the installation. Heck, one neighbor says that the guy on the other side of him had to expand his feed to install a pair of Tesla chargers. I kinda don\'t believe that. These houses were built in the late 80s, early 90s and I am confident that house had 200 amp service from day one. However, Tesla chargers can be as high as 90 amps each, so yeah, if he went that insane, then he might have needed to upgrade a 200 amp service.

and 200-amp for larger homes.
By split-phase, we do not mean polyphase of any kind. We mean that we
take power from a single phase and pass it through a transformer with
a center-tapped transformer secondary, with the center connection
(power neutral, white wire in the US) being held very close to earth
ground (green wire in the US). The two ends of the center-tapped
winding may be both black, or sometimes red and black. In three-phase
systems, the wires usually have different colors for each of the
phases. There is a rule that I don\'t remember.

You always use white for the common/neutral and black for hot. Red is either switched hot, or the other leg of 240V. If you don\'t have the correct color wire in the cable, you can wrap the last few inches of insulation with the right color tape, to mark it.

Since US domestic power is nominal 110v I\'d have thought that 100A per
live feed was about right (bordering on the low side). OTOH high power
devices like aircon are run phase to phase on 220v.
Yes, exactly. But do not call them phases - this is single-phase, so
they are not phases.

The voltages in the US are 120 or 240, or in commercial settings, they use a Y transformer for three phase that is 120 to neutral and 208 between phases. There\'s a delta three phase, 240V between phases, but one leg is center tapped and becomes the neutral to provide 120V circuits. I\'m not sure if this has any issues. 480V three phase produces 277V between a phase and ground. In theory, my car is rated to handle 277V, but they talk about it not being rated for the tolerance or maybe the \"real\" world voltages you might see, so I would never consider using it.

My feed is 60A @ 230v ~ 14kW modern build here would be 100A ~ 23kW
About the same. But if I wanted to run a US tea water heater, I\'d
have to run a 220-volt line to the kitchen, but with maybe 10-amp
fuses. Which I have seen. There is a US plug for that, which does
not resemble UK plugs.

Do you mean a UK kettle? US doesn\'t have appliances on 240V unless they are dryers and such. I think they encourage the use of plugs and outlets for stoves now, but not mandatory.

Base load 24/7 is 70W typical daytime load ~300W peak maybe 6kW.

I don\'t offhand know our average. I\'ll hunt up a bill or two.

The bill isn\'t likely to tell you your baseload (the typical minimum usage).. I have hourly readings and my \"baseload\" is around a quarter kW. Yup, 256W. It seems to measure in increments of 128W. I assume the meter counts Watt-Hours and they lop off the bottom seven bits, for this report. Taking the difference gives the values of 128, 256 and 384Wh usually. When the water heater is running, the number jumps up to 600 or 700 Wh for one hour. By internally counting in Wh and only truncating on the reports, the overall resolution is preserved.

My house has 100 amp service. But we have a gas stove and water
heater, and oil heat. No electric heat. My shop runs off 220 Vac,
but the big machines are only used intermittently, but will need a
lot of power when doing something heavy.

Do you have a 240V to 220V transformer? If not, you have excessive
voltage drop coming to your house and should ask the power company to
fix that.
There is no transformer. The US definition of \"220 Volt supply\" is
loose enough to allow 240 Vac.

I was being facious. There is no 220V power, it\'s all 240V in North America. Even a low voltage should be well above 220V. But their actually *is* a transformer that steps the voltage down from some thousands of volts to 240. They have taps to adjust the voltage to your house, so it\'s close to 240V. If the daily cycle of load causes excessive variation, someone undersized the wiring.

I\'ll have to measure what we are
getting. I certainly can get the utility to change that, if it\'s out
of spec. Which I very much doubt.

220V is very much out of spec in the US.

UK says it has 240v but in reality all of Europe uses a ~230v nominal
voltage with an asymmetric tolerance band see for example:

www.spenergynetworks.co.uk/pages/voltage_changes.aspx#:~:text=declared,216.2%20volts%20to%20253.0%20volts.
A similar story in the US.

Yes, although the voltage tolerance is tighter on the high side, depending on the frequency of occurrence.

\"Range A service voltage range is plus or minus 5% of nominal.
The Range B utilization voltage range is plus 6% to minus 13% of nominal.\"

Range A is typical use. Range B is infrequent occurrences.

Most appliances (including air conditioners) are 120 Vac and 15 or
20 amps. Things like clothes dryers are 220 Vac. Many people have
electric water heaters. also 220 Vac.

If you have 120V on the low voltage outlets, how do you get 220V on
the high voltage circuits? Is your line not balanced with one at
120V and the other at 100V?

It is likely that as in the UK confusion reigns about actual mains
voltage - so few consumers ever measure it and think they have 240v. It
could in reality be as low as 216 or high as 253 and still (just) in spec.
Same kind of story in the US. Might be the same exact limits.

First, in the US, we are starting at 240V. Then we have different tolerances.

--

Rick C.

-+-++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
-+-++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Flyguy]

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 5:34:31 AM UTC-8, Fred Bloggs wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:17:58 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:03:57 -0000, Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 4:27:46 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage) only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!

And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d say more like 500 dollars.

You need to learn the difference between energy and power. The 80kW is really 80kWh(hours), a measure of energy stored in the battery. The 10kW is a measure of power which is the rate of energy extraction from the battery, usually specified in kW, kilo-watts, thousands of Watts. There is no logical connection between the two ratings. The engineering requirements of the battery EV application determines that.

Here is an authoritative overview:
https://theconversation.com/can-my-electric-car-power-my-house-not-yet-for-most-drivers-but-vehicle-to-home-charging-is-coming-163332

News of a work in progress to make home backup routine with no special equipment required:
https://www.atlasevhub.com/weekly_digest/here-if-you-need-evs-as-backup-batteries/

The cost for equipment to do that is top dollar because they sell so few. There\'s no logical connection between present cost and a hypothetical mass produced product.
Rewrite all that considering I know the difference between power and energy, I have a fucking physics degree. When I said 80kW I meant 80kW, not 80kWh. Do you seriously think a car motor only draws 10kW?
Your so-called degree was a woefully inadequate preparation for dealing with reality if you have to ask such a stupid question.

Notice that Fred chooses to insult RATHER than answer the question, begging the question: does Fred not know the answer? Think about it, one horsepower is 750W, so 10KW is 13.3; do you REALLY think that a car as heavy as the Tesla S can be accelerated from zero to 60mph by a THIRTEEN HORSEPOWER MOTOR? OF COURSE NOT! In fact, the Tesla S is roughly 360-470 hp depending on the variant (60, 85 or P85). Do the math.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 12:40:08 PM UTC+11, Flyguy wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 5:34:31 AM UTC-8, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:17:58 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:03:57 -0000, Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail..com> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 4:27:46 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage) only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!

And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d say more like 500 dollars.

You need to learn the difference between energy and power. The 80kW is really 80kWh(hours), a measure of energy stored in the battery. The 10kW is a measure of power which is the rate of energy extraction from the battery, usually specified in kW, kilo-watts, thousands of Watts. There is no logical connection between the two ratings. The engineering requirements of the battery EV application determines that.

Here is an authoritative overview:
https://theconversation.com/can-my-electric-car-power-my-house-not-yet-for-most-drivers-but-vehicle-to-home-charging-is-coming-163332

News of a work in progress to make home backup routine with no special equipment required:
https://www.atlasevhub.com/weekly_digest/here-if-you-need-evs-as-backup-batteries/

The cost for equipment to do that is top dollar because they sell so few. There\'s no logical connection between present cost and a hypothetical mass produced product.
Rewrite all that considering I know the difference between power and energy, I have a fucking physics degree. When I said 80kW I meant 80kW, not 80kWh. Do you seriously think a car motor only draws 10kW?

Your so-called degree was a woefully inadequate preparation for dealing with reality if you have to ask such a stupid question.

Notice that Fred chooses to insult RATHER than answer the question, begging the question: does Fred not know the answer? Think about it, one horsepower is 750W, so 10KW is 13.3; do you REALLY think that a car as heavy as the Tesla S can be accelerated from zero to 60mph by a THIRTEEN HORSEPOWER MOTOR? OF COURSE NOT! In fact, the Tesla S is roughly 360-470 hp depending on the variant (60, 85 or P85). Do the math.

Commander Kinsey is a British equivalent of Sewage Sweeper, the kind of poster that responsible respondents are obliged to insult, so that the pathetic idiot don\'t feel good about being noticed while they fail to noticed that they are being called idiots.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:47:00 -0000, trader_4 <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 8:17:57 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 13:03:57 -0000, Fred Bloggs <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 4:27:46 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage) only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!

And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d say more like 500 dollars.

You need to learn the difference between energy and power. The 80kW is really 80kWh(hours), a measure of energy stored in the battery. The 10kW is a measure of power which is the rate of energy extraction from the battery, usually specified in kW, kilo-watts, thousands of Watts. There is no logical connection between the two ratings. The engineering requirements of the battery EV application determines that.

Here is an authoritative overview:
https://theconversation.com/can-my-electric-car-power-my-house-not-yet-for-most-drivers-but-vehicle-to-home-charging-is-coming-163332

News of a work in progress to make home backup routine with no special equipment required:
https://www.atlasevhub.com/weekly_digest/here-if-you-need-evs-as-backup-batteries/

The cost for equipment to do that is top dollar because they sell so few. There\'s no logical connection between present cost and a hypothetical mass produced product.

Rewrite all that considering I know the difference between power and energy, I have a fucking physics degree.

Then you should have figured out the answer to your question from the article. It says
a bi-directional charger is required. So the inverter circuitry is in a special charger.
What are home chargers built for? The ones I\'ve seen are 240V, 50A tops. That\'s 12KW.
So the charger and cables to the car are to support that, not 80KW.

Cables don\'t cost much, especially if they\'re short.

Given that even whole house standby generators are in the 10KW - 15KW range, and portable generators
that people use are typically 3KW to 7KW doing 10KW from a car sounds very good.

It\'s a pest, you have to switch stuff off.

Could they redesign, at increased cost for higher power? I don\'t see why not, but then
you\'re just going to drain whatever power you happen to have in the battery at the time
you need it faster.

Not if it\'s bursts, like cooking a meal or having a hot shower.

> There is no guarantee it will be fully charged.

They usually are. If it was plugged in when the powercut started, it would have just been charging.

And unlike a generator, what you have available in a car is very limited, so reasonable people are
going to be OK with a 10KW max because they are going to use it for necessities,
use it sparingly and not want to blow through it at high power usage.

A Nissan Leaf would power the average house for 3 days. And decent electric cars have a battery 3 times bigger.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 14:07:34 -0000, Dean Hoffman <deanh6929@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 3:27:45 AM UTC-6, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage) only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!

And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d say more like 500 dollars.

One requirement is a power transfer switch.

That\'s only for convenience.

> A 100 amp 240 volt single phase version on Amazon is just under $200. A 200 amp version is just under $600.

$13. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/394278647754

> Add in a few dollars for the fittings, wire etc. There was a rule of thumb years ago that parts and labor would be about the same amount.

Then fit it yourself.

You\'d hit a thousand dollars without much trouble. I\'d bet labor would be higher because one would probably have to take things apart before installing the new.
I don\'t know the additional requirements the National Electrical Code (U.S.) would impose for standby power.

Rules are for the obedience of fools.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 14:21:03 -0000, trader_4 <trader4@optonline.net> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 9:07:38 AM UTC-5, dean...@gmail.com wrote:
On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 3:27:45 AM UTC-6, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage) only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!

And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d say more like 500 dollars.
One requirement is a power transfer switch. A 100 amp 240 volt single phase version on Amazon is just under $200. A 200 amp version is just under $600. Add in a few dollars for the fittings, wire etc. There was a rule of thumb years ago that parts and labor would be about the same amount. You\'d hit a thousand dollars without much trouble. I\'d bet labor would be higher because one would probably have to take things apart before installing the new.
I don\'t know the additional requirements the National Electrical Code (U.S.) would impose for standby power.

I addressed reasons why 10KW is a reasonable number in my other post, but you got me thinking
of another factor. The wiring in a home for EV charging is almost always going to be 50A
tops, at least as of today. That\'s 12KW.

If you have 24kW in the house, you might aswell fit a charger as such.

So if you were to go higher than that your going
to need new wiring from the garage or wherever, back to the panel. So add that to the list
of why 10KW is reasonable and would cover the vast majority of what people actually
would do with it.

Park the car nearer the house.

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:00:23 -0000, Ricky <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 4:27:46 AM UTC-5, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage) only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!

And why do people say it costs thousands of dollars to fit something to do this? Surely a 10kW invertor doesn\'t cost much, just something to make 400VDC into 240VAC. I\'d say more like 500 dollars.

I don\'t know who you are talking to.

This is a newsgroup, so I\'m talking to whoever reads the post.

> Many people talk about stuff they don\'t actually know much about. An EVSE which does zero energy conversion, costs around $400 for 5 kW handling capability.

You need to shop around. I can get one for half the price that does 8kW. Anyway they have electronics to communicate with the car.

> 10 kW is around 42 amps. So I can see a 10 kW inverter being much more expensive than $500. If you think you can make and sell them at a profit, for $500, you need to go into that business!

A grand actually. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/193572450281

 

[Commander Kinsey]

On Thu, 17 Nov 2022 16:03:44 -0000, Ricky <gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thursday, November 17, 2022 at 4:54:49 AM UTC-5, alan_m wrote:
On 17/11/2022 09:27, Commander Kinsey wrote:
If an EV has an output power of say 80kW to drive the motors when
driving, why is the backup power (to power your house in a power outage)
only about 10kW? It\'s the same battery!
The average usage of electricity per day for a UK household is less than
10kWh so a 10kWh backup battery will supply power for a day or more in
the event of a power cut.

That doesn\'t necessarily follow. If you run an electric stove, and electric water heater and a heat pump at the same time, you can easily overload a 10 kW power source and still not reach 10 kWh.

Why would you do that knowing you can only get 10kW at a time? You\'d spread the usage out.