Date: 8/11/2018 08:07:06
From: roughbarked
ID: 1300361
Subject: Power bills up?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/high-voltage-fuelling-increased-electricity-consumption/10460212

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Date: 8/11/2018 08:37:31
From: transition
ID: 1300368
Subject: re: Power bills up?

roughbarked said:


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/high-voltage-fuelling-increased-electricity-consumption/10460212

sibeen will be in later, he’ll explain that in the age of high tech an ohm is still a fucking ohm.

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Date: 8/11/2018 08:39:53
From: roughbarked
ID: 1300370
Subject: re: Power bills up?

transition said:


roughbarked said:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/high-voltage-fuelling-increased-electricity-consumption/10460212

sibeen will be in later, he’ll explain that in the age of high tech an ohm is still a fucking ohm.

I’m sure that he will. ;)

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Date: 8/11/2018 08:46:53
From: Ian
ID: 1300375
Subject: re: Power bills up?

Where’s volty?

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:05:10
From: The Rev Dodgson
ID: 1300382
Subject: re: Power bills up?

roughbarked said:


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-08/high-voltage-fuelling-increased-electricity-consumption/10460212

“Based on the 254 volts I’m getting here, I’m roughly paying about $1,200 more for my electricity each year than I need to.”

He must have a very high electricity bill then.

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:16:22
From: sibeen
ID: 1300384
Subject: re: Power bills up?

Just read the article. I cannot believe they didn’t drag the Voltscomissioner out of his cupboard.

And yeah, $1,200 more because the voltage is a tad high – ROFL, and I bet he’s got something to sell.

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:23:42
From: The Rev Dodgson
ID: 1300387
Subject: re: Power bills up?

sibeen said:


Just read the article. I cannot believe they didn’t drag the Voltscomissioner out of his cupboard.

And yeah, $1,200 more because the voltage is a tad high – ROFL, and I bet he’s got something to sell.

Any ideas on how much 10% high voltage would actually increase your consumption?

I guess it depends how much is used generating heat.

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:25:00
From: pommiejohn
ID: 1300388
Subject: re: Power bills up?

The Rev Dodgson said:


sibeen said:

Just read the article. I cannot believe they didn’t drag the Voltscomissioner out of his cupboard.

And yeah, $1,200 more because the voltage is a tad high – ROFL, and I bet he’s got something to sell.

Any ideas on how much 10% high voltage would actually increase your consumption?

I guess it depends how much is used generating heat.

If it’s used generating heat, surely a thermostat would kick in quicker and even things out?

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:32:50
From: The Rev Dodgson
ID: 1300390
Subject: re: Power bills up?

pommiejohn said:


The Rev Dodgson said:

sibeen said:

Just read the article. I cannot believe they didn’t drag the Voltscomissioner out of his cupboard.

And yeah, $1,200 more because the voltage is a tad high – ROFL, and I bet he’s got something to sell.

Any ideas on how much 10% high voltage would actually increase your consumption?

I guess it depends how much is used generating heat.

If it’s used generating heat, surely a thermostat would kick in quicker and even things out?

Yeah, that was my point. Presumably power to lights and electronics is wasted, but if you are heating then every watt is the same regardless of the voltage.

What about fridges and air conditioners? Is there a loss in efficiency with higher voltage with them, or is power consumption for a given temperature drop about the same?

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:37:37
From: transition
ID: 1300392
Subject: re: Power bills up?

>Yeah, that was my point. Presumably power to lights and electronics is wasted, but if you are heating then every watt is the same regardless of the voltage.

perhaps not quite so for reverse cycle, but yeah

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:41:14
From: sibeen
ID: 1300394
Subject: re: Power bills up?

A lot of this comes back to Australia deciding to play nice with others and standardise on the IEC voltage of 230/415 volts. Generally states in Australia produced voltage at 240 volts, the UK, NZ and others are in the same boat, there were countries in the IEC world who produced voltage at 230/400 and others who produced at 220/380 volts. They all got together and decided to ‘normalise’ the standard voltage to 230/400.

So out standards in Oz changed. The voltage didn’t. From memory the old standard was something like 240V plus/minus 10%. So the range was 216 to 264. With the new standard they tightened it up to 230 + 10% – 6%, so the range is now 216 at the low end to 253 at the high. The one thing the article does have correct is the pain in the arse solar production is for the energy providers. The network really wasn’t designed for it.

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:48:04
From: transition
ID: 1300396
Subject: re: Power bills up?

transition said:


>Yeah, that was my point. Presumably power to lights and electronics is wasted, but if you are heating then every watt is the same regardless of the voltage.

perhaps not quite so for reverse cycle, but yeah

upping voltage on lines reduces the extent of the voltage sag (how low it gets, particularly important at loaded ends of lines), and of many loads reduces the I (current), including by reducing duty cycle on time, so keeping the voltage up can have power savings.

it’s why high voltage is used, a lovely discovery, that and the old fashioned brute power transformer. Of course there are lots of switching power conversion these days, which does quite well over a wide voltage range, and doesn’t mind a bit of a rest with higher voltages.

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Date: 8/11/2018 09:58:02
From: poikilotherm
ID: 1300399
Subject: re: Power bills up?

sibeen said:

The one thing the article does have correct is the pain in the arse solar production is for the energy providers. The network really wasn’t designed for it.

With the costs of battery storage plummeting, only poor people will need the grid in a decade or so…

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Date: 8/11/2018 10:00:15
From: sibeen
ID: 1300401
Subject: re: Power bills up?

Yeah, solar subsidies are throwing money at rich people :)

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Date: 8/11/2018 10:02:35
From: poikilotherm
ID: 1300402
Subject: re: Power bills up?

sibeen said:


Yeah, solar subsidies are throwing money at rich people :)

Don’t even need the subsidies for solar looking at most cost curves…although, to be fair, these things were done by economists so it’s probably safe to assume they’re wrong.

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Date: 8/11/2018 11:03:45
From: Witty Rejoinder
ID: 1300429
Subject: re: Power bills up?

poikilotherm said:


sibeen said:

Yeah, solar subsidies are throwing money at rich people :)

Don’t even need the subsidies for solar looking at most cost curves…although, to be fair, these things were done by economists so it’s probably safe to assume they’re wrong.

peers over spectacles

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Date: 8/11/2018 23:58:13
From: Kothos
ID: 1300784
Subject: re: Power bills up?

sibeen said:


Just read the article. I cannot believe they didn’t drag the Voltscomissioner out of his cupboard.

And yeah, $1,200 more because the voltage is a tad high – ROFL, and I bet he’s got something to sell.

Was his annual bill, like, $50,000?

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Date: 9/11/2018 00:10:19
From: btm
ID: 1300788
Subject: re: Power bills up?

If you look at footage of buildings or trees or other things during a nuclear explosion, there are three distinct components: a thermal pulse, a high-pressure pulse, then a low-pressure pulse. The high-pressure pulse is obviously from the sudden increase in pressure from the explosion, but what causes the low-pressure pulse? It seems to be almost as powerful as the high-pressure pulse (though I haven’t checked this, only inferred it from videos.)

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Date: 9/11/2018 00:11:13
From: btm
ID: 1300789
Subject: re: Power bills up?

btm said:


If you look at footage of buildings or trees or other things during a nuclear explosion, there are three distinct components: a thermal pulse, a high-pressure pulse, then a low-pressure pulse. The high-pressure pulse is obviously from the sudden increase in pressure from the explosion, but what causes the low-pressure pulse? It seems to be almost as powerful as the high-pressure pulse (though I haven’t checked this, only inferred it from videos.)

Sorry, that was meant for chat.

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Date: 9/11/2018 00:18:42
From: transition
ID: 1300791
Subject: re: Power bills up?

btm said:


If you look at footage of buildings or trees or other things during a nuclear explosion, there are three distinct components: a thermal pulse, a high-pressure pulse, then a low-pressure pulse. The high-pressure pulse is obviously from the sudden increase in pressure from the explosion, but what causes the low-pressure pulse? It seems to be almost as powerful as the high-pressure pulse (though I haven’t checked this, only inferred it from videos.)

guess the explosion involves a displacement of atmosphere, then a collapse, + there’s a massive high pressure force outward that has to equalize, or start to equalize, so maybe that’s what you see.

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Date: 11/11/2018 21:46:05
From: wookiemeister
ID: 1302223
Subject: re: Power bills up?

over voltage has always been a problem of the power network

seen those scary looking buildings where electrical company have huge transformers and bars everywhere?

theres a small meter that measures the current being drawn by local houses – the more current drawn the hotter the wires to those houses so they bump the voltage up at the transformer to account for the voltage drop – theres a team within the power company called “voltage regulation” – they install and fault find all the problems regarding voltage regulation

regardless of the regulation the end of electrical circuits can be at a voltage level much higher than normal – this has always been a problem

the thing that drives cost to the consumer are the power companies demand for money per KWh used by the customer..

when electrical power was cheap the same inefficiencies would have been present but no one noticed as power was cheap. now power is expensive its more noticeable but only because prices per KWh have soared.

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Date: 11/11/2018 21:57:31
From: wookiemeister
ID: 1302232
Subject: re: Power bills up?

and of course voltage will vary at you house depending on demand – the more demand on the power system in your street the higher the voltages will go to ensure correct voltage at the end of the line

the longer the circuit the more likely over voltage will occur.

in this case you complain and they switch off the circuit to your street / local area (11 kv network) and adjust the number of turns in your local transformer to adjust voltage in a much more localised area

as an apprentice i helped this crew of fellahs to commission a 132KV/ 11KV transformer

they couldn’t make the thing work – i realised what might be the problem and was told to shut up by the drunk of the team so i sat back whilst they cursed and raged over the solution

when the drunk walked off the job – disgusted at his incompetence i moved back in to the job – first i demonstrated that the tap selector had been wired incorrectly (when you selected up the turns were selected down and vica vers, the tap selctor was a three phase motor so by changing over two phase wires eg red white blue changed to red blue white – the 3 phase tap selector worked correctly.)

the second problem presented

when the tap was selected inside by the brain sometimes it would work , sometimes not – i realised that there was something wrong with the circuit but not recognisable by an apprentice or by looking at the voluminous circuit diagrams – i finally persuaded the fellah i was with to call the dept assigned to designing the circuits and we discovered that we had fitted a superfluous relay that was competing with a relay inside the control building. all up it took 2 hours to rectify and test the transformer.

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Date: 11/11/2018 23:04:34
From: transition
ID: 1302264
Subject: re: Power bills up?

>regardless of the regulation the end of electrical circuits can be at a voltage level much higher than normal – this has always been a problem

i’d guess demand has increased, it’s a sprawl, many upgrades have been deferred (possibly into non existence), like extra transformers, extra wire, and the geniuses figure solar etc are going to tighten the voltages up (offset sag) over the range of load variations. Certainly would add a new dimension to dynamic regulation.

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Date: 19/11/2018 22:02:33
From: wookiemeister
ID: 1305549
Subject: re: Power bills up?

transition said:


>regardless of the regulation the end of electrical circuits can be at a voltage level much higher than normal – this has always been a problem

i’d guess demand has increased, it’s a sprawl, many upgrades have been deferred (possibly into non existence), like extra transformers, extra wire, and the geniuses figure solar etc are going to tighten the voltages up (offset sag) over the range of load variations. Certainly would add a new dimension to dynamic regulation.


i got it arse about tit

i meant to say its the end of the circuit closest to the transformer

you bump up the voltage to make sure the end of the circuit has 230 / 240 V under load

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