Re: Monitoring my electricty usage...a reply from Scottish Power

["Neil Fuller" <neil@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Complete load of old "cods"

Your energy consumption depends on many factors ranging from how well
insulated your house is to how many times you use your tumble drier.

TBH, the reason I have a "check meter" is not to check the supply
companies
meter but to keep an eye on our energy consumption on a day to day basis.
In
addition, with a check meter, you can see when your peak demands are.

However, I find the most useful aspect of monitoring our own energy is to
see how changes to insulation, time profiles etc change the energy usage.

To be able to make reasonable comparisons, you need to be able to compare
your daily usage with similar days. For instance, if it's cold outside, you
can expect higher energy usage and vice-versa.

The accepted method of making these comparisons is by use of
"degree-days".
Basically, this is a calculation to determine how long the temperature has
been below a threshold and by how much. The higher the degree day
calculation, the colder it's been for longer and therefore the more energy
you can expect to use.

Now, if you compare the degree days with energy usage, you start to get
something useful. For example, if you reduce your energy consumption per
degree day, you are heading in the right direction!

This is, of course, for what is known as "heating degree-days". A
similar
rational applies to "cooling degree-days" if you have air-con.

So, Scottish Powers rule of thumb is complete dangly bits! Energy
consumption  depends on so many factors they simply cannot estimate in that
way as a guide to whether your meter is working. put a check meter in by
all
means but do use it for more than just checking the Supply Co's meter.

Finally, the generating and supply companies use degree-days themselves to
help estimate your bills (It's been colder for longer, therefore you'll
probably use more energy), forecasting expected consumption (how many power
stations do they need to run) etc etc

HTH

Regards

Neil
----- Original Message -----
From: "darren_karp2001" <darren@xxxxxxx>
To: <ukha_d@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 9:18 PM
Subject: [ukha_d] Monitoring my electricty usage...a reply from Scottish
Power


>
>
> Below is a snapshot of a reply to a question about my usage of gas
> and electricity, are they right?
> --------------------------------
> We find that if you take a reading from both Gas and Electric meters
> note the reads and repeat this reading 7 days later subtract the
> lower read from the latest the result should be divided by 7.
>
> Electricity, the average usage for a 2 bedroomed house per week, hot
> water on a timer switch, is between 10 and 15 kwh per day.
>
> Gas , average usage for a 2 bedroomed house, with heating on a timer
> switch,  is 2 to 4 units per day.
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> If your usage is on or about these figures and are in an applicably
> sized house then the meters are recording usage correctly.
>
> James Murray
> Customer Services Advisor
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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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