How To Choose Your Electricity Monitor

Choosing A Home Power Monitor

After five years of testing, configuring, benchmarking and supplying power monitors, to a large selection of householders and small business owners in Australia, we know everyone has a slightly different set of needs from any power monitoring solution.

The electricity monitors we offer work in a similar manner, whilst having slight variations on certain features and benefits.

You will find our CHOOSING YOUR POWER MONITOR page clearly explains what you need to know, to be in a situation to make the best choice. 

See our electricity monitor comparison table to further assist you. Of course your welcome to give us a call or drop us an email. 

For those of you wanting a quick power monitor quote, please use our ELECTRICITY MONITOR QUOTE form, also found our website. 

This blog post brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.

Electricity News Headline Feed Australia

World Electricity News Australia

Looking to keep in touch with electricity and power news related headlines?

We have created a news feed, which you can easily subscribe to via RSS feed and email.

Alternatively visit WORLD ELECTRICITY NEWS.

This blog post brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.

Multiple Appliance Monitoring Connection Diagram

Multiple Circuit Monitoring

Installing an electricity monitoring system for multiple appliances / circuits does not have to be a nightmare. 

If certain procedures are followed correctly, it can be set up quickly with no errors.

See our SUPPORT page for our MULTIPLE CIRCUIT MONITORING INSTALLATION DIAGRAM, where we detail the easy way to install a multiple appliance / circuit monitoring solution.

This blog post brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.

Solar PV Monitoring Correct Connection Diagram

Incorrect Monitoring Current Clamps

There is often a lot of confusion when it comes to the correct placement of the current clamps, for the purpose of monitoring electricity consumption and Solar PV generated power.

The issue primarily is with the correct placement of the current clamps for the home electricity consumption. 

By placing the clamps around the incorrect cables often means the solar generation and the consumption follow a similar pattern, as shown above. 

On our SUPPORT page you will find documents such as the,

SOLAR POWER & HOUSEHOLD CONSUMPTION CURRENT CLAMP GUIDE

to finally end the confusion. 

This blog post brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.

Moving House Reference The NSW Solar Bonus Scheme

NSW Solar Bonus Scheme

We have been getting a rising number of questions regarding the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme. A common question being:

"If I move out of my house, will the next occupant be eligible to receive the same scheme tariff?"

This is a good question, so let us take a look at the answer and see how it works.

Regardless of whether you received the 60 cent tariff or the 20 cent tariff, the new account holder will be eligible to receive the 20 cent tariff, subject to them meeting the eligibility requirements. The only exception to this is if you were a 60 cent tariff recipient and the new occupant can demonstrate that they were in a 'domestic relationship' with you, then they will be eligible to receive the 60 cent tariff.

Once the premises has moved to the 20 cent Scheme tariff, it can not return to the 60 cent Scheme tariff even if the original account holder takes back the account.

For more answers to questions regarding the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme, visit the NSW RESOURCE & ENERGY website.

This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY REDUCTION SERVICE industry in Australia.

What Happens When The NSW Solar Bonus Scheme Ends

NSW Solar Bonus Scheme Ends 2016

You may be asking yourself what is going to happen when the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme [Gross FIT 60 & 20 cent] comes to an end in December 2016? 

From a recent conversation with a NSW electricity distributor, it appears a decision has been made on the policy of the matter.

“A distributor supplies meters at no charge, the only costs involved are those charged by the Accredited Service Provider [ASP] installing the meter.”

“When an ASP replaces a gross meter with a new net meter, the old gross meter is returned to the distributor where it can be either kept in store as a gross meter or reprogrammed when possible to a net meter.”

“As meters are supplied at no charge by the distributor, there is no buy back for their return. Before or at the end of the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme the householder simply needs to arrange for an ASP to rewire the solar inverter from the gross meter, to the export register of the net meter.”

Where a householder has a NSW SBS gross meter and also a net metered system, then the solar inverter connected to the gross meter is simply rewired and added to the existing net metered system. 

Visit our page on NET FIT METERING & BILLING for an insight into net metering.

This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY REDUCTION SERVICE industry in Australia.

Are All Time Of Use Electricity Tariffs The Same?

The answer is NO. Differences are the number of hours offered on each tariff rate be it peak, shoulder and off-peak. And of course, the cost per tariff.

So let us take a look at two different TOU electricity retailers offers. Whilst electricity retailer's in one electricity distribution area may offer small changes to the costs, based on tariff rates, the biggest changes occur when one compares rates offered in one electricity distribution area to another.

For this exercise we are comparing an offer in the Essential Energy area, to an offer in the Ausgrid distribution area.

With any TOU plan, the hours in the week [a total of 168] are charged at different rates based on demand. For the actual times these tariffs are in force, please see our TOU TABLES.

Time Of Use Differences Based On Distribution Area

As you can easily see there are big differences in the % of total hours per week per tariff type. This can make the TOU more or less suitable, when it comes to reducing electricity costs.

Some of the differences in the TOU plans offered are:

• One distribution area has peak and shoulder charged at the same rate
• Both TOU offers have completely different tariff times and rates

It is therefore essential to know at what time of day you are going to be using or not using electricity and how much. Once you have a better idea of this electricity usage in your home, you will be in a better position to know if the TOU will in fact save you on electricity costs.

An easy solution to see the differences in TOU plans, along with comparing a TOU to a flat rate or block rate, is to install ELECTRICITY MONITORING SOFTWARE with the capability of electricity tariff comparison.

See our blog post HERE for more on the difference is costs.
 
This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.

7 Common Areas Of Concern For Aussie Electricity Users

Listed here are the main areas of concern for users of electricity, discovered during our ELECTRICITY AUDITS.

• Correct Metering Installation
• Accurate Billing System
• Appliance Energy Ratings
• Household Usage Patterns
• Consumption & Solar Monitoring
• Offsetting Electricity Costs
• Best Electricity Tariff

All of the above areas of concern, are fully investigated during our electricity auditing service.

This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY REDUCTION SERVICE industry in Australia.

How To Reduce Your Air Conditioner's Standby Power

Removing AC Standby Power

A common appliance in many homes that can suffer from standby electricity is the air conditioner unit. 

This standby electricity greatly adds to the quarterly electricity bill and for some householders it is hard to discover and remove. 

So let us take a look at why this standby electricity occurs in an air conditioning unit and how to eliminate it.

The standby electricity in your AC unit can be caused by:

• Power being applied to the compressor windings
• Power being applied to a crank case heater
• Power applied to the control panel, thus creating constant communications between indoor and outdoor components of the unit

So how do you reduce the standby electricity of your air conditioner? 

Well the simple solution is to turn it off at the power board when it is not in use. In some homes this can be for six months or more of the year, when the AC unit is not used.

With 100W of standby power costing at least $300 over the year [when based on a thirty five cent tariff], this is an amount of electricity costs that should not be ignored.

If you decide to turn off the AC unit, you need to be aware of one important fact. Which is the time before use, where the AC unit needs to be powered on. This may be written in the instruction manual and should read similar to:
'When you require the operation of the A/C please allow at least 4hrs on standby (after the isolator has been turned on) before initialising the touch pad ON/OFF button'.

The reason for this initial power up sequence, is due to the control board sending a ‘trickle’ charge through the compressor windings to warm the oil of the unit, during this four hour period. This warming of the oil is needed to get it to the correct viscosity. This process also removes any migrated liquid refrigerant from the compressor sump.

If this warming process is not carried out, premature damage may occur to the compressor. Furthermore there may be an increased efficiency loss and eventual seizure could occur. This is why if the power is removed, the correct procedure needs to be followed before operation.

On some inverter style AC units, the design energises the compressor windings (trickle charge) if the outdoor ambient temperature falls below 21C, during the off cycle or while in standby for a duration of 30 minutes on and 30 minutes off until the compressor is initialised for heating or cooling again. 

It can be this constant energising of the compressor windings that greatly adds to the standby power consumption, especially during any cooler periods where the ambient drops below 21C regularly.

It is noted this method [trickle charging the compressor windings] of heating the oil is far more efficient than any crank case heater in earlier AC units. These crank case heaters being powered on all the time and consuming large amounts of standby power.

Standby power is easy discovered by using an ELECTRICITY MONITOR in the home, where each appliances 'on power' and 'standby power' are easily discovered.

This blog post and podcast brought to you by Aussie Home Energy, a major player in the HOME ELECTRICITY SAVING SERVICE industry in Australia.