Power consumption with a twist

I have a 6kw solar system. I also have an 8kw main room air conditioner. This would probably require a constant 3.5 kw to function. I think you could only have a small air conditioner as it would be limited by the amount of battery storage you have. Really most air conditioners are used at night so you get a good nights sleep. No solar at night ...yet.

Depending where you live, an evaporative unit will do an admirable job in areas where it's not too humid. You can now get an inverter evaporative unit that claims it is even more efficient.

Despite researching this extensively I have not been able to find out the difference between an inverter evaporative air conditioner and a normal evaporative air conditioner.

All definitions seem to compare the inverter evaporative to refrigerated A/c.

On the evidence I have found it seems just a termonology thing as we also have inverter refrigerated a/c.

I have both evaporative and modern inverted reverse cycle refrigerated a/c in my house in Canberra and the evaporative outperforms the the refrigerated a/c in all circumstances except very humid conditions. Water usage goes up a bit though.

Garry

They claim lower power consumption, about 40% less than normal system.

Extract from Breezeair site

Why is Breezair Unique?

Breezair® units feature advanced technology and a range of unique and clever design features that combine to achieve the highest cooling performance of any similar air conditioner.
First and Only Evaporative Air Conditioner with Invertacool™ Inverter
Technology Reducing Electricity Usage

Invertacool™ cleverly manages power consumption and eliminates the wasteful and costly stop-start-stop sequence of old-fashioned systems generating greatly reduced energy use and genuine cost savings.

Refrigerated systems with inverter technology use less electricity than those without inverter, but still use a significant amount more electricity than Breezair evaporative air conditioners.

A Breezair Icon series evaporative air conditioner uses up to 90% less electricity than refrigerated units (including split systems and reverse cycle air conditioning) and up to 40% less electricity than conventional ducted evaporative air conditioning systems (without an inverter).

I took that to mean they were comparing their evaporative units with refrigerated units. But reading your quote above I see they are claiming up to 40% less electricity than normal systems. This is comparing their system to the worst oldest system so there is not much in it. Up to 40% of stuff all is still stuff all.

There is no appreciable change in my electricity bill and my unit is on 24 hours a day running on the thermostat form October to May.

Evaporative units do not have a wasteful and costly stop-start-stop sequence - just a fan starting and small water pump that are running when the unit is actually operating.

While Breezair make a comparison of actual cooling performance there is nothing on there site that compares their better power consumption because of this inverter technology.

Still dunno what it is.

To cut a long story short, inverters run a low voltage compressor and much like a car fridge with a Eco and turbo switch, they can change the speed the compressor runs at, rather than just cycling in and out as AC stuff does. With an Evap unit the fan and pump speeds would vary with demand I'd expect.

Thanks

"ith an Evap unit the fan and pump speeds would vary with demand I'd expect."

That is exactly what any old evap aircon without inverter technology already does.

Cool. Coming from coastal QLD those things may as well come from Mars. Never seen inside a Cardiff air in my life.

Yes my 15 year old CoolAir has infinitely variable speed on the fan, the lowest setting uses about 140watts of power, the highest around 800.

I paid $11,000 for my 6kw system. My power bill is roughly $1800 a year. I do not pay a bill and normally get a cheque for about $450 each year as well. So about 5 years. I get 44 cents a kw feed into grid tariff. I see some get 66 cents. Lucky buggers. The other side of the coin is some only get 8cents a Kw. However as we have seen huge increases in power bills the pay back time will drop. I had a bill for $840 last quarter. Largest bill I have ever had. Put this down to 2 things. 8kw air conditioner was on its way out and I had the pool pump running way too long and on high revs. New air conditioner and have put pool pump back to 6 hrs a day and have it just above economy mode to make up for the slower filtration. Booster mode is now a no no.. Will be interesting to see my next bill.

We put in a 1.5Kw solar system in June 2011. It cost us $8000 (a real rort, I reckon) - but the Gubbmint paid $3500 of it, so it actually cost us $4500.
There's only the two of us in a 3 bedroom house, and we don't have a pool.
We got the free insulation deal from the Gubbmint, so that was a win.

We have 3 x RC Mitsubishi inverter aircons - 1 x 3HP and 1 x 1HP. We use them sparingly.
As with most of the older generation, and with myself coming from a background of rural and private minesite living, where we had to generate our own power, we are frugal with power use.
We turn off all unnecessary items such as lights constantly, and avoid high-power-consuming devices.

We managed to jag the 44c a Kw feed-in tariff (contract is for 10 yrs), so that was a total win.

Our power bill annually is virtually nil. We get a small bill at the height of Summer as we utilise the A/C on really hot days.
In Winter, we get a small bill for heating the house with the A/C's.

The rest of the year we get a substantial credit as the solar system pours the power into the grid.
I've estimated our power bill would be well over $1200 a year, based on the current electricity tariff.

On that basis, we've broken even in the next month - around 3.75 years into the deal.
After next month, we'll be into the 6.25 yr period where we will effectively get free power.
After the 10 yr contract lapses, we'll have to investigate what to do then, to keep our power costs down.
Hopefully, technology will have advanced to the point then, where we may be able to go totally off-grid.

In my rented workshop, I've gone over to LED floodlamps for shop lighting, and the power bill has dropped substantially. I sourced 50W LED floodlamps from China.
They put out the same amount of light as a 150W globe-type floodlamp, and they are excellent.
Can't do much about welders/grinders/saws using power, but I did buy a 200A inverter (stick) welder, which is excellent.

Cheers, Ron.

EDIT - that should have been "3 x RC Mitsubishi inverter aircons - 1 x 3HP and 2 x 1HP .."

But what are the connection/admin/service fees to be connected to the grid? I live in suburbia in a fully electric house and a very very large proportion of my power bill are the "service" fees before I even use a KW.

Garry we have a property that is vacant uses no power but the "service " fee is approx $80 per quarter,hope that helps.

Ron,

Your solar is same output as ours, and no doubt we have similar electrical loads. But you're streets ahead of us when the bills arrive.

Our first bill after fitting solar was $50!!! Our 2nd bill was about $150, and one day they arrived and replaced the old style meter, one with spinning disc, with a compact, Ergon favoured electronic meter. The only cheap bill now seems to be the last qtr, when sun is bright, days are cool-ish, and a/c's don't get used frequently.

That's my whinge for the day. :-))

Bob

Garrycol - The supply charges in W.A. for us are as follows ...

1. House supply - $25.86 supply charge every 2 mths approximately (this period varies by a few days according to the billing period, which is 6 times a year) ...

2. Rented workshop (3 phase power supply) - $19.00 supply charge every 2 mths approximately.
I use about $10-$15 worth of actual power a month in my shop, I only run power tools sparingly on repair/restoration work, I'm not carrying out full-time fabrication or power-hungry work.

Cheers, Ron.

Bob Y,

the price of electricity will certainly have gone up quite a bit since you installed your solar as I know ours certainly has. We have a 1.9 kw unit and I think the first year we got a cheque for $450, that has now dropped right back over the years and after this summer I think we will be paying ergon money again. One thing I do is wash the panels about every 3 months and that ups the output. Another thing we have been doing which probably won't work out your way due to the high ambients, is set the air-con on dry and up at 28 or 30 degrees. This works ok for us with the high humidity.

I just changed some lights at home as masters had 13w led oyster fittings on special for $15 each. Chinese units but they work well.

Thanks for the comments, Slow.

Yes, definitely a price rise out this way too. :-(. Our high temps certainly don't help performance, nor do these long spells of >40 deg days help power usage either. Have bounced up on the roof and washed the panels a number of times. As we're very close to the highway to Longreach, there's a lot more dust than one realises.

Humidity??? What's that, Slow?

Didn't know about the LED oyster lights, so looks like a trip to Bunnings shortly.

Bob