POWER RANT

[Tom5051]

HAhaha listen to you all whinge. In South Australia, we have the most expensive energy costs in the world, yes we are stupid down here. Government shut down a heap of coal power stations and put up a bunch of wind mills. Well in Nov 2016 the entire State was blacked out because they could not generate enough power, too windy. Never have I had to drive through the center of town, in peak hour traffic with not a single traffic light working. It was eerie.

 

[capn_pineapple]

Aye! In Melbourne and we're just behind SA in terms of cost...

I'm paying $0.2505/kWh and $1.1047 per day for supply... Last month I payed a total of $160 for my power, which came down to $0.3158/kWh for 507.083 kWh for the month, with my computer main PC running 24/7 mining SIAcoin.

How on earth are you lot paying so much for power???

 

[cheezehead]

...How on earth are you lot paying so much for power???

All depends on where you live, around here there's a coal plant not 5mi from me (yes, air quality sucks). However, power is under $0.10 per kWh with a monthly service fee of $21USD.

Everything is relative, but this discussion did bring one thought for an article @Patrick, comparing different generations of common 24/7 homelab procs for power consumption relative to annual operating costs.

Heck if I lived down under, I'd be running all xeon-d spending extra for higher capacity dimms to cut down on the numbers vs around here I'm still cooking with westmere which given the annual operating costs is hard to justify upgrading if the needed performance is already there. The only problem with running older gear around here is the WAF factor....older boxes generate more heat which in turn means louder fans.

 

[Evan]

@cheezehead you absolutely right about Australia and some Asian countries which is why for home use I think Xeon-D and latest model processors make a lot of sense. Sure it all depends on how much $$ your paying for your hardware but if a new purchase may as well spend some more to have energy efficient kit.

Run Aircon 24x7 in our house and use ~40kwhr a day but I also value comfort !

 

[amalurk]

PG&E top tier rate is about $0.40/kwh. My AC when running pulls 4.5kwh or so + add other house hold load. Last bill I used 1053kw/hr and that put me into tier 2 cost at $0.276/kwh where most the kwh were charged and electric bill was $270. Wife and kids at home all month. Use a little more for servers, pumps, dual AC like some have here and you are in a higher tier paying $0.30-0.40 / kwh marginal rate and your bill is through the roof. It isn't hard here. When it was 105 one day in June (and that is measured at nearest grassy airfield KCCR, a few miles away so was probably a bit hotter at my house) we used almost 80kwh that one day from AC having to run in the night. And we keep AC at like 78-80 on those days.

 

[cheezehead]

If your running an older A/C unit in a warmer climate with higher kWh rates it might be more worthwhile to look at replacing the unit.

Lennox - Energy Savings Calculator

(personally I don't care for Lennox's pricing structure..least around here, but the calculator is easy to use).

 

[Dawg10]

It's tough to compare the cost of power when the billing is non-standard. Add in the different exchange rates and you need a dynamic Excel spreadsheet to make sense of it all.

I pulled our June power bill: our energy charge is $0.05515/kWh. Sounds low compared to what I'm seeing here, but wait... We consumed 2093kWh at a cost of $115.43 (Canadian pesos); add in $163.63 in distribution and transmission charges, riders and tariffs, another $13.93 in GST and the total comes to $293.01.

$293.01 / 2093 = $0.14 per kWh. Converting to US$ (x .7954) = $0.11 USD / kWh all in. This is just a snapshot in time but does provide a baseline. (btw: rural Alberta, Canada. We run water well, septic and irrigation pumps, heat/AC when required, two servers and support hardware 24/7, and I like to make stuff with my lathe, mill, mig and tig welding machines. )

I'm curious how other parts of the world compare...

 

[realtomatoes]

I do between 1000-1300 kwh a month and pay between $200-250. Don't think we got smart meters yet coz we still see a man from the power company come every month to read the meter.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[mackle]

My Massachusetts bill comprises (as set out in our bill):
Customer Charge (per month): $3.73
Distribution Charge (per kWh): $0.06093
Transition Charge (per kWh): $0.00436
Transmission Charge (per kWh): $0.02298
Energy Conservation Charge (per kWh): $0.01639
Renewable Energy Charge (per kWh): $0.00050

...Plus the actual electricity cost of $0.0949 (per kWh) (though an energy aggregation scheme)

So 20.0006c/kWh, give or take my maths.

My servers/workstations/network equipment usually consume around 200w 24/7.

 

[whitey]

@mackle I am 3x's worse off than you it seems, 5A/600W draw on servers/network/stg 24/7 @ .09cents kwh NOT factoring in all that other BS.

BOOO, not as efficient/lean as I thought.

Based off of this I have some other overhead:

https://www.xcelenergy.com/staticfiles/xe/Regulatory/COResRates.pdf

$5.39 Service and Facility Charge $1.15 Production Meter Charge, if applicable Subject to all applicable electric rate adjustments

Dunno if i have all that other stuff you accounted for but I'm sure they sneak it in.

EDIT: 2-2.5K KWH usage like clock work around here monthly for several years.

 

[StevenDTX]

I'll just sit over here in the corner.

 

[Rand__]

Oh my - 10k kWh last year - €2300 -> 0,226€/KWh
And going to be more this year since I upgraded to a 3 node cluster

 

[capn_pineapple]

I use an average of 350kWh/month total for my small apartment with two people in it coming out to approx AU$0.23/kWh since I moved into this place in April.

 

[Dawg10]

A quick spreadsheet.. I'm good with Alberta.

 

[TType85]

Solar is now on. Mid day, pool pump running on low speed (1K rpm = 150w vs 2500 rpm = 2000w), normal lights, computers and fans on in the house and I am running at -5.8KW Central air kicks on and it is down to -2.3KW but hopefully when then new windows go in it will help keep the cold in a bit better and I can run it less.

 

[Blinky 42]

The provider here is PECO (west of Philly, PA, USA)

Looks like in the middle of the pack on rates.. all in rate is $0.140779 / kWh made up of
$8.45 customer charge
$0.06598/kWh for Distribution
$0.06419/kWh for Generation
$0.00688/kWh for Transmission

At least I am down to 2258 kWh from 2787 for August last year.

 

[BlueFox]

You guys sure have some high power bills. I live in Phoenix, so AC is running nearly all year-round. Rates vary depending on the time of year ($0.07/kWh in winter and $0.10/kWh currently) plus a $3.38 monthly service charge. Low for the year is ~$25 (~300 kWh) and high still under $100 (~1100 kWh).

 

[freebsdrules]

I'll take any of your bills haha. All in rate for July was about $0.123, used just under 5,000 kWh so total bill was just under $600. Granted we have a large house with 3x air conditioners and my server rack runs 24/7. I also work from home and there's a young baby in the house so we don't get to shut off air during the day like a lot of people.

 

[Dawg10]

 

[cheezehead]

$21.00 fixed rate
$0.09970 per kWh

August bill had 1,485kWh, down from 1,872kWh last year.

WPS/Integrys in WI.