Document electrical usage of 12 devices with a Kill-A-Watt - electricity.straw.usage PEP BB

My badge bit submission.
I was most surprised by:
(1) the portable electric burner, how it cycles up/down to zero watts (didn’t know it did that)
(2) the printer - lots of power used
(3) the power consumption by the computers even when “off”, that sneaky phantom load.

I used an Eve Energy, a smart plug with built in Power Meter. Here’s what they look like:


Pair of Eve Energy smart plugs

They are monitoring the power usage for my bike charger and iPad charger.



I have used these two plugs a lot over the past two weeks collecting data on more than 12 devices. Here is the summary of the 12 devices I tracked for this PEP badge:



Here is how the data is recorded in the Eve App:


Washing machine showing 300w event


Raw data for my bike charger under load

I was surprised how much energy the kitchen fridge freezer uses compared with the individual fridge and freezer and how much it uses by default.
The main fridge was in the house when we moved in - it is noisy, kicks out a lot of heat and not a design I would have chosen. It has two doors with a freezer section at the top. When you open the freezer all the cold air poors straight out. The single units I bought when we were renting and picked units that had excellent energy rating. The freezer is a chest freezer and the fridge is a smaller design to fit under a kitchen counter.

My second surprise was how little energy I use to charge my cargo bike. I have a small 250w motor and typically get about 40km of assist before the low battery light comes on. It only took 260w to recharge, so it looks like there’s still lots of capacity left when the low battery light comes on - I’ve never totally drained the battery. The cost per charge is roughly 1c per 10km. A gallon of $5 petrol / gas gets me 50km / 30 miles on a good day and is a 100 times more expensive than my cargo bike. I’ve read figures like this in the press, now I have the hard evidence.

Here's my BB submission with the kill-a-watt. I live off grid so none of the appliance stay connected 24hr, only the minimum time for them to do the job

I was surprise by
1- how much the washing machine consumed in tbe spinning mode! Nearly the same as the toaster!
2-how low the vitamix consumed, i was sure it used much more electricity at the max setting...

I noticed this BB is in PEA Sand and PEP Straw. Is having the same BB in to different levels of badges a mistake or just more expected from the apartment dwellers in this case?

Thank you
Eric

I understand many things pretty easily.  Electricity is not one of them, so I need this practice.
I am glad I did this BB, though.  It has brought my electrical usage to my attention.
It took me a minute (yes, even after reading the directions thoroughly) to understand that I needed
to look at the monitor as the appliances were running.   This meant I had to redo a few of the
tests.  

This Badge Bit took me a couple weeks to test everything.

I’m using the Techbee JK-PM04 Power Monitor for my usage measurements.
Our cost per kWh is $0.16.
I also created a chart similar to the other participants.  It’s a great idea and helps keep track of the numbers.

I've been gathering these measurements for a while now as I'm going to begin work on our off-grid electrical system this year. Some of the larger appliances will have to wait until we can run them - the electric heater, the kettle and the dehumidifier.

I was surprised by how much energy the printer drew (although it only operates for a very short period of time). I was also surprised to learn how much more energy my Makita fast charger used compared to the slower variant (~20% more!). This energy must be lost as heat.

In general the appliances used similar amounts to their specifications. A particularly accurate example is my "Phone charger A", a 15W fast-charger made by Anker. It peaked at 14.7W.

My power monitor is a no-brand made in China model rather than a Kill-a-Watt (which aren't available in the UK). It seems to be accurate and I have no issues with it.

The killawatt meter was the first step for me getting of grid.

Once I understood what devices needed it was so much easier for me to limit the heavy consumers, and then buy more of those that consume less.

Parasitic loads  once you know what they are and get rid of them you have more energy and $ in your pocket.