Solar Power/Batteries are 60% of planned new U.S. electric generation capacity

Re:Solar Power/Batteries are 60% of planned new U.S. electri... by hedora on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @09:30AM (#30600247)

Same here. We have a modern heat pump water heater. It uses 2.6 kWh per day, set to cycle down at night and during the day. Three people, short showers every other day.

(I just switched it to always on. Trying to optimize water heating timing was just preventing it from storing solar electricity as heat, and didn't change daily energy consumption much.)

Edit: I should add we almost exclusively use a dishwasher to wash dishes (< 4 gallons a day). Laundary is probably our main water consumer. Showers have High Sierra shower heads. They're inexpensive, strong stream; 1.5 gpm (5.7 LPM)

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Re:Solar Power/Batteries are 60% of planned new U.S. electri... by hedora on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @09:56AM (#30600559)

As a household, we're at about 30kWh per day, exclusive of commute. The 40 mile round trip commute adds about 17kWh (110mpge electric car, 2500 ft elevation change).

I recently found a 100 watt phantom load (after the 30kWh measurement), and now the house idles at 500w. That includes fridges, water treatment + water heating, internet, LAN, NAS, etc).

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Re:Solar Power/Batteries are 60% of planned new U.S. electri... by joshyeager on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @10:22AM (#30600839)

That is very interesting! What was causing the 100w phantom load, and how did you find it?

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Re:Solar Power/Batteries are 60% of planned new U.S. electri... by hedora on Tuesday March 08, 2022 @12:37PM (#30602838)

The combination of a backup synology NAS and a (basically non functional) swann security camera DVR. Mostly the DVR.

I plan to put the synology on a timer.

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