Smart Metering Trial
Comments
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Thanks to Rowena for clarifying what the price will be, at least we know where we are now. Perhaps not as bad as we had imagined? It won't be long before we have some members reporting what their real world experience was.
David
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It is not even going to do that Steve, especially if you have one of the larger fridge freezers. Ours is not as big as some that are around these days, but, as we have a meter in the van, we know it uses almost 4kWh per 24 hours. Even a £2 reduction is stingy!
Having used metered sites extensively abroad, we also know that unless we heat no water at all in the van (or use only gas to do so) adding in lights, kettle, toaster and water for 1 shower every second day will use an average of 6kWh per 24 hours.
Anyone who wants to use their own facilities on this site will be seriously disadvantaged financially.
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It's likely, as previously suggested, that there will be increased usage of onsite facilities to mitigate the meter payments which will unfortunately push up running costs further. Reading through Wyatts Covert reviews a variety of people use this site, some are work based and I would imagine they won't want to pay extra if it can be avoided?
I agree with DK on his estimates but I think domestic fuel costs are predicted to lower by mid season.
Quick edit
I had forgotten it's optional I think? So will people take this up if there isn't a good incentive?
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Having just returned from a 3 week trip in April, when the weather was cold, wet and windy on the majority of the days, I kept track of our use of electricity in the caravan over about 18 days.
We were mainly on CLs, had heating during the day/evening, when "at home" , at 21 degrees, reduced to 18 when out, and to 13 for 7 hours overnight. We have a 2kw Alde system so heating from very cold takes a while, so we do not turn it completely off when on a site in cold weather.
Being 15 years old, our van is not as well insulated as newer vans, and when arriving on a site we usually start the heating on gas for about an hour to get things going
We heated water for dishwashing and showers (average 1 shower per day in total) , but I did use a site shower on 4 occasions, We used an electric kettle and toaster, and cooked using mainly electricity supplemented by gas.
Our average daily use of electricity was 22 kWh.
At home, we use in the region of 10 kWh on average per day from the grid for lights and gadgets, cooking, dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, fridges/freezers, and the very occasional use of an electric fan heater, but also an average of 5 kWh per day from the panels on our roof.
While away in the van, the use of electricity from the grid at home dropped to 3-4 kWh per day.
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Is it possible to use the fridge, but not the freezer in these modern outfits? I wondered, as this might be where a bit of a compromise could be made, if it’s not an absolute necessity all of the time.
Our outfit only has a small fridge, and a little freezer box, so we seem to manage ok in terms of consumption on EHU, and if we use gas. It might not be what folks want to do, I appreciate that of course. We usually carry enough fresh/frozen items to give us 3-4 days worth of meals, but we are of course out and about in our outfit at least every couple of days, so it’s easy just to pop into a shop and get things fresh.
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Kj
Be interesting to know whether the Alde system uses more power than the Truma? We never leave the heating on in the van when we are out, unless we are just wandering around the site. One of the advantages of the Truma system is that it does heat up pretty quickly. However if your consumption is typical I imagine quite a few people are in for a shock with a metered supply?
David
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Whatever make of heating unit is in use there will be a substantial amount of heat needed when heating from cold - especially if the caravan has been unoccupied for a while. Lots of cold air in cupboards, the wardrobe and under the bed. Who wants their newly cooked hot food congealing on a cold plate straight from the cupboard.
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No, if it is on, both fridge and freezer are on, certainly on ours. There is one on/off switch and one temperature setting button. On ours the fridge and freezer are behind separate doors.
We freeze stuff at home to take with us, the freezer bit is quite spacious, can probably fit in about 10-12 meals for two.
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Thanks K, I wasn’t sure. It does sound like some of the more modern outfits are a lot more power hungry/dependent than something as old as ours. I suppose it’s all the extra comforts and conveniences nowadays.🙂
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I believe it does use more gas than the blown air, so probably more electricity too, as it warms the whole fabric of the van, not just the air.
Ours is only 2kW on electricity, but 6kW on gas, so we do, as I said, use gas to get things warm initially, or if it is extremely cold, then turn over to electricity.
As warming up from cold takes a while, we leave it on at a lower temperature if away from the van, and let the thermostat do its job. The controller takes care of overnight settings, we can set a start and stop time for it to reduce to our chosen overnight temperature.Our consumption is probably higher than typical as we have a 15 year old van, vans that age are probably not that typical on Club sites! And we do always wash up in the van, and prefer to use our own shower most of the time. We also rarely eat out, so do a fair bit of cooking. And we have no solar panel.
On a metered site, where the electricity is expensive, which we have experienced in Germany, we would use gas for heating and HW, and probably cook more by gas, as we have refillable Gaslow cylinders.
This would work out less expensive than using electricity The fridge is heavy on gas, around 0.6kg per 24 hours, but on, for example, ACSI sites the electricity allowance is sufficient to cover the fridge. You soon get to know what costs less and get used to a different way of operating the van.
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At last a proper discussion on facts and figures.
Interesting info from KjellNN so offers an insight, not everyone's consumption will be the same.
Cannot understand why the cost per KWH couldn't have been given originally 🤐 when the discussion was opened!. The reductions offered do seem derisory BUT folk may well use facilities more rather than their own AND the cost of providing meters can be recouped in other ways just not on the KWH.
I suspect as well as installing meters, whether that's the club or the company running the App, the cost of installation of the meters needs to be recouped and the company running the App won't be providing their service as a charity. Out sourcing doesn't always save money, but passes responsibility. Let's hope it provides a better service than AirAngel and WiFi 🤐🤐🤐
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FloGas website gives 1kg = 1.969 litres, so 6kg would be 11.814 litres and cost £11.82 in your example. Currently it would be about three times that for a 6kg exchange cylinder around here, so £1 buys me only about 2.3 kWh of energy. Wish I could use your supplier!
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ditto almost...in addition to the gas we use a fan heater, on 2kw setting it heats the van in no time, we then switch off the gas and maybe use the blown air electric system, we never never leave the heater on whilst we are away from the van and almost never whilst we are in bed, just use a decent duvet, even in North Spain last January -5c i only used the electric heater overnight on the 1kw setting, and we have lived in Scotland and did most of our caravanning north of the border
"We were mainly on CLs, had heating during the day/evening, when "at home" , at 21 degrees, reduced to 18 when out, and to 13 for 7 hours overnight. We have a 2kw Alde system so heating from very cold takes a while, so we do not turn it completely off when on a site in cold weather."
"Our average daily use of electricity was 22 kWh"
I guess non of this was metered ? bet the CL owners breathed a sigh of relieft when you left KjellNN
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Especially if caravans were not white, but black. Probably dark green would be prefered by the anti-caravan environmentalists though.
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No, none was metered, but interestingly one CL we were on had installed a very large bank of solar panels, and it looked like they also had battery storage for any excess produced during the day. There was also wifi included in the price, very nice serviced hardstanding pitches, good MH service area, and all for £20 per night. No toilets or showers.
We have no problem in using a metered pitch and paying for what we use, I have explained above how we would use, and have used, the gas and electricity differently. But we would expect, in the case of the Club's metering trial, that the pitch fee be reduced by a realistic amount. And on whatever type of site it is, the cost per kWh needs to be quoted up front so that informed decisions can be made.
A 22 kWh daily use reflects how cold and windy it was where we were, and the lower level of insulation in our van, our summer use would be more like 8 kWh when using all our own facilities.
However, we are no longer using Club sites, they do not offer us value for money, so much of this is academic as far as we are concerned, more so as we are now actively considering how much longer we will carry on with caravanning. The discussion is ongoing, but it may only be another couple of years now.
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That reflects almost exactly our recent usage on a CL at Coldingham which was metering usage and charging per kWh over a 10 kWh allowance in the pitch fee. Slight difference was we use an electric hob, but the oven and grill are gas in our 16 years old caravan.
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"However, we are no longer using Club sites, they do not offer us value for money, so much of this is academic as far as we are concerned, more so as we are now actively considering how much longer we will carry on with caravanning. The discussion is ongoing, but it may only be another couple of years now."
agree 100 pct, but having said that, i do use sites that are more expensive than club sites, but as i have said before, i do like a swimming pool and am prepared to pay over the odds for this facility.
We use CAMC sites occasionally if we have a special requirement, e.g. if we visit my sister in York we stay at York Beeches for a few days, very nice site, worth £50, doubtful, but it suits our needs. We are of the mindset, if we cannot afford it do not do it, but today we are not rich but not counting the pennies.
our caravan is a 2008 Coachman 5 berth Amara so does not have the luxury of floor to ceiling fridge freezer, central heating etc, so metering will not make a very big differance to how we caravan in the UK, but it works for us
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The exorbitant price increases were brought in under the guise of necessary because of increased energy costs the misery reduction in pitch prices is just another price increase with the excuse of that is what we wanted metered electricity,, I hope I'm I'm just being pessimistic.
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