On 30/10/2019 02:38, wrote:
On Tuesday, 29 October 2019 20:07:13 UTC, mechanic wrote:
On Tue, 29 Oct 2019 12:46:37 +0000, Roger Hayter wrote:

Are you basing your assessment on the silly newspaper story that
implied they were helping their customers to use less electricity
and thereby save money? That story is nonsense.

The story isn't nonsense, its a real proposal apparently backed by
results from trials.

only a complete nonscientist would think such trial of any value

Not sure why people are rubbishing the idea

because it's a pile of silly bs


These days, for most consumers, its simply not true. The things that use
the most amount of electricity in the home are things that get hot. So
hair dryers, electric irons, kettles and toasters. Foe most of these
reducing the voltage by 10% simply means they take 10% longer to do
their job and so use the same amount of electricity.

Worst case is something like a hair dryer. 10% less heat, 10% slower
blower, pants.

You might argue that say the iron is an exception, because ironing takes
the same amount of time, but no, it has a thermostat, and it will take
10% longer to get back to temp when it kicks in. Same with an electric
oven or immersion heater.

Much of the low power stuff so PC's, Phone Chargers, Flat Panel TVs have
what are called Switched Mode PSU's. These adjust the amount of power
they take to match the load. The same with quality LED bulbs.

The only paper I could find on this is in the internet archive (you will
have to patch the URL) which looks at how much extra it costs for a 5%
over voltage..

https://web.archive.org/web/20080824.../PaperID77.pdf

which says in Australia

Heating, cooking, and hot water would make up three quarters of energy
used in this type of domestic installation and should cost no extra if
thermostatically controlled.

Dave