Thread: Off Peak electricity as an alternative to Solar

tim, not sure you can use off peak here on the gold coast, someone will correct me i am sure,
the only off peak power we have is the hot water service, and that is powered by off peak, which is turned on and off by the electricity supplier, by some sort of magic pulse down the line or something, we cannot fire up the hot water service here, to boost water temp if we run out, until 10 pm each night, never been awake to find out when it turns off.
so i presume you would need a 'leccky' or talk to the power company 'origin' in my case.
it's not like we had in melbourne where we just wound the time clock around to switch the water heater on, when we needed extra.

I had a plumber out the other day who said there are two types of off-peak. Type one, which is a fixed timer, turns on and off at the same time every night. Type two, responds to signal and turns on and off during the day and night when demand is low.

Simon

I'm not familiar with the Queensland regulations but down here in NSW I strongly suspect our power companies would object to you essentially running your whole house on off-peak.....

I'd suggest speaking with a local sparky for the correct interpretation of the local connection rules.

If it winds up going ahead you'll probably need to construct a dedicated battery room with all the appropriate ventilation, acid spill and electrical fault protection measures. Australian Standard AS4086.2 - Secondary batteries for use in standalone power supplies will most likely be the applicable reference.

Best of luck - please let us know how it turns out.

I run my pool pump from off-peak, and as mentioned earlier, the only restriction is that it must be hard-wired (i.e. no GPO on the circuit). I´m told that this is a requirement to prevent other appliances being plugged into the Off-peak circuit with the resulting possibility of them activating without notice or your intervention when the off-peak supply is re-energised.

more or less, any fixed appliance can be run on off peak.

I know of a few people who have garage heaters that only kick in on off peak.

I reckon it'd be ideal for big bank battery top ups...

there is loads of links under battery bank on google.

Battery Back-up Power Emergency Backup Power


i was trying toi find a system i had read about that was basically a battery unit the size of a cargo container which would use off peak power and supply several houses during the day, the idea being power staions can run at efficently as possible and avoiding the up and down of power demands.
of course i can nto find the info now.

don't know about QLD rules, but i don't think you could get away with it in NSW. similar rules that require hard wiring of items on off peak, but i think the type of appliance is regulated.
i wonder if the money you would save by doing this would come anywhere equalling the set up of batteries and inverter, that is if you didn't already have it hanging around.

This discussion reminds me of a visit to Myanmar I made about 1980. When there I visited a data processing centre; they had the largest UPS I have ever seen - it included a battery room the size of a small house, filled with 1000AH lead/acid deep cycle cells. Perhaps a commentary on the reliability of the power in a city (Rangoon) where the top hotel thoughtfully supplied you with a bedside candle and matches.

John