In 2022, the total energy used by the Automated Home was 15.087 MWh (an average of 41 kWh / day). That’s a 7.3% reduction on last year, partly due to losing 2 of our ‘lodgers’.
Just under one third of that total was used by our air source heat pump, for space heating and hot water (4.83 MWh). This was the first full year where we were able to take advantage of the work the boffins at Epitome Living had done last Spring to ensure our Loxone building management system keeps the heat pump biased to run during the early hours.
We also continued to use the Delayed Start function on our Siemens appliances to run the dishwasher and washing machine overnight, as well as using the on-board timer to charge the EV then too.
That allowed us to move more of our energy consumption into the cheaper night rate, increasing the overall proportion used on the Economy 7 tariff significantly, going from 35.9% in 2021 to 44.2% in 2022.
Costs
In terms of costs, the electricity unit price increases were offset by the changes above, along with the government’s Energy Price Guarantee scheme, which gave us access to an incredible 1.5p night rate in November and December. All that means our £2,225 annual electricity bill is 2.1% lower than the previous year and we’re now using almost one quarter (26%) of the energy we used in our previous house.
Remember, we don’t burn anything, we buy no gas, heating oil, coal, wood, petrol or diesel. So that £186 (average) is our single monthly bill for all our heating and hot water, all our cooking and washing, all our lighting and entertainment plus our ‘fuel’ for one of the Electric cars.
You can read all the details on our system from this comprehensive post from last year.
