Sky-high energy bills and fuel prices that remind you of the time when you paid for a full tank in guilders. There you are, in a house full of white goods, computer screens, sandwich makers and smart gadgets, anxiously waiting for the next rate increase.
Lately I’ve been getting ominous messages from my energy supplier. They are updates on my ‘standby’ consumption – devices that are consuming power unseen. There is no level to raise; on one occasion the standby consumption is 10 percent higher, then it is halved again. Apparently I’m a fickle type.
What’s sneaking into my house? And how does Eneco know what kind of device I’m turning on, whether I’m doing laundry, baking a cake or watching TV? And is there anything left to save?
I call Bert Jan Katsman. For Eneco, he is working on the algorithms with which the energy supplier reads the data from the smart meter. This is how it works: every 15 minutes the meter (which is in millions of Dutch meter boxes) passes on the consumption. That yields 96 data points per day. “If we see that you are using 500 watts and the next moment 50 watts more, we try to recognize that energy block by seeing when you use 50 watts less again.”
Non-intrusive load monitoring that technique is called. A washing machine that runs for a few hours at 1000 watts is easier to recognize than a refrigerator that switches on for a while. It can sometimes be a guesswork, says Bert Jan: “A clothes dryer and an oven are electrically very similar.”
Still, the algorithms see quite a few patterns, by taking into account times: is it lunchtime or late at night? The model has been refined with other data, also from households that have similar equipment at home.
The Eneco app reveals that this month 21.47 euros, about a quarter of my electricity bill, goes to standby consumption. That is a lot of adapters, TVs and set-top boxes that are blaring unnoticed. Am I that sloppy with electricity? Bert Jan puts it into perspective: “Of course you can also be very frugal.”
Insidious consumption is not a good name, he thinks. In our always onsociety, it is impossible to reduce power consumption to zero. Some devices need to be turned on, such as your Wi-Fi router. The term base loador base consumption, is better.
With a simple energy meter (15 euros) I still go hunting for hidden culprits. With the lid closed, the work laptop still consumes power on the charger. Also the WiFi router, the set-top box (even in standby mode) and the smart speakers tap – but to get it out the door…
I am the biggest standby consumer myself. It was my mother-in-law who kindly pointed this out to me. Since I drive a hybrid car that I occasionally plug in her driveway, her electric bill has increased 9 percent. Fortunately I can still come by – and load.
The high petrol price makes it even more attractive to charge at home. Not with a charging station, but dripping through a regular socket; in four hours I can again drive forty kilometers for almost nothing. It may be, says Bert Jan Katsman, that Eneco’s algorithms do not recognize full charging of the car battery and register it as standby consumption.
Could that be even cheaper, by charging my car when the sun is shining, so that all the electricity from the solar panels is converted directly into free kilometers?
Financially, that doesn’t matter for the time being, explains Bert Jan. It does, however, reduce the load on the network. That is why the devices in your house will receive a signal in the future when they need to switch on or need to charge. This helps the energy supplier to better match supply and demand. That is more important than trying to sell all customers as much electricity as possible. Although you wouldn’t say that, if you look at your account now.
Marc Hijink writes about technology here. Twitter: @MarcHijinkNRC
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 16, 2022