Does a UPS or Inverter increase electricity bill?

I'm always surprised at how many small retail shops in the malls close down when there is loadshedding. A small 1000W power trolley, even a cheap Ellies one, could easily power a small retail shop's LED lights, POS and credit card machines for a few hours. The money they lose from shutting down even for a few hours every day must be way more than the cost of a power trolley.
 
deweyzeph said:
I'm always surprised at how many small retail shops in the malls close down when there is loadshedding. A small 1000W power trolley, even a cheap Ellies one, could easily power a small retail shop's LED lights, POS and credit card machines for a few hours. The money they lose from shutting down even for a few hours every day must be way more than the cost of a power trolley.
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Same actually, I mean it's like guys you know you could power the shop for up to 4+ hours for 8k? Though what I find odd is there is a Burger King by us that doesn't utilise the generator the complex has.
 
Lupus said:
Agreed, even though mine is small fry compared to yours. Though I've also got the little genny and the medium genny as backups :)
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And mine is small fry compared to others, I would have bought slightly differently knowing what I know now, we are all making plans though which is a good thing for various reasons.
 
Neuk_ said:
And mine is small fry compared to others, I would have bought slightly differently knowing what I know now, we are all making plans though which is a good thing for various reasons.
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Yup there are some ones on here that would be off the grid for me :-)
 
Its just so happens that I brought the Mercer UPS in to work today to "repair"

Fixed.jpg

That little black dot can be annoying ;)

Anyway back to OP's question:
UPS ON (Charged) Yesterday's screenshot
UPS ON.jpg


UPS OFF (Its standing next to me)
UPS Off.jpg
 
Lupus said:
Same actually, I mean it's like guys you know you could power the shop for up to 4+ hours for 8k? Though what I find odd is there is a Burger King by us that doesn't utilise the generator the complex has.
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I think some malls only have generator power for their big anchor tenants. The mall I go to most often has both a massive Pick 'n Pay and a massive Woolies, and both of them have generator power during loadshedding, but all the other retail shops in the same mall go dark when loadshedding strikes. I'm guessing Pick 'n Pay and Woolies probably have their own generators on site and the mall itself has nothing for the other tenants.
 
deweyzeph said:
I think some malls only have generator power for their big anchor tenants. The mall I go to most often has both a massive Pick 'n Pay and a massive Woolies, and both of them have generator power during loadshedding, but all the other retail shops in the same mall go dark when loadshedding strikes. I'm guessing Pick 'n Pay and Woolies probably have their own generators on site and the mall itself has nothing for the other tenants.
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Possibly, but this is a big generator that the other tenants use, not sure why burger king doesn't. But than again it was built in 2017 before Load shedding reared it's ugly head again.
I mean I've seen Randpark Ridge shopping center near me that has solar panels everywhere, turns out they are grid tied, not hybrid. So when the grid goes off bam so does the whole mall, even though they've got enough solar power.
 
deweyzeph said:
Think about it this way. When there is loadshedding your entire house is off for 2.5 or 4 hours. That's electricity that you've now saved that was going to run your geyser, your fridge, maybe your washing machine, dishwasher etc. When you have loadshedding every day that's a lot of electricity you're saving. I haven't done the calculations, but my rough guess is that there is no way that charging your batteries is going to come even close to the amount of electricity you're not paying for due to loadshedding. Therefore you are in no worse a position, cost-wise, than you would have been had there been no loadshedding and no batteries charging.
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Weeeelll. It depends. For most people this is not true. At best they save perhaps some of the running cost of the fridge for the time it was off. Other appliances like dishwasher, washing machine, kettle, etc only occasionally use electricity. For these, loadshedding only shifts the electricity usage from anytime-but-not-all-the-time to when the grid is up. Most people will not skip out washing self, clothes or dishes - their usage just shifts to another time of day but their total usage per 24h/week/month/year/whatever remains the same.

There's also huge misunderstanding about geysers. All else being the same (such as the temp to which your geyser thermostat is set) everything is determined by your hot water usage in your chosen period (per 24h, say, or weekly, or monthly - the principle remains the same). Without any usage (ie not drawing off any water and therefore not drawing in cold water) modern domestic geysers lose about 10 degrees Celsius per 24 hours through normal heat dissipation through the metal tank. This is also specified by the SABS in the SANS 151 specification for geysers in SA.

What really consumes power is using hot water, ie having to heat up the cold water being filled in to replace the drawn-off hot water, or the heating the warm-but-not-hot water in the geyser as it cooled since you switched off the power. It really doesn't matter when you wash/bath/shower, it takes the same amount of energy (ie kWh of electricity) to bring the water back up to the temperature setting, typically 60-65 deg C. Switching off your geyser but still having the same number of showers/baths/washes will at best save you the little fraction that is lost through static dissipation. Putting in a geyser timer and switching off for 18 hours a day will at best save you perhaps R40-R50 a month if you use the same amount of hot water as before. By far the best way to save hot water heating costs is to use less hot water. This is elementary high school science.

Switching off the power, whether at your DB or through loadshedding, doesn't really save any electricity. It saves the moment of load on the grid. But for most people, usage of appliances is shifted to other times. At best, your saving is barely measurable.
 
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Lupus said:
I mean I've seen Randpark Ridge shopping center near me that has solar panels everywhere, turns out they are grid tied, not hybrid. So when the grid goes off bam so does the whole mall, even though they've got enough solar power.
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Well, that's a bit dof...
 
Neuk_ said:
And mine is small fry compared to others, I would have bought slightly differently knowing what I know now, we are all making plans though which is a good thing for various reasons.
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Could you possibly give us your insights into this if you have time? What would your setup be and why?
 
Lupus said:
Possibly, but this is a big generator that the other tenants use, not sure why burger king doesn't. But than again it was built in 2017 before Load shedding reared it's ugly head again.
I mean I've seen Randpark Ridge shopping center near me that has solar panels everywhere, turns out they are grid tied, not hybrid. So when the grid goes off bam so does the whole mall, even though they've got enough solar power.
Click to expand...

The other day during load shedding, the mall close to me was fully up and running and Woolies, Checkers, banks and all had power, but the lownly Pet store and pie shop did not. Asked the Pet shop's owner while I was buying snacks for my cat between the beeping in the dark shop.

Large malls charge extra in rent to have Generator feed. Some shops cant afford the increase and find other ways to stay open.
 
AlphaJohn said:
The other day during load shedding, the mall close to me was fully up and running and Woolies, Checkers, banks and all had power, but the lownly Pet store and pie shop did not. Asked the Pet shop's owner while I was buying snacks for my cat between the beeping in the dark shop.

Large malls charge extra in rent to have Generator feed. Some shops cant afford the increase and find other ways to stay open.
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Makes perfect sense, so you'd think they'd get a 5.5k or 8k power trolley.
 
waldo17504 said:
Thanks you helped me alot, because yesterday we had loadshedding from 20:00pm to 22:00pm and then we had loadshedding today I think from 10:00am to 12:00pm and I am in grade 10 with a online homeschoolling program and I need something to keep my pc and router on untill I finish my work. So maybe a inverter could do that for me.
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you shouldnt be on a forum with an age restriction then son :p
 
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