Fair use of electricity on sites

I was referring to using the RFID capablity of credit/debit cards.
ezee
 
EzeeRider said:
I was referring to using the RFID capablity of credit/debit cards.
ezee
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Ah I see, but that is like saying hang the meters on Sky Hooks

The technology to allow the majority of people to arrive, having booked and paid on line, get electric hook up, leave when it suits them and remotely only pay for the electric that they have used doesn't exist commercially.
 
Just can't stop laughing here, I mean what do you know about running a Campsite Eddie, let the experts explain how you can make your site sooo much better.
I'm certain you can get 1 free meter fitted for every 3 you buy, it's a win win scenario you'll be rich beyond your wildest dreams.:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
eddievanbitz said:
Ah I see, but that is like saying hang the meters on Sky Hooks

The technology to allow the majority of people to arrive, having booked and paid on line, get electric hook up, leave when it suits them and remotely only pay for the electric that they have used doesn't exist commercially.
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It cannot be far away, its is available for parking meters.
ezee

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EzeeRider said:
It cannot be far away, its is available for parking meters.
ezee
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Oh there is amazing technology out there, we have RFID on our APNR Barrier system, and its fantastic (y) When it works :doh:

Or we can say twenty quid a night to include fair use electricity and not worry about it!
 
If it is only twenty quid I will stop off next time I am passing.
ezee
:giggle:
 
eddievanbitz said:
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Hey guess what? We buy this crap to test it and keep abreast of what's what! Our tech towers that have photo electric cells, with dusk till dawn eco LED security lighting, water points and individual RCD, MCB protected hook up points costing circa £800 each are better

I am not interested in being an energy supplier so will not be installing charging points for cars when motorhomes are our target market

£60 a pitch? I assume we are throwing them down on the grass? or do they need mounting? does the £60 include the mounting, labour to dig the hole, wiring, testing and concrete?

£60 a pitch? Great value, I surprised that they don't need heavy armoured 3 core cable connecting them to our three phase distribution system to them to make them work(y)(Just checked at the cable we used is currently circa £200 a 100m roll!)

Brains I know that your being helpful and my post is tongue in cheek but, unless you have a large site with 24 hour staff, meters are counter productive to the majority of people. With us, you can book on line, enter your details, pay, arrive, get checked by the APNR barrier, admitted, go to your pitch, plug in, use the facilities, get up the next morning and leave! Having to walk to reception to get a staff member, to walk back with you to check the meter, then back to the office to pay your £1.37 electric surcharge is a ball ache for everyone!

Long term, Smart meters, straight into reception, with a payment previously authorised and taken from a credit card could work, but then I'd be arguing in another thread about someone's Mum and Dad who are luddites and don't have a smart phone, or do email or use a credit card and how my wardens weren't very helpful as they asked "how the hell did you manage to get to our site then?"
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This is why when we visited villasol we choose no electric (you have to wait for the man to unplug you ang give a meter reading), with careful usage we did 9 days on gas only unfortunately the last night was touch and go whether or not we got through. Only just hence now we have asked for electric on the new site but it's only 6amp but it's charged our battery's up
 
robnchris said:
Just can't stop laughing here, I mean what do you know about running a Campsite Eddie, let the experts explain how you can make your site sooo much better.
I'm certain you can get 1 free meter fitted for every 3 you buy, it's a win win scenario you'll be rich beyond your wildest dreams.:rofl::rofl::rofl:
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Just a small selection of regular problems our wardens deal with, which is another consideration to factor in when making the campsite more sophisticated to save a occasional person that doesn't want electric on a site

Driving off with the electric plugged in, dragging £800 bollard down the road leaving a new water feature on the pitch
Driving into and over the bollard
Reversing into and over the bollard
Reversing into another guest and then buggering off
Pitching up on your pitch and getting set up, on the wrong pitch, despite holding a ticket with the correct number on it
Plugging into the bollard, tripping it, so unplugging your neighbours hook up, tripping that before considering anything else
Putting your car registration into the on line form, then get abusive into the intercom when the APNR system doesn't recognise your motorhome registration
Booking on line and forgetting to click "ENTER" to actually make the booking for the August Bank Holiday
Booking on line with Minnows just off Junction 27 and arrive at Cornish Farm just off Junction 25
Booking on line at Cornish Farm for the right "days" arriving the wrong Month
Arriving at Cornish Farm and screaming and swearing that your not allowed in when you haven't booked and we are full and don't have space even if we wanted to help (which we don't as your being a gobby twat at the entrance which only elicits us laughing at you)

So whilst you'll understand that there may be some wonderful hi tech gadgets available, I won't say to solve a problem as for the majority there isn't a problem, but all the while it costs a lot money to implement, will be more complicated for our customers to use and is less convenient for them, the equipment is robust waterproof, vandal proof and we don't have to continually manually intervene we will pass thank you.
 
I have no idea why Eddie needs to provide electric. Most of the time the visitors have just spent £1000s getting their van upgraded so they can stay off grid, and then he gives away a freebie night with EHU just when you want to test out the capacity of your new boxes of tricks .....

I do think the time is approaching when the costs of EHU use will need to be kept in check by many sites, including those of the C&CC and CMC. It will become unsustainable if half or more of the cost of the pitch relates to energy use. I'm sure that physical maintenance on the installations is already a significant outlay. I can also understand that any system needs to be "hands off" as far as ability to operate, very few sites can have staffing levels to deal with the arrivals and departures at all hours of day and night with added burden that a full checkout is needed to deal with metering.

Until reliable, and cost effective metering tech is genuinely in place that allows full contactless payments it isn't going to be practical for most site owners. If a new site is created then wiring installations can be laid out to suit metering and other needs. On existing sites any upgrading for metering needs to work with the existing wiring locations. A central meterboard is unlikely to be somewhere that site owners want their punters to be regularly going to check. But bollard mounted meters must be a maintenance nightmare, it's probably bad enough just with the trip fuses. Having to hire some sort of top up card needs too much admin, even having a pay station will be inconvenient for the punters wandering around a site in the midst of the night, and even if people do have smartphones or similar to allow app type payments, too frequently the remote campsites won't be in range of all common cell providers, and wi-fi will fall over.
 
We’ve stayed at Eddies. Was very straightforward and pleasant including the electric!
The site we are working on this year has all pitches sold with electric to keep it simple. It isn’t cheap but it’s very nice with great pitches. The owner calculated this week that the average cost to him of the electric this year is about £5 per pitch per night at the new energy rates. With the bollards costing £1000 each, and a very full site for 10 months, I think he will take some persuading to move from the current business model. There are plenty of leccy free alternatives for people who want that, as we ourselves would occasionally too.
 
If the site owners are that bothered about to much use then they’d fit smaller amperage MCBS
I used a site in Italy that gave you 5Amp supply if you over did it and blew the fuse it was 5 Euro for a new fuse 🤪🤪🤪
 
tonyidle said:
I don't actually know but would suspect that a fuel cell would require external power.
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Not necessarily a fuel cell can generate its own electricity by converting hydrogen. I. The instances of the photo the hydrogen is generated via a small solar panel, The generated Hydrogen is transfers to the vehicle via the refuelling pipe. The second photo you can see the balloon the hydrogen is stored in this then converted to electricity which powers the electric motor. The Hydrogen generated all the electricity this small vehicle needs so a Hydrogen powered vehicle would not require plugging in to the mains…..ever. This is manufactured by Horizon who make the pier unit for the model and real life Hydrogen engine.
0A34B5EF-0DBF-4D61-9267-D24B9EA6EA68.jpeg

80EC024A-C7F0-4AD3-B8A0-6198AE0D4B07.jpeg

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It maybe that with the spiralling cost of electricity and it becoming more and more a significant part of pitch costs, those sites with electricity meters may well turn out to have a competitive advantage.
ezee
 
Coolcats said:
Not necessarily a fuel cell can generate its own electricity by converting hydrogen. I. The instances of the photo the hydrogen is generated via a small solar panel, The generated Hydrogen is transfers to the vehicle via the refuelling pipe. The second photo you can see the balloon the hydrogen is stored in this then converted to electricity which powers the electric motor. The Hydrogen generated all the electricity this small vehicle needs so a Hydrogen powered vehicle would not require plugging in to the mains…..ever. This is manufactured by Horizon who make the pier unit for the model and real life Hydrogen engine.
View attachment 579575
View attachment 579578
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I was thinking more of DC required for its controls.
 
tonyidle said:
I was thinking more of DC required for its controls.
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If it’s Hydrogen AC or DC is on tap the naysayers will talk about losses but actually it’s quite a neat energy source.
 
I really don't get the UK attitude to EHU, in mainland Europe nearly every pitch has EHU if you want it, you pay for it, if you don't, you don't pay simple.

If a site was charging a fiver for EHU they would probably make more profit out of me not having EHU than the caravan next door with the fan heater on in the awning all day.
 
Lenny HB said:
I really don't get the UK attitude to EHU, in mainland Europe nearly every pitch has EHU if you want it, you pay for it, if you don't, you don't pay simple.

If a site was charging a fiver for EHU they would probably make more profit out of me not having EHU than the caravan next door with the fan heater on in the awning all day.
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But if it's available on every pitch presumably it's fair enough for the pitch cost to include the installation cost of ehu so it's available if you decide you want it. When a local here was thinking of setting up a cl he was going to put all hardstanding fully serviced pitches in he was quite surprised when I said some motorhomers might just want hardstanding no on pitch services but cheaper.

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During my trip to Germany in December 2021 I stayed on a couple of municipal motorhome sites that had a chargecard system - you loaded up credit, and paid for electric and showers. There was a flat rate per night and per person, and toilets were free, but everything was accessed using the chargecard via a card reader to allow entry. The shower was pretty neat - 10 cents charged for every 20 seconds of water flow (there was an on/off button on the shower, and you placed your card on a shelf by the reader, and it automatically deducted the money as you showered.)
Equally, you loaded up credit at the electric plinth to your allocated hook-up, and if you had credit left at the end of your stay you could download it back to the card. At checkout, you simply chose the option to 'checkout and return credit' and having received your balance, you drove up to the barrier, inserted your card (which it then retained as you were leaving) - barrier up, and away you go.
Simple, straightforward pay for what you use - we could do with more set ups like that in this country.
 
Scotch mist said:
We have alde wet heating , in winter it takes to long to heat up from cold so really need to leave it on all the time , we just turn down the temperature if going out
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Maybe if you kick it in with gas also, you’ll find it will heat up quicker,then turn the gas off,,very handy👍
 
WoldsSunlight said:
During my trip to Germany in December 2021 I stayed on a couple of municipal motorhome sites that had a chargecard system - you loaded up credit, and paid for electric and showers. There was a flat rate per night and per person, and toilets were free, but everything was accessed using the chargecard via a card reader to allow entry. The shower was pretty neat - 10 cents charged for every 20 seconds of water flow (there was an on/off button on the shower, and you placed your card on a shelf by the reader, and it automatically deducted the money as you showered.)
Equally, you loaded up credit at the electric plinth to your allocated hook-up, and if you had credit left at the end of your stay you could download it back to the card. At checkout, you simply chose the option to 'checkout and return credit' and having received your balance, you drove up to the barrier, inserted your card (which it then retained as you were leaving) - barrier up, and away you go.
Simple, straightforward pay for what you use - we could do with more set ups like that in this country.
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Sounds great👍🏻what was the average cost per night?
 
On the site we are on, around Christmas time an Autotrail had one a drive away awning up and the had one of those halogen electric heaters going as they sat there with the awning closed off from the van with big coats on, why not just sit in the van!
 
A CL I often stay at on Hayling Island has just had to take a new energy contract.
It was £14/night including EHU.
It's now £12/night without and £19/night with.
I stay there and motor into Portsmouth every day and have 200w of solar so I can do without.
The site owner trusts me to not plug in.
Shows how much energy costs on a new contract.

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Manic said:
On the site we are on, around Christmas time an Autotrail had one a drive away awning up and the had one of those halogen electric heaters going as they sat there with the awning closed off from the van with big coats on, why not just sit in the van!
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Because they are the new snowflakes who love the great outdoors
 
eddievanbitz said:
Sounds great👍🏻what was the average cost per night?
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€12 flat rate per night, €7 deposit for the card. I can't remember the unit cost per kWh for the electric, but it was reasonable.
The fun challenge with the shower was to beat your previous days time and hence spend less!
I reckon I averaged €18-€20 per night over 3 nights. The sites I used were in Sinsheim (great technik museum nearby,) and Celle. Sinsheim was completely autonomous, with inter phone assistance if required, whereas Celle had a manned office from 08:30-17:00.
Such a simple system to use, and as I said in my original post, you only paid for what chargeable services you used, and got any balance refunded before you left.
 
Manic said:
On the site we are on, around Christmas time an Autotrail had one a drive away awning up and the had one of those halogen electric heaters going as they sat there with the awning closed off from the van with big coats on, why not just sit in the van!
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Ex tugger?
 
Wabs said:
Maybe if you kick it in with gas also, you’ll find it will heat up quicker,then turn the gas off,,very handy👍
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i’m well aware of how the adle heating works but this thread is about electric , if I was to do what you suggested I would be paying for EHU & then using my gas to save using the electricity I’ve already paid for 🤕

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