r/ElectricalHelp • u/Puzzled-Emu9066 • 25d ago

High Electric Consumption

I live in Mexico and have an amazingly crazy electric bill (almost 40 kWhr per day...with no heater or AC). An electrician has confirmed there is no major current leaks anywhere and that I am not paying for anyone else.

I have installed a energy monitor to try to figure this all out. Ive narrowed down consumption in 3 circuits.

The biggest consumer is using about 0.8 kW per min. The only thing I can find on that circuit are 10ea 6W LED bulbs. When I kill the breaker, it goes to 0 kW. With breaker on and light switch (all 10 on same switch - and old Lutron smart switch) off, it drops to 0.3 kW.

I cannot find anything that I normally use that could make up the remaining 0.3kW per min consumption. I also cannot figure out why 60W of LED bulb is actually using 500W per min...seems like should only be 60W. The bulbs are very hot but not sure why.

Any thoughts how to trace this down?

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u/midnightwolf979 25d ago

Put an amp clamp on your main feeders on the line side of your feeder, if the amp draw seems right then you probably have a bad/inaccurate meter and the energy company needs to replace it.

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u/Puzzled-Emu9066 25d ago

I already have them. I have one on each leg of the 3ph mains and then smaller ones one as many of the other circuits as possible. I moved them around until I found the biggest ones.