German utility provider introduces 'gaming electricity' plan targeting high-consumption households, like those running multiple high-end gaming PCs —

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“Even government agencies have dived onto the gamer marketing bandwagon — the U.S. Army has targeted gamers in its recruitment drives while the FAA’s last hiring campaign focused on gamers and hit 94% of its hiring goal. Even the Royal Navy has recognized gaming as one of the hobbies of its sailors, with its latest ship hosting eight high-end gaming PCsfor LAN parties on the high seas.



While meinGAMING won’t make you a better gamer, it could potentially help you save on electricity costs if you consume a relatively high amount of electricity. As an additional bonus, the company says that its power is 100% sourced from renewable energy, reducing the load on your wallet and conscience as you spend hours in front of your gaming PC. However, how it ensures the power used actually comes from renewable sources remains an open question.“

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/deskto...her-base-price-claims-to-use-renewable-energy
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I find it amusing that they think of gaming as a major contributor to power bills.

Gaming barely registers as a contributor to our electric bill, even when multiple PC's are running at the same time.
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This.
how often I have had people complain "Electricity bill is high, it must be your computers" , no, it is you using the large oven to warm up bread, leaving every light in the house on, doing laundry and using the drier for like 2 things...and lets not get into your hair care devices you use every morning...
 
you guys obviously haven't seen the typical german household.
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Zarathustra[H] said:
I find it amusing that they think of gaming as a major contributor to power bills.

Gaming barely registers as a contributor to our electric bill, even when multiple PC's are running at the same time.
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Well, actually my electricity bill for the month went up by 50% when I was home 3 weeks playing Cyberpunk 2077 when it came out during the holidays.
 
MrGuvernment said:
This.
how often I have had people complain "Electricity bill is high, it must be your computers" , no, it is you using the large oven to warm up bread, leaving every light in the house on, doing laundry and using the drier for like 2 things...and lets not get into your hair care devices you use every morning...
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Biggest drivers for us are (using early August to Early September billing cycle):
1.) Air conditioning ~20%, ~470kWh (In the summer)
2.) Servers & Rack equipment ~16%, ~380kWh
3.) EV Charging ~15%, ~360kWh
4.) Basement Dehumidifier ~8%, ~190 kWh (in the summer)
5.) Two fridges/freezers ~6%, ~150kWh
6.) Clothes dryer ~4.5%, ~110kWh
7.) Pool pump ~4%, ~100kWh

The EV charger (9.6kW) and the clothes dryer (6kW) are by far the biggest loads when on and at full load, but they are off most of the time.

Lights are only a minor contributor for us, even when people leave them on, in large part due to all of them being LED's. Haven't used incandescent bulbs in more than a decade.

As far as computers go, desktops can pull more power, but are also idle or off a lot. The servers pull less power than the desktops do at peak load, but this accumulates to more total power used since they are on 24/7

My desktop at full gaming load can certainly pull a lot of power. I still don't have the new build up, but the old one (Threadripper 3960x + RTX 4090) pulled a peak of ~960w under artificial loads (3d rendering loop + Prime95 small FFT's at the same time) but actual game loads were more modest at 650w-750w at the highest, and I suppose if all you do every day is run games at that power level it can add up, but personally full gaming loads are at the very most ~15 hours a week when I am really into a title, and then there are months in between where there is little to no gaming at all.

2026 has been really light from a gaming perspective. All I've played are some light Sid Meier's Civilization 5 & 6 games and that was over 6 months ago.

Actually 2025 was really light too. Last time I was really into a game was Starfield, and I finished my playthrough of that in December 2023.

Damn, time flies. Feels like I just wrapped that up.

This has - however - largely been due to taking my game capable system down in order to build my new system, and having that project blow up in my face and take way longer than I ever could have imagined. I started that project in January 2025.... Holy crap. I should really finish that, so I can jump back in. I've been looking forward to playing STALKER 2...

Anyway I digress.

From a power perspective - however - the kiddo games almost daily, but he's on a system that is a little bit easier on the power bill than mine (Ryzen 7 9800x3d & RTX 4070 Super)

M76 said:
Well, actually my electricity bill for the month went up by 50% when I was home 3 weeks playing Cyberpunk 2077 when it came out during the holidays.
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I suppose it could spike. When I get into a game to the point where I am maxing out my feasible play time (~15h per week) the math tells me I could probably pull as much as 45kWh in a month, but that is intermittent at best, and even during those high load periods, 45kWh is dwarfed by my almost 2,500 kWh per month peak summer power bill. Even during my off-peak winter power use, it is dwarfed by my ~1850kWh winter power bill. So during the periods I am gaming the most, my gaming uses ~1.8% to ~2.5% of my electric bill...

You must game for WAY more hours than I do, and have a much smaller load from other non-gaming related equipment.
 
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"However, how it ensures the power used actually comes from renewable sources remains an open question."

The answer, of course, is "it doesn't." It's all "offsets". "Some of our electricity comes from solar, and you used some of our generated electricity, so it's like you were using renewable energy."
 
are closed said:
I believe biggest power draw comes from water heaters, the conventional ones, and ovens. You are basically shorting out the power with a low ohm resistor.
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Yeah, anything that creates resistive heat is going to have high power draw, at least while it is on. Many devices like that cycle their heating elements on and off based on demand though, so it's not as if they are constantly pulling power at their max.

Electric water heaters, direct electric radiators and space heaters, electric clothes dryers, electric ovens and cooktops, electric kettles, toaster ovens, hair dryers, curling irons, etc. etc. all use gobs of power when actively on and heating, but they are not always pulling at their max load.

A water heater usually cycles on and off heating only when the water needs heat. Ovens will pull at max capacity while the oven is warming up, but then during the extended baking period where heat is maintained, the power use is much lower, as it runs at a lower setting and cycles on and off.

We are lucky enough to have natural gas though, so the stove, oven, water heater and central heat all run on gas. (well, we have both a heat pump and hydronic gas-fired heat, which I balance between based on conditions))
 
M76 said:
Well, actually my electricity bill for the month went up by 50% when I was home 3 weeks playing Cyberpunk 2077 when it came out during the holidays.
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You should play Family Time instead. Less demanding on the PC.

View: https://youtu.be/Hy56ql96xAU?si=gTZgF5OeH7FSjAsi
serpretetsky said:
you guys obviously haven't seen the typical german household.
View attachment 829619
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Where's the house? All I see is a bot farm.
MrGuvernment said:
This.
how often I have had people complain "Electricity bill is high, it must be your computers" , no, it is you using the large oven to warm up bread, leaving every light in the house on, doing laundry and using the drier for like 2 things...and lets not get into your hair care devices you use every morning...
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Same problem here. When the electric bill is high it must be the giant glowing PC. Not the AC and electric heater that pulls 1500 watts of power 24/7. Why 1500 watts? That's the legally required amount a device can pull from a 110V line here in USA. A typical gaming PC will pull something like 300 to 400 watts under full tilt when gaming. Assuming the game is trying to push for unlimited frame rates with no vsync to limit it. Most gamers won't game for more than 3-5 hours per day and assuming they do it everyday. That gaming PC won't pull that much power per month. Maybe if the PC has a 14900K with an RTX 4090 then 600 watts is a real possibility but again that machine isn't running 24/7. Also, in the winter that gaming PC acts as the most efficient electric heater you can buy.

View: https://youtu.be/V-jmSjy2ArM?t=330
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I suppose it could spike. When I get into a game to the point where I am maxing out my feasible play time (~15h per week) the math tells me I could probably pull as much as 45kWh in a month, but that is intermittent at best, and even during those high load periods, 45kWh is dwarfed by my almost 2,500 kWh per month peak summer power bill. Even during my off-peak winter power use, it is dwarfed by my ~1850kWh winter power bill. So during the periods I am gaming the most, my gaming uses ~1.8% to ~2.5% of my electric bill...

You must game for WAY more hours than I do, and have a much smaller load from other non-gaming related equipment.
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Well, believe it or not, I'm classified as a major consumer of electricity by local standards. I have air con, most households don't have any. Plus two fridges and a freezer, two electric water heaters. PC is on at least 12 hours every day, since I'm working from home. TV is also on in the downstairs living room all the time.

The average household consumes 200kWh / month in Hungary. I'm typically around 400kWh. That went up to about 500kWh when I gamed a lot during the holiday. I know that's only 25% extra, but the price is not linear, anything above the average consumption costs extra, like 10x, or something ridiculous like that. Basically "big" consumers subsidize the poor households electricity.
 
M76 said:
Well, believe it or not, I'm classified as a major consumer of electricity by local standards. I have air con, most households don't have any. Plus two fridges and a freezer, two electric water heaters. PC is on at least 12 hours every day, since I'm working from home. TV is also on in the downstairs living room all the time.

The average household consumes 200kWh / month in Hungary. I'm typically around 400kWh. That went up to about 500kWh when I gamed a lot during the holiday. I know that's only 25% extra, but the price is not linear, anything above the average consumption costs extra, like 10x, or something ridiculous like that. Basically "big" consumers subsidize the poor households electricity.
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Wow.

Even back when I had neither a "home lab" nor a central AC system (I just used a window unit in my bedroom during the summer) I used something like 650kWh per month, even in the winter with no electric heat.

These days between all the homelab stuff that runs 24/7, PC's, TV's, two fridges, dishwasher, clothes dryer, and toaster oven and electric kettle, winter lows are ~1,000 kWh per month. Hot water and heat are natural gas and don't really contribute much to the electric bill (the electric still runs the water circulators for the hadronic heat, but that's not much)

Summer highs used to be way worse when we used window units for cooling. My highest monthly bill ever was ~3,400 kWh in the summer of 2023, but that includes all of the above plus cooling, dehumidification for the basement (so the summer humidity does not cause mold, as the air cools and enters the basement) as well as the pool pump that runs every night to clean the pool.

In 2024 I DIY installed a four zone mini-split heat pump, and that significantly reduced my cooling costs in the summer. My highest summer monthly bill in 2025 was ~2,050 kWh. Still a lot more than winters, but a lot less than it had been with the window units.

Then in late 2025 we got two EV's which are increasing the electric bills again. I am lucky and can charge at work cutting my charging at home down by quite a lot, but my better half charges entirely at home. The one EV adds about 275kWh per month to the bill in the summer, and a little more per month in the winter (since it needs to keep the battery warm while charging)

I've also started using the heat pump a little bit for heat on mild days in the winter (the gas still does the heavy lifting)

So now summers peak at about 2,325 kWh in the hottest month, and winter lows are about 1,400 kWh

We are both lucky and unlucky when it comes to electric rates.

We do a lot better than the rest of the state does as we have a municipal gas & light company which charges us lower rates, meaning we pay about 21.5 US cents per kWh. Thew rest of Massachusetts pays about 35 US cents per kWh.

While our rate is good for Massachusetts though, we still pay a lot more than most of the country. Most states are cheaper than us. Some have dirt cheap power. Last I looked, the lowest was Louisiana where the all in rate (including all taxes and fees) is about 12.75 US cents per kWh.

I don't know how it is possible to power a modern household on 200-400kWh per month.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't know how it is possible to power a modern household on 200-400kWh per month.
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Where I used to live, we didn't have AC (and that was only an issue one or two weeks a year) and had gas heat, gas water heater, gas stove, gas dryer. Turn off the computers when you're done with them, and go to bed when it's dark and power usage is probably close to 400kWh per month. Here, we use the ac and the heatpump a lot. Just put up a big solar array, hopefully the numbers work like we planned and it pays itself off although I dunno if it will pay for reroofing several years before it would have been needed.
 
In the UK, it's possible to get 7.72 pence per kWh (that's 10 cents) on average. But one need to have home storage battery, and smart meter to get off-peak tariff at night. I have 13.5 kWh storage battery, which charges at night, and discharges during the day.
Thanks to this setup, I pay around £41 (54 dollars) for 540 kWh used, that's including all taxes and fees. Without the battery, I would pay way more.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't know how it is possible to power a modern household on 200-400kWh per month.
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Live up north where it's colder and you won't need AC. In the winter you heat your home with wood because it's cheap. Hang your cloths outside to dry instead of a dryer and avoid using electricity during the day when the rates are higher. It wouldn't be a comfortable life but it can be done.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Wow.

Even back when I had neither a "home lab" nor a central AC system (I just used a window unit in my bedroom during the summer) I used something like 650kWh per month, even in the winter with no electric heat.
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Window AC units are power hogs, especially the older ones. I had a modern split inverter Daikin installed in 2014, one of my best decisions ever. Even if at the time it didn't seem so obvious as it was a lot of money for 2014 me. But the decision seems better with every passing year as summers have been getting progressively more brutal recently. Climate change deniers can live with their head ducked under the sand, but back in 2014 a heatwave meant 3 days of 32-34C° (which was still unbearable in my loft), but this summer 34C° was the cold front bringing relief between weeks of constant 40-45C° daily maximums. Even in this brutal heat the Daikin was very efficient, barely noticed it on the bill.
Zarathustra[H] said:
These days between all the homelab stuff that runs 24/7, PC's, TV's, two fridges, dishwasher, clothes dryer, and toaster oven and electric kettle, winter lows are ~1,000 kWh per month. Hot water and heat are natural gas and don't really contribute much to the electric bill (the electric still runs the water circulators for the hadronic heat, but that's not much)
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I downgraded my home server to a passive box using less than 10W power. It still gets the job done, and it's not even noticeable in performance when I access my media server or file share. I also moved HDD storage so it is not constantly online, only power it on when I need it, and it turns out that's so rarely, that I occasionally have to turn it on so windows doesn't go haywire by being powered off for months on end.

I switched from gas water heaters to electric ones, because those old units installed when the house was built made me nervous. Not that it would blow, but about getting CO2 poisoning.
Zarathustra[H] said:
Then in late 2025 we got two EV's which are increasing the electric bills again. I am lucky and can charge at work cutting my charging at home down by quite a lot, but my better half charges entirely at home. The one EV adds about 275kWh per month to the bill in the summer, and a little more per month in the winter (since it needs to keep the battery warm while charging)
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I don't think I'm ever getting an EV. I buy my cars around 8-10 years old, by that stage any EV is a battery replacement liability. Besides I don't drive much since I work from home, so any fuel saving would be insignificant even with European gas prices. Plus I'm confident once EV's reach critical mass, they'll be taxed so hard on the charging that it would nearly even out with gas prices.
Zarathustra[H] said:
I've also started using the heat pump a little bit for heat on mild days in the winter (the gas still does the heavy lifting)
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I also use the AC as a heat pump to supplement natural gas.

Plus since I've been fooling around with AI, I've decided to install a mini closed solar system for my PC only. Two 450W panels, just about enough to keep my PC running purely on solar during sunny days. I switch to AC once the solar runs out. But it's more for kicks and giggles, as it will probably take 3-5 years to make back the costs in savings.

Zarathustra[H] said:
I don't know how it is possible to power a modern household on 200-400kWh per month.
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I don't know how is it possible to use 10x that :p
 
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westrock2000 said:
Excessive energy use today = the same as having 4 light bulbs* on in your house 25 years ago.

*60W Incandescent
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Yeah, I often think in those terms whenever I think about power savings.
Basically, the suits will find a way to come out on top. In St. God's Poland, half of my power bill is stuff like "Maintaining and developing the wider electricity system", "Paying generators and other providers to keep capacity available", "Delivering electricity and covering network losses".

I'm in a block of flats now, so the bill is generally way smaller compared to when we lived in the big family home. However, I'm not sure how it'd be possible to use less power than I'm already using.

Even counting the usual crap almost all of us have plugged in and on standby, like TVs, clock radios, microwaves - safe to say each eats 1 W. In Poland, this translates to $2 per year per device when including BS charges I mentioned above, or roughly $1.40 for just the actual power.

Anyway, I'm not in Germany nor the target audience for such an offer (Nvidia 1650 Super represent).
The article on Tom's doesn't specify anything really, such as how they implement PC-specific metering. The "perk" that it's from renewables is a "no duh" in Germany's case, anyway. They make ~60% of their power through renewables, Poland ~30%. Article claims the PC is getting 100% from renewables, so maybe you get your own turbine to mount on your roof, dunno. Not a good article at all, sorry to say.

M76 said:
Plus I'm confident once EV's reach critical mass, they'll be taxed so hard on the charging that it would nearly even out with gas prices.
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That too, but I fear the cables will start melting where I live if people start buying the wheel-equipped batteries in my little rural corner of PL. Thankfully, they aren't. Not in meaningful numbers.
 
PC usage is clearly not the most use, but it is significant for some of us.
My electricity bill is an extra $50 a month when I have my AI PC with a 4090 doing stuff 24/7
 
M76 said:
I don't know how is it possible to use 10x that :p
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Multiple window air conditioner units are a large part of that.

Don't get me wrong. I am well aware that we are a well above average household from a power use perspective, and could probably get utilization down a bit. I just don't think it would be possible to get it all the way down to 200-400 kWh per month. With some frugality and lifestyle changes ~750-800 kWh seems possible though.
 
M76 said:
Plus since I've been fooling around with AI, I've decided to install a mini closed solar system for my PC only. Two 450W panels, just about enough to keep my PC running purely on solar during sunny days. I switch to AC once the solar runs out. But it's more for kicks and giggles, as it will probably take 3-5 years to make back the costs in savings.
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How did you wire it into your home. Ghetto extension cable coming into house? Or did you setup a dedicated "solar power only outlet" ? Something else?
 
serpretetsky said:
How did you wire it into your home. Ghetto extension cable coming into house? Or did you setup a dedicated "solar power only outlet" ? Something else?
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There's stories of people doing this in their apartments. The panels would charge up the battery and that's what their laptop would run on.
 
serpretetsky said:
Thats nifty. Can you have it always plugged into ac outlet to recharge but only use that feature when solar power is low?
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Unfortunately no, you have to unplug it from AC for solar charging to work. But I solved that by adding a switch to the outlet that can be turned on or off with a remote. The drawback is that I have to manually monitor the solar input and the battery level, and turn on the AC outlet when either drops too low.

But there is a newer Gen 2 version of this that can do it on its own you can set a discharge limit and a time of day when it should use solar and AC. In hindsight I should've got that. But this will do for now.
 
M76 said:
Well, believe it or not, I'm classified as a major consumer of electricity by local standards. I have air con, most households don't have any. Plus two fridges and a freezer, two electric water heaters. PC is on at least 12 hours every day, since I'm working from home. TV is also on in the downstairs living room all the time.

The average household consumes 200kWh / month in Hungary. I'm typically around 400kWh. That went up to about 500kWh when I gamed a lot during the holiday. I know that's only 25% extra, but the price is not linear, anything above the average consumption costs extra, like 10x, or something ridiculous like that. Basically "big" consumers subsidize the poor households electricity.
Click to expand...

200kWh / month? Wow that is low. In the southern USA, it's closer to 1.5MWh in summer. Total of all my computers per month is only 15 kWh / month, so I dunno what you're doing with those PC's.
 
serpretetsky said:
How did you wire it into your home. Ghetto extension cable coming into house? Or did you setup a dedicated "solar power only outlet" ? Something else?
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California has made plug in solar available without any red tape, as long as its 1200W or less you just plug into any 15A plug in your house and poof, solar power.
 
sfsuphysics said:
California has made plug in solar available without any red tape, as long as its 1200W or less you just plug into any 15A plug in your house and poof, solar power.
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That feels a little risky. Much like one of those forbidden male to male generator cables.

Are the prongs live before you plug it in?

...and what happens if the power goes out and it feeds electricity back on the line while a lineman is working on it?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That feels a little risky. Much like one of those forbidden male to male generator cables.

Are the prongs live before you plug it in?

...and what happens if the power goes out and it feeds electricity back on the line while a lineman is working on it?
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They need to be legit plug in solar, microinverters with anti island features, not just DIY hack jobs. So to answer your questions, no tthe prongs are not live because there's no line current sensed, and if the power goes out they don't work for the same reason
 
Same in the UK, plug-in solar is now available. Inferior product compared to proper solar + home storage battery, but still, it's something. And it's cheap to deploy.
 
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