Electricity use

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Electricity use

12wonderY
Mar 27, 2013, 9:49 am

New member, rastaphrog, found this quote:

"If the average Swiss citizen can manage to live comfortably on 5,000 watts (17,500 kWh per year), Americans, who presently consume 12,000, can conceivably learn, with mindfulness and conservation, to power down to, say, 6,000 for starters."

I'm interested in looking at these types of comparisons and examining my own use and powering down further.
I'll dig up my utility bills later in the week.

2skoobdo
Modifié : Mar 27, 2013, 11:46 am

Do you have a choice of different "electricity" suppliers? Most of developing countries,public utilities-water,gas,electricity are being nationalised.

The usage of utilities are related to the size of your family(the house's occupants) and the size of the location(*house")'

Are you a thrifty person very careful about the usage of electricity around the house?
Use electricty wisely can save electricity bills.
Electricity Locations/Appliances:

Living Room: General Lighting,Television( Free Tv,Cable),others - DVD,Stereo Set,Table Lamps,Heater,Air-Condition/Electric Fan

Kitchen: General Lighting,Oven,Toaster,Cooking Heater,Hot Water Storage
Rice Cooker,Fridge,Storage Frezzer

Bedrooms: General Lighting,Table Lamp,TV

Toilets: General Lighting,Water Heater,Washing Machine/Dryer

Other Rooms: Garage ,Store-room,Study room.Nursery,Dining Room

This is a typical layout of a landed property much different from apartment living.

Cut and save your dependence on electricity by avoiding "unneccessary use" - your rooms are lighted when there is no one present; switch off power supply of applances when not in use
immediately; short bath/shower using water heater and etc...

32wonderY
Modifié : Mar 27, 2013, 10:41 am

No choice of electricity suppliers in my situations. I'd like to go off-grid in my home-to-be, so I'll be crunching numbers in preparation for designing a solar array.

Yes, lots of variables, and all we can hope for is general benchmarks. For instance, in my present home, I heat and cook and heat water primarily with natural gas. The other major variable is that I'm often gone from that location, so my total energy use doesn't include what I use while at work or travelling or at my other homesite. That new location is served by a Co-op, but their rates appear to be significantly higher than my for-profit supplier one state away.

eta: I have begun taking measures like turning my water heater to pilot when I'm gone overnight. I just hate to waste and pay money for heating that I'm not using. I've got gas and electric space heaters, and adjust their output on a regular basis, room to room, keeping things much cooler than many people find comfortable in winter months nowadays. In summer, I rely on fans and natural circulation for cooling.

4skoobdo
Mar 27, 2013, 11:45 am

Energy saving lamps/bulbs: I used them,low wattage give higher wattage output.(non energy types)

Washing Machine/Dryer: Is your laundry load heavy? I will load max load per week laundry.Use public self-service laundry parlour service if it is cheaper and fast.

Fridge: (24hours 24/365): It run for 24hrs every day.

Cooking: Home cooking? Outstation ( most of the year ?) I think gas is cheaper.

52wonderY
Modifié : Mar 27, 2013, 1:12 pm

Re: lightbulbs
I started switching to the compact flourescent bulbs until one of them smoked a lamp. The bulb failed, but the current continued to flow, and my lamp began to burn. If I hadn't been at home, and able to trace the odor quickly, it could have caused a house fire. No thanks! And the issues of UV radiation and mercury in the CFL bulbs are also of concern. Looking at the new hybrid incandescents.

I see further that there are more issues:

"Toxic mercury from broken bulbs might not be the only danger posed by CFL lamps. During tests last year at Berlin’s Ala Laboratory, scientists discovered that various carcinogenic chemicals and toxins, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene, are released when CFL are switched on.

Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the lab, claims that CFL lamps emit poisonous vapors when turned on and “should not be used in unventilated areas and definitely not in the proximity of the head.”

This report comes on the heals of research by Israel’s Haifa University suggesting that the CFL’s bluer light emissions, which closely mimic daylight, might interfere with the production of the hormone melatonin, contributing to higher rates of breast cancer."

6skoobdo
Modifié : Mar 27, 2013, 11:45 pm

7skoobdo
Mar 27, 2013, 11:59 pm

2009 World Statistics: Gwh/yr (Electricity's Usage based on total population of each country.

1. USA 4,401,698

2. China 3,444,108

3. Japan 1,083,142

8margd
Mar 28, 2013, 7:58 am

> 5 This report comes on the heals of research by Israel’s Haifa University suggesting that the CFL’s bluer light emissions, which closely mimic daylight, might interfere with the production of the hormone melatonin, contributing to higher rates of breast cancer."

The trick is to get enough--but not too much--blue light at the right time of the day. I recall reading that light from blue part of spectrum, in regulating production of melatonin, can cause insomnia (if exposure at night), but also treats Seasonal Affective Disorder (with AM or PM exposure, depending on type of SAD). It's the component of sunlight that prevents myopia, and, unfortunately, can contribute to age-related with macular degeneration in the vulnerable (smokers, oxidant-light diets, light-colored eyes, outdoor workers). People used to be implanted with yellow lenses in cataract surgery to screen out ARMD-causing blue light, but ended up with sleep disruption because no blue light to regulate production of melatonin.

92wonderY
Mar 28, 2013, 11:38 am

That's a refinement of the findings reported in Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting.

Dark skies is one of the reasons I'm moving to a deserted ridgetop. My in-town neighbors have so infringed on my nights, that I've had to put inside shutters on my bedroom windows. Three of them now have installed security lights on the alley side of their garages which shine headlight bright into my yard and windows. The interesting aspect is that theft and vandalism haven't been thwarted.

102wonderY
Mar 28, 2013, 2:40 pm

>4 skoobdo: "I think gas is cheaper."

Reminds me of an old advertisement:

"Gas is cheaper than you know watt."
Must still be. But it won't be forever, and isn't available everywhere. And propane is getting insanely expensive, I hear.

11lturpin42
Mar 30, 2013, 11:59 pm

LED bulbs are safer than CFLs, and are instant-on, but also more expensive per bulb, and even more expensive per lumen. (You can, however, get LED bulbs in the same lumens range as even the brighter incandescents -- if you have the money.) I'm in the process of slowly changing out my CFLs for LEDs.

The mercury in CFLs is a Big Problem. But I'd not heard the specific findings about the health consequences of exposure to blue light at various points in time (beyond "artificial light can mess with you similar to SAD"). I'd also not heard about CFLs out-gassing before. I wonder if this problem is confined to CFLs, or if it exists in the non-compact forms of fluorescent bulbs? Y'know, the bulbs that are the standard form of lighting in most workplaces? Fascinating, thank you!

I've heard that generating and moving heat are the two tasks that seem to take up the most electricity. In a typical US household, that's heating air, heating water, cooking, cooling food, cooling air, drying clothes. So any way you can reduce energy use in these areas without compromising safety is a Good Thing(TM). Then there's lighting, and devices with silicon chips in them (TV, stereo, amplifier, speakers, computer, printer, internet modem, battery-powered devices that charge from the wall -- just about all of these consume some amount of power even when plugged in but switched "off", or plugged in but not being used to charge anything).

I suspect one reason the US uses so much energy per capita is because many people have an attitude of "if you've got it, use it," rather than, "save it until you actually need it" about things even as simple as indoor temperature controls. It's something I'm trying to change in myself. My husband and I also argue about the definition of "need" at times; I suspect this is a feature of any multi-person household, though...

Natural gas may be cheaper right now, but that'll only last until people start realizing that fracking isn't going to produce this much gas for very long. Fracking "dries up" an area's gas supply very quickly. However, it's still more energy-efficient to burn nat-gas directly to do a job, than to burn nat-gas (or anything else) to generate electricity to supply electricity to a location to use that electricity to do a job. Whether it remains cost-efficient over the next few years is an open question...

12margd
Modifié : Mar 31, 2013, 8:29 am

When we need a new range, we'll be buying induction. Apparently it uses less electricity overall, doesn't heat the house (nice in summer), responds quickly, and it's MUCH easier to clean. Downsides are special wiring required, pots & pans must take a magnet, and cooking oatmeal and rice is bit of a challenge (double boiler works for oatmeal). I've been playing with a portable unit which is great for boiling maple syrup in garage, grilling small amounts with cast iron grill (on the deck), Chinese hot pot in dining room, etc. Must go--it's finished breakfast!

13southernbooklady
Mar 31, 2013, 8:44 am

The very best thing I ever did to reduce my energy use was put up a clothes line.

14margd
Avr 1, 2013, 10:27 am

I wish someone would design a returning clothesline that's hidden when not in use, and that's amenable for use by those not around during the day. Add in special gloves to warm and protect hands in winter. (I remember my grandmother's chapped knuckles!)

I use a large drying rack on the deck in summer, but capacity is limited and a gust of wind will blow it over. Especially in winter, we use a couple of 10-cone, plastic gismoes over forced-air registers to dry boots and small items (hats, gloves). Another register under a bathroom towel rack helps keep towels dry.

152wonderY
Modifié : Avr 1, 2013, 12:08 pm

I use these:

with bolted hooks.

It makes it easy to put up/take down and control tension. Your line threads through it and several ball bearings make it a one-way grab. Lowe's has them again.

16margd
Avr 1, 2013, 3:16 pm

Thanks, I'll look for it!

172wonderY
Modifié : Avr 3, 2013, 4:56 pm

Just got my latest electric bill.
One person household, very basic uses = 4202 KWH in the last 12 months.
Lights, refrigerator, microwave, one oil filled radiant heater, one fan, computer, television/dvd player, CD player, 3 rechargers.

The electronics do keep a trickle of power going at all times. On the Solar Tour last year, almost everyone had added power strips, so as to be able to shut that off more handily.

Gosh, that seems like a lot of electricity for that little bit of service.
I will check into LED light bulbs.

eta: I forgot seasonal lawn mower is electric. And every once in a blue moon, I also vacuum.

18MaureenRoy
Modifié : Avr 3, 2013, 4:12 pm

lturpin42, agreed that LEDs are worth it. We are changing out our CFLs for LEDs, a little at a time. The LEDs use only a tiny trickle of electricity, compared with the CFLs. Best prices for LED bulbs seem to be at COSTCO.

At our NorCal sustainable home, we unplug everything when we're going to be away at least overnight; "everything," that is except the Stetzer plug-in power adjuster units: See the book Dirty electricity: electrification and the diseases of civilization by Samuel Milham MD MPH for info on the Stetzer products (in his resource section at the back of that book). According to the Stetzer people that we have spoken with several times by phone, it is common for standalone home electrical systems to have dirty electricity --- so that's something else for all of us sustainability folk to keep in mind. When it's just me staying at the NorCal house, I don't use the house lights, carrying instead with me a solar rechargeable flashlight. I also have a rechargeable lantern by the bed I use for evening reading sessions.

Actually there are a few other power-suckers always running these days at our NorCal house, such as the installed garage door opener that was there when we bought the house (no plug to pull...it's evidently hard-wired into the inverter); ditto the built-in wall vacuum system (ducts inside the house walls, feeding to a central collection point based in the garage, with an exhaust port under the house). And then there's the refrigerator...but I finally remembered to buy a freezer thermometer and refrigerator thermometer at the local hardware store...it turned out that both sections were set colder than they needed to be, so I reset them to the maximum safe temperature and hey, now the refrigerator runs much, much less often! When I get a chance, I will buy a heavily insulated cooler, store the minimum needed chilled items there, and turn the fridge OFF when we are away.

2wonderY, your propane cost depends on your location...we pay $1.50 per gallon more in SouthernCal than at our NorCal house...no rhyme, no reason, just a big honking price difference.

Margd, at our NorCal house I wouldn't dare boil maple syrup in the garage...our home's first owners kept a large sheet-type birthday cake in the garage overnight one time, as they were getting ready to go to someone's big party the next day, only a bear discovered that wonderful garage smell during the night and darn near ripped open the aluminum garage door trying to get in. It's always something.

One thing our NorCal home lacks that we're going to have installed is lightning rods. Until we get lightning rods, we will be unplugging everything from the wall when we are going to be away at least overnight.

I just finished reading Better off which is delightful and very inspiring. The subtitle is "2 People. 1 Year. Zero Watts"

I don't know yet how much internet access I will be needing at the NorCal house, so for now, I bring my tiny netbook when I will be staying there...I use a dial-up service from NetZero, which is slow but adequate. The local library has wireless internet access, which is fine for when I need to update antivirus software etc.

19margd
Août 27, 2013, 11:05 am

More candidates for Energy Star program, e.g., iPhone can use more energy than a refrigerator!

Plus, "six stealthy energy hogs:

(1) Set-Top Boxes
(2) Furnace Fans
(3) Battery Chargers
(4) Microwave Ovens
(5) Game Consoles
(6)Pool Pumps

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/energy/2013/08/130826-six-stealthy-house...

202wonderY
Août 27, 2013, 11:55 am

Ah! I didn't know what a Set-Top box is because I've never subscribed to TV services.

Last year, during the Solar Day tour, a lot of households were monitoring their electricity use per fixture with plug-in monitors which cost very little. I've suggested to my local library that they buy (or have the power company donate) these monitors to lend out. Kill A Watt is one of the popular names.

The other action that made a lot of sense was to put electronic devices on a power strip that could be turned off. A re-charging station for a variety of devices could include one of these, and the stand-by trickle can be stopped up.

21margd
Modifié : Août 28, 2013, 6:03 am

I like the look of moon-shadow in a dark house on full-moon nights. I remember being startled in 1990s by a few small lights from appliances and electronics. Many more now, although as you say, more than a few are on charging strip or controlled by a light switch. They are winning, though, I fear!

222wonderY
Août 28, 2013, 7:36 am

I too love the dark. My alarm clock has a button to light up only when needed.
My in-town neighbors though have put up security lights on the backs of their garages - the kind without directional shades, and I've had to block off my windows so as to have some modicum of dark. I miss waking to the sunrise.

Thankfully, I'm in process of moving (in the next 5 years) to a relatively isolated ridgetop. I'm growing a grove of pine trees to further block the lights of my only neighbor.
My night sky there is awesome.

23Cynfelyn
Jan 6, 2015, 7:38 am

It seems a shame to let this thread go dormant, so our (UK) domestic electricity consumption for 2014 was 3,995 units, which I think means 3,995 kWh for the year.

We are a four-person household, electric stove, fridge/freezer (old), kettle, TV, PC, Wi-fi, radios, lighting, dish washer, washing machine (usually on 30 or 40 degree wash cycles), tumble drier (occasional), vacuum cleaner (occasional), electric oil-filled radiators for supplemental heating, and even electric tooth brushes all round, so we're not exactly hair-shirts.

The old washing machine took a hot water feed from the solar hot water panels, but was replaced in October by a new machine that only takes a cold water feed. I expect this to bump up our electricity consumption. (Industry and government have effectively driven dual feed washing machines out of the market in the UK).

And to echo southernbooklady (13), my clothes dry within 24 hours on a clothes horse at this time of the year in this proverbially damp part of the world.

We also use 1200-1400 litres of heating oil a year, which I think is a bit extravagant.

24John5918
Jan 6, 2015, 11:51 am

>9 2wonderY: Dark skies is one of the reasons I'm moving to a deserted ridgetop.

The dark night skies is one of the things I love about Africa. The moon seems very large and it throws distinct shadows; sometimes it is so bright that you can read by it. The stars are so bright when there is no moon that you can walk by their light.

252wonderY
Jan 7, 2015, 8:26 am

John, I crave that kind of night sky.

I'm currently reading The End of Night, and Bogard describes an experience where the stars were so brilliant that he felt their dimensional spacing, and he in it.

This fall, "my" stars were so big and bright I could see them from bed with my glasses off. That was a wow moment.

26John5918
Jan 7, 2015, 9:09 am

>25 2wonderY: There are so many stars visible that it is often difficult even to identify well-know constellations because they are engulfed by so many more stars than we could see when we were taught about them back in England.

Conversely, when the stars are all blanked out by clouds, there is a really impenetrable inky blackness where you can't see anything. I once had to do a forced march in those conditions. We couldn't see the bloke in front or behind and kept bumping into each other, and we couldn't see where were putting our feet and kept blundering into swamps and things.

272wonderY
Jan 13, 2015, 3:48 pm

Drat. My electric use has gone up. 5257 KWHs in the past 12 month. I've started switching to LED lights, but I think the real hog is my 25 year old refrigerator. It's probably time to replace it with a smaller unit anyway, since I'm no longer feeding a family.

28margd
Jan 15, 2015, 6:33 am

New refrigerators use far less electricity--the trick is to dispose of the old one, not relegate to basement or garage... (Oops.) Check around for rebates etc. from state / power company. In our town, Habitat for Humanity is even offering free replacements for people of modest means! Sears outlets have some great deals but highly variable so you need to keep checking them . A few years ago, we picked up a new (undented, unscratched) 25? cu ft Amana side-by-side for $500!

29John5918
Jan 15, 2015, 6:50 am

>28 margd: We often use old fridges which don't work any more just for storage. It's easier to keep rats and ants out of an old inactive fridge than out of an old cupboard!

302wonderY
Jan 15, 2015, 7:48 am

I've got a dead fridge out on the ridgetop and have thought about burying it to use for cold storage.

31margd
Jan 15, 2015, 9:22 am

>29 John5918: >30 2wonderY: Someone took our non-working chest freezer (as freebie) for protecting horse feed from varmints, but I never thought of using old fridges for storage. Maybe to replace mouseproof coolers where we store food in winter in the garage--called a "Michigan fridge" in these parts! ;-)

32rastaphrog
Fév 2, 2015, 8:42 am

Just got my latest bill recently, so compared it to the one from last January.

Jan 23, 2014 -- 1,928KWH (161KWH/month) in previous year.

Jan 22, 2015 -- 1,855KWH (155KWH/month) in last year.

So, I managed to cut back a bit.

33margd
Modifié : Fév 2, 2015, 12:24 pm

Poor Ypsilanti: it invested in LED streetlights, only to have the utility raise charges for electricity to power its LED streetlights!

'...The new bulbs use up to three times less electricity, provide better light, cost less to run and immediately reduced Ypsilanti's carbon footprint. But the main motivation for a quick, full conversion was the bottom line - the financially struggling city, in a year, cut its DTE Energy streetlight bill by 29 percent, or $176,000."

"...Now, those savings could be eliminated. | Under new DTE-proposed rate changes, the cost of running high-efficiency LED lights will increase while the cost of running far less efficient high-pressure sodium and mercury vapor lamps will drop significantly or only increase marginally."

"...Several officials questioned the change and said it appears the only reason DTE, which is a private utility that's publicly traded, is raising rates on more efficient technology is to sell more electricity by making LED technology less attractive."

"Regardless of the motivation, those opposed to the rate adjustments agree that absent a financial incentive, the growing movement to switch to the cleaner, cheaper and more efficient LED lights will quickly die..."

Edit: I meant to link to http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2015/02/dte_led_rate_changes.html

( Thanks >34 jjwilson61: ! )

34jjwilson61
Fév 2, 2015, 11:21 am

>33 margd: Did you mean to link to Craigslist?

And how does the utility know whether their electrons are going to LED or sodium-vapor lamps?

352wonderY
Modifié : Fév 2, 2015, 11:49 am

>34 jjwilson61: The utilities probably have a maintenance contract with the municipality.

I'm currently reading The End of Night, and those most involved with Dark Sky initiatives also say that it's the electricity suppliers that are most opposed to retrofits and legislation (building codes) to reduce lighting at night. They don't like having the demand drop.

36MaureenRoy
Fév 2, 2015, 11:56 am

jjwilson and margd, those are good questions about electric utility municipal customer usage tracking. I suspect that they carefully follow municipal policy changes related to power usage. That's not so hard to do with public municipal meetings, etc. The only effective way I have found to send the sustainability message to utility companies is to stop being their customer ... find ways to be what I have started calling "energy-sufficient" and eventually shutting off that "smart" meter.

The seemingly draconian path to energy sufficiency is not about self-denial, it's more like what John Robbins' book calls "serious fun." In other words, becoming energy-sufficient is educational, economical, and fun. It is also essential, at least in the USA, since the only 2 times that US-wide electricity distribution improvements came up for a vote in the US Congress, utility lobbyists were responsible for those bills being defeated both times. Yet the most realistic estimate for the population impact of an extended (2 years, post Solar Storm) electrical distribution outage in the US calculates a 75% death rate ... that's tantamount to genocide from where I sit. So we in the US and elsewhere don't have to just passively sit around and wait for that scenario. Luckily the alternative strategies are many and affordable.

37margd
Fév 2, 2015, 12:37 pm

>36 MaureenRoy: extended (2 years, post Solar Storm) electrical distribution outage in the US

Sounds like in addition to solar storm our electricity is vulnerable to hacking by individuals as well as unfriendly countries. Friendly or unfriendly, it sounds like China and Russia have capability, though hopefully they are so integrated in the world economy it would be against their own interests to use it.

Should we ever lose power for that long, those of us with solar panels would likely see them pried off our roofs in the dead of night. We really should be developing anti-hacking measures to protect against mischief or solar storm, I think. (A distributed grid would have added advantage of allowing all those roof panels to contribute their energy--Hawaii and Ontario have both run into limits in their grids' ability to incorporate all the solar energy that citizens are ready to provide?)

382wonderY
Fév 2, 2015, 3:33 pm

Last month's bill was an estimated bill, so I shouldn't have paid much attention to it. The actual bill this month shows 4705 KWHs in the last twelve month. Still not particularly good, but 10% better than I thought.

39MaureenRoy
Fév 16, 2015, 9:44 am

Elon Musk has done it again. Here is his new approach to standalone home electric power systems, as of February 2015: http://offgridquest.com/news/tesla-motors-announces-a-new-home-batter

402wonderY
Fév 16, 2015, 10:53 am

That sounds interesting. I love the plug and play idea.

41dougb56586
Mar 1, 2015, 9:09 pm

Regarding the first posting,

"If the average Swiss citizen can manage to live comfortably on 5,000 watts (17,500 kWh per year), Americans, who presently consume 12,000, can conceivably learn, with mindfulness and conservation, to power down to, say, 6,000 for starters."

Is this residential energy use or the total of residential, commercial and industrial? You have the most control over your personal residential energy use. But it would be interesting to see the total, and maybe a budget.

42MaureenRoy
Mar 15, 2015, 6:17 pm

March 2015 -- Elon Musk steps up with standalone battery power systems for home or business use:

http://offgridquest.com/news/tesla-motors-announces-a-new-home-batter

43margd
Jan 27, 2016, 9:37 am

Some interesting old and new ideas for keeping food cool--going underground; shock freezer; from solar, magnetic, and waste heat

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/59492943?utm_source=Houzz&utm_campaign=u2431&...

44Cynfelyn
Modifié : Juin 1, 2016, 4:46 pm

An article in the Guardian today included:
Some 147 Gigawatts of renewable electricity came online (worldwide) in 2015 - the largest annual increase ever and as much as Africa’s entire power generating capacity.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/01/renewable-energy-smashes-glob...

I wondered how many western European countries it took to use 147GW.

GB Gridwatch, http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/, shows a winter baseload of 30GW with daily peaks up to 40GW. I was franky surprised, and distracted from my original thought, to see that the equivalent French site, http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/, shows a winter baseload of 60GW with daily peaks up to 70GW. Even the French summertime baseload of 40GW with daily peaks of 50GW, is way more than the GB's winter consumption.

Okay, UK is less than half the physical size of France, but the populations (63m. v. 66m.) and economies (US$2.8t. v. US$2.4t. GDP) are pretty much the same size. And Northern Ireland's electricity consumption has to be added to the GB's to get a figure for the UK. But how on earth is France using so much more electricity than the UK?

(But well done the world, installing more renewable capacity last year than all African countries - or the UK and France - use between them, with all the usual qualifications about sunshine, wind and a balanced energy portfolio.)

45John5918
Juin 2, 2016, 12:24 am

>44 Cynfelyn:

Over the last few weeks I've seen one article saying that use of electricity produced by coal in Britain fell to zero for periods of up to 12 hours at a time for the first time in more than 100 years, and another that Portugal went for more than four consecutive days using only renewable energy. Small but welcome milestones.

46MaureenRoy
Modifié : Juil 20, 2016, 3:35 pm

Margd and everyone, on underground cold storage: The good news is that these methods really do seem like the wave of the future. The bad news is that any such methods must also include robust air ventilation systems that defend against the otherwise inevitable underground collection of dangerous but invisible radon gas in many locations on Earth.

On the potential theft of home solar panels: In our area, folks who are getting solar panels are following guidelines already recommended in several of the sustainability books listed in our Zeitgeist thread. Those guidelines include setting up neighborhood assistance groups, which can also be used as needed to set up neighborhood watch programs. In an extended regional power outage, 24 hour neighborhood awareness could also be set up. In addition, home roofing tiles that have solar power built in are becoming more popular, plus they are more difficult to steal.

47MaureenRoy
Juil 20, 2016, 3:42 pm

Everyone, I sent a question to my local rural California fire department, asking what types of home rooftop solar panel systems they recommend. The question arises because some California firefighters say that rooftop solar panels can be an electric shock hazard for firefighters when fighting a structure fire.

If it turns out that they do not yet have established guidelines on rooftop solar panels, I asked them to start working with the CalFire state agency, local solar contractors, architects, etc., to develop a set of guidelines or best practices for homeowners and home builders to use in the future.

48MaureenRoy
Juil 20, 2016, 3:53 pm

Refrigerators: For many families, these use more energy than any other machine in the home, partly because they are on 24/7. I found the following 1997 Vegetarian Times article to be quite helpful. Please also read the comments section ... for example, the comment that recommends adding exterior insulation to your refrigerator is something that we will do ASAP at home.

Link: http://www.vegetariantimes.com/article/10-ways-to-green-your-fridge/

49margd
Juil 24, 2016, 2:04 pm

l should tape some insulation to the front door of our standing freezer--on very hot, humid days, I've actually found condensation on the door. Better still, I should have researched better before we bought it. Just used in summer, fortunately, and in a cool basement.

50Yamanekotei
Juil 24, 2016, 6:05 pm

Has anybody considered or already installed a thick vinyl sheet in the fridge or freezer to prevent leaking of cold air from the machine? I would like to do it but I don't know where to buy or how to install. Or easy maintenance technique. Any advice?

51margd
Juil 26, 2016, 6:37 am

One of the downsides of alternative energy sources (wind, solar) is that availability doesn't always correlate with need and so is wasted or must be supplemented at times with natural gas, etc. (C-free nukes can't scale up quickly enough.) There are many schemes for capturing night-time wind energy, but so far the N American prize goes to a city in Prince Edward Island: smart grid + appliances for heating water and homes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-dodge/summerside-pei-wind-power_b_11117360.ht...

52John5918
Juil 26, 2016, 6:45 am

>51 margd:

I think what you say is true on the macro level, ie powering a national grid by renewable sources. It's not necessarily true for someone who is powering their own home off the grid. The new home that we are building is off the grid (nearest power line is 20 km away so even if we wanted to be connected it would be horrendously expensive). We will use solar, and plan to have enough solar panels and batteries to tide us through the night and to cope with dull days. As we are on a ridge where it is often very windy, we will probably instal a small wind generator too - we're currently looking for one with bearings that will not need too much maintenance.

53margd
Juil 26, 2016, 8:33 am

We are planning on using solar thermal to heat water and floors in house we are building. Have you looked into that? (Solar thermal is even more feasible in warmer climes?)

Our photovoltaic panels feed into the grid, but I understand that with another style of inverters, we could power our house in event of power failure.

Pre-plumbing, we've used a handpump on the well.

Now, if only our propane fireplace was the kind that could convert to burning firewood, we would be ready for next mega power failure! (Grid failures, ice storms happen... :-)

54John5918
Juil 26, 2016, 8:41 am

Yes, we'll be installing passive solar thermal heating. We have fireplaces and a wood burning stove, although we will also use gas.

We'll be using an inverter to power the whole house from our batteries.

We've explored the idea of drilling a borehole but on our land the water is very deep and rather salty, so we'll harvest rainwater instead. Our neighbours tell us there is enough rainfall as long as we have sufficient storage tanks - we're looking at installing about 50,000 litres of water storage.

552wonderY
Juil 26, 2016, 6:28 pm

I'd love to see micro-water turbines to harvest the energy released in rainwater dropping through downspouts. I've looked, but no one seems to be working on that scale.

56margd
Juil 27, 2016, 6:37 am

>55 2wonderY: micro-water turbines to harvest the energy released in rainwater dropping through downspouts

Sounds like a project for electrical engineering students' senior project: maybe pass your suggestion on to an engineering prof? Maybe think of a use for such intermittent, small source of energy, or look for larger, more regular flow--wastewater, maybe?

(My son's team developed a gizmo that captures energy from vibration to power a vibration monitor. Apparently, at least some containers must be monitored for vibration, even when parked?)

57MaureenRoy
Modifié : Jan 23, 2017, 7:48 pm

In January 2017, a huge energy self-sufficency milestone was just reached in Devon, England:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-36887555

582wonderY
Jan 18, 2017, 9:44 am

>57 MaureenRoy: Here's the community's website:
http://landmatters.org.uk/

592wonderY
Juil 16, 2018, 2:16 pm

How Air-Conditioning Conquered America (Even the Pacific Northwest)

“It’s hard to imagine that, say, Birmingham would be a big center of health care industry, or that Atlanta would have the world’s busiest airport, or that Jacksonville would be a center for insurance if people were sitting under ceiling fans in hot, humid offices,” said Stan Cox, who coordinates agricultural research at the Land Institute in Salina, Kan., and wrote a 2012 book (Losing Our Cool) about our reliance on air-conditioning.
...

“With the advent of air-conditioning, we lost a lot of the common sense,” said Kirk Teske, the chief operating officer at HKS Architects, with headquarters in Dallas. He worries that regions like the Northeast may lose it, too, setting up future challenges for office workers and residents when blackouts or other natural disasters come. “I sometimes say the best sustainably minded architects are all dead now,” Mr. Teske said. “They’re the ones that were able to do these big buildings knowing they had to do so without the benefits of air-conditioning systems.”

60John5918
Juil 20, 2018, 2:52 am

Subsidies for new household solar panels to end next year (Guardian)

The renewables industry and green groups have accused ministers of striking a major blow against household solar power after the government said a green energy subsidy scheme would end next year without a replacement...

Another backwards step by a right wing government in the UK.

61MaureenRoy
Juil 27, 2018, 9:38 pm

When adding an inverter to any solar power system, ask the system designer to add a "vacation switch" so that when you are away for days or longer, both the solar batteries *and* the inverter are turned "off". That's important ... otherwise your solar batteries will suffer chronic trauma and a somewhat shortened lifespan. Vacation switches on water heaters are becoming standard equipment, after all, so it should be doable for a standalone solar system. And yes, there's a relevant book on good design: The design of everyday things.

62margd
Juil 28, 2018, 2:41 am

Buy string inverters even if you're selling electricity back to the electric company. String inverters allow you to use the electricity yourself if needed.

(Back before batteries were a practical option, we installed individual inverters of a disappointing design and they have been nothing but trouble: replacement after replacement under warranty--but we'll switch to string inverters from a different company when warranty ends.)

63John5918
Juil 28, 2018, 7:45 am

>62 margd:

I'd never heard of string inverters until now. I looked it up on Google, and am I right in thinking that these are only appropriate if you are connected to a grid, not for a stand-alone system, off the grid, which needs to use batteries for storage? Or not?

64margd
Modifié : Juil 29, 2018, 8:31 am

Pros and Cons of String Inverters vs Micro Inverters
Andrew Sendy | March 23, 2017
https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-string-inverter-vs-microinver...

My suggestion in #62 was informed by horrible experience DH had with our micro-inverters, so not generally applicable.
(We have a contract to feed electricity into the grid. For rest of 20 year contract it's unlikely that we will use the electricity in the house.)

In our first eight years, 20 of the 24 microinverters have failed. No doubt, we bought a lemon system--other offerings can't all be this bad! While warranty still in effect, it takes at least a couple weeks--months in at least one failure--to receive replacement micro-inverters. It is on us to report the failing micro-inverter, though company has access to our monitor. Company is making effort to improve customer service (responsiveness), no doubt influenced by rumblings of class action lawsuits, etc. To make matters worse, after a few such failures the local installer flat-out refused to honor his obligation to install replacements at no cost. His salesman--a friend's brother--sold us the micro-inverters after problems became apparent, apparently to clear inventory(?) Grr!

When micro-inverter warranty expires, rather than buy more, DH is considering shifting to a new string inverter offering that can switch from powering the grid to home back-up (without batteries) in event of an outage:

SMA Sunny Boy string inverter w/ Power Outage Backup
https://www.solarpanelstore.com/solar-power/sma-inverters/sma_sunnyboy/sma-sunny....

(I hope I got it right this time. It's been an ongoing series of extreme frustrations for DH. At times, I worried for his health.)

68John5918
Août 26, 2018, 11:43 am

Don't phase out solar panel subsidies, Sadiq Khan urges ministers (Guardian)

London mayor challenges move to axe tariffs and discounts for householders installing solar PV

70margd
Modifié : Sep 18, 2018, 10:11 am

The spiralling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction
Amit Katwala | 5 August 2018

...Two other key ingredients, cobalt and nickel, are more in danger of creating a bottleneck in the move towards electric vehicles, and at a potentially huge environmental cost. Cobalt is found in huge quantities right across the Democratic Republic of Congo and central Africa, and hardly anywhere else. The price has quadrupled in the last two years.

Unlike most metals, which are not toxic when they’re pulled from the ground as metal ores, cobalt is “uniquely terrible,” according to Gleb Yushin, chief technical officer and founder of battery materials company Sila Nanotechnologies.
Read next

“One of the biggest challenges with cobalt is that it’s located in one country,” he adds. You can literally just dig up the land and find cobalt, so there’s a very strong motivation to dig it up and sell it, and a a result there’s a lot of motivation for unsafe and unethical behaviour.” The Congo is home to ‘artisanal mines’, where cobalt is extracted from the ground by hand, often using child labour, without protective equipment...

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact

_______________________________________________________

Kostiantyn Turcheniuk, Dmitry Bondarev, Vinod Singhal & Gleb Yushin. 2018. Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries(comment).
Nature 559, 467–470. 25 July 2018. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05752-3

...If nothing changes, demand will outstrip production within 20 years. We expect this to occur for cobalt by 2030 and for nickel by 2037 or sooner...

71margd
Sep 28, 2018, 10:09 am

J. Mandal, Y. Fu, A. Overvig, M. Jia, K. Sun, N. Shi, H. Zhou, X. Xiao, N. Yu, Y. Yang. Hierarchically porous polymer coatings for highly efficient passive daytime radiative cooling. Science, 2018; eaat9513 DOI: 10.1126/science.aat9513

Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science. "Polymer coating cools down buildings." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 September 2018. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180927145555.htm

__________________________________________________________________________

How paint can be used as air conditioning: New 'whiter than white' material reflects 96 per cent of the sun's heat leaving buildings 11F cooler

Researchers say the new material scatters the sun's light and radiates its heat
Buildings coated in it could be 11F cooler in arid environments such as Arizona
It can be applied like paint on rooftops, buildings, water tanks and vehicles

Tim Stickings | 28 September 2018

...Buildings coated in the material - described as 'one of the whitest whites yet seen' - would be 5F cooler in tropical environments such as Bangladesh and as much as 11F cooler in arid ones such as Arizona.

The new product can be 'applied like paint on rooftops, buildings, water tanks, vehicles, even spacecraft', researchers said...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6217777/How-paint-used-air-condi...

72MaureenRoy
Oct 22, 2018, 4:10 pm

On December 10, 2018 in Los Angeles county, California, Elon Musk's zero-emission commuter tunnel will open, with free rides on December 11th:

https://phys.org/news/2018-10-musk-la-hyperloop-tunnel-unveiled.html

732wonderY
Oct 27, 2018, 7:32 am

And another emerging low-cost technology for cooling that doesn’t require electricity:

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-45991225

This is a glass embedded film that allows heat exchange in the desired direction. It not only reflects heat from sunlight; it allows heat from below to escape.

74margd
Déc 6, 2018, 7:03 am

Richard Branson launches $3m challenge to reinvent the air conditioner
Nick Lavars | November 30th, 2018

...The Global Cooling Prize is backed by the Indian government among other partners, with Richard Branson taking on the ambassadorial duties. The organizers make a pretty compelling case regarding the need for a rethink in how we currently cool our homes. They say that there are around 1.2 billion room air conditioning units in action around the world today, and the most efficient of these operate at around 14 percent of the maximum theoretical efficiency. As a comparison, investments in R&D have led to products like LED lights that operate at up to 89 percent efficiency...

https://newatlas.com/branson-global-cooling-challenge-air-conditioner/57464/

752wonderY
Déc 6, 2018, 9:14 am

>74 margd: I've seen photos of Indian cityscapes that highlight this:

76margd
Juil 5, 2019, 8:40 am

A low-tech cooling device I used yesterday while touring a hot, humid city was a wet bandana, frozen initially. There was a reason cowboys wore those things tied around their necks! A thermos of ice water waited for us in the car.

My friend, however, has health condition and so I was glad to offer the car's AC, and to step outside on ferry ride home.

I like the story below in which a building reduced its AC with a combination of mechanical and natural ventilation. The worst is to be compelled to endure an uncomfortable microclimate...

Do Americans Need Air-Conditioning?

Summer’s great indoor-temperature debate rages on.
Penelope Green July 3, 2019

...Nearly 90 percent of American households now have some form of air-conditioning, more than any other country in the world except Japan, though that will change as global warming alters more temperate zones, and swelling populations and rising incomes in hot zones mean the folks there will clamor for AC, too.

...Building temperatures are largely controlled by building managers, to industry standards that aim for the thermal comfort of 80 percent of a building’s occupants — which means, of course, that 20 percent will be uncomfortable, if not miserable.

Those standards are updated regularly by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers, which suggests that building temperatures range from 67 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit and be set according to an enormously complicated calculus.

Among the variables are the number of occupants in the place, what they’re wearing (with values assigned to 17 clothing styles, including sweatpants, miniskirts and bathrobes), humidity, air speed (at one’s ankles) and more...

...In 2015, Kieran Timberlake, an architectural firm with more than 100 employees in Philadelphia, tried to work without any air-conditioning at all. The firm renovated a former bottling plant — a concrete and steel warehouse built in 1945 — with many, many design flourishes and technologies, but without modern AC.

Passive and active features provided the cooling, like mechanical and natural ventilation (fans and windows that opened); automated shades; insulation, including a concrete slab floor; and dehumidifiers. The design thinking behind these contemporary refinements has worked for millenniums — imagine an adobe house, or a Roman villa, sealed and shaded against the day’s heat, and opened up at night.

That first summer, however, staffers found themselves increasingly hot, limp and damp, their experience captured by daily surveys that included this plaintive report from one suffering soul: “I am physically melting.”

More fans were brought in, employees were encouraged to work early in the morning — before the day got too hot — and the dress code was relaxed. Clients who visited, including State Department officials (at the time, the firm was working on an American embassy in London) were forewarned. Witold Rybczynski, writing of the experiment in Architect magazine, imagined a scene from a P.G. Wodehouse novel: diplomats in short pants!

It was a grand experiment, and not exactly a failure, since the building, which is now cooled by what’s known as mixed mode operation — that is, using a bit of conventional air-conditioning when needed — is still a model of energy efficiency. Switching to mixed-mode has added only 1 or 2 percent to the building’s total energy load, according to Roderick Bates, a Kieran Timberlake principal.

Mr. Bates said that one of the reasons natural cooling wasn’t fully successful was that Philadelphia’s nighttime temperatures during the peak summer months weren’t low enough to allow natural ventilation to cool the place down. Passive house systems work really well in climates with big diurnal temperature swings, like the desert.
...People in countries with lower G.D.P.s, said David Lehrer, the communications director and a researcher (at the Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley), are more comfortable with a wider range of temperatures. It appears that first world discomfort is a learned behavior.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/03/style/air-conditioning-obsession.html

77John5918
Juil 11, 2019, 12:46 am

Electric cars could form battery hubs to store renewable energy (Guardian)

By 2050, National Grid predicts, 35m electric cars will supply energy when needed

78MaureenRoy
Modifié : Déc 26, 2019, 2:03 pm

Website that sells very high efficiency refrigerators. They are in Northern California. The site also includes a blog and much good general advice on sustainability. Link:

http://www.sunfrost.com/all_efficient_refrigerator_models.html

Yamanekotei and everyone, this website may be able to answer your questions about refrigerator insulation.

Be careful, however, for any health-related advice they offer. For instance, I don't agree with their suggestions on recycling human or animal waste ... there are a number of risk factors that they do not recognize.

79margd
Déc 12, 2022, 9:04 am

Why you should almost always wash your clothes on cold
And while you’re at it, don’t wash them so much.
Allyson Chiu | November 29, 2022

...Water heating consumes about 90 percent of the energy it takes to operate a washing machine, according to Energy Star. Changing your washer’s temperature setting from hot to warm can cut energy use in half. Washing with cold water can reduce your energy footprint even more. By washing four out of five loads of laundry in cold water, you could cut 864 pounds of CO2 emissions in a year, an amount equivalent to planting 0.37 acres of U.S. forest, according to the American Cleaning Institute.

...hot water settings are only really necessary for sanitizing. Modern laundry detergents, even those that aren’t marked for cold-water use, are typically formulated to clean just as well at lower temperatures...

...washers use about the same amount of energy regardless of the size of the load...consider using higher spin settings if your washing machine has the option, which can reduce drying time...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/29/laundry-cold-water-e...

80margd
Mai 24, 2023, 1:23 pm

Watch and weep as GOP fans culture war over DOE's proposed cooktop rules. Looks like the two invitees from Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Acting Assistant Secretary Alejandro Moreno and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency Dr. Carolyn Snyder not present at hearing, and did not submit documentation: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/24/republicans-gas-stove-rules-00098430

Subject Consumer Choice on the Backburner: Examining the Biden Administration’s Regulatory Assault on Americans’ Gas Stoves
Date May 24, 2023
Time 10:00 am
Place 2154 Rayburn

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs

https://oversight.house.gov/hearing/consumer-choice-on-the-backburner-examining-...

81Cynfelyn
Mai 31, 2023, 3:45 pm

I am cataloguing a few of my father-in-law's books. He was an engineer, and his surviving books are very practical, including The practical electrician's pocket book, 1950, the first words of the preface of which has a reason to switch to an electric vehicle I haven't heard before:

"The battery vehicle has several virtues, not least that of drawing power from home coal instead of imported petrol."

822wonderY
Mai 31, 2023, 7:48 pm

>81 Cynfelyn: Favoriting!

83John5918
Modifié : Mai 31, 2023, 11:49 pm

>81 Cynfelyn:

It's been said before but worth repeating that in the 1950s there were huge fleets of electric vehicles delivering milk to our doorsteps in reusable glass bottles every day, to say nothing of electric trams and trolleybuses. They were all scrapped in the 1960s in the short-sighted belief that they were outdated.

Off topic but speaking of practical books from the 'fifties, a year or so ago I found an out of print copy of an old handbook on basic civil engineering using mainly local materials for British colonial officers in Tanganyika - roads, ditches, culverts, bridges, small buildings, etc. Very useful for the small tasks I have to do around our rural property. For the last few weeks we've been working on our 2km access track, which was badly damaged by a month of heavy rain following two years of drought.

842wonderY
Juin 15, 2023, 8:16 am

From a Spam profile I just squashed here on LT:

“Welcome to EPC Yorkshire. As a local team of fully qualified Energy Surveyors, we are the company to call for prompt and accurate Energy Performance Certificates throughout Yorkshire.

When you sell or let your house, the law requires you to produce a current EPC Energy Performance Certificate to tell the buyer or tenant how efficient the property is in its use of energy. The more energy efficient your home is, the less it will cost to run when it comes to paying your energy bills. Some householders don’t wait until they want to sell their home, but commission an energy survey from EPC Yorkshire and start enjoying the benefits immediately.”

Not appropriate to advertise here, but it is a good practice.

85margd
Juin 15, 2023, 8:56 am

>84 2wonderY: My single son, works days, was paying $400 for electricity in a 2 BR townhouse condo. He's pretty judicious w heat and AC, mostly using fans, etc. Utility advisor is coming again to look at his place--lightbulb changes didn't do it. I'm wondering if meter is picking up his neighbor's usage?

862wonderY
Juin 15, 2023, 9:53 am

>85 margd: Yikes! I’m not eligible for free solar because my electric bill for a house with three occupants runs less than $100/month.

87margd
Fév 6, 9:46 am

Bitcoin, too?

As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires
David Berreby • February 6, 2024

Generative artificial intelligence uses massive amounts of energy for computation and data storage and billions of gallons of water to cool the equipment at data centers. Now, legislators and regulators — in the U.S. and the EU — are starting to demand accountability...

https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-climate-energy-emissions

Devenir membre pour poster.