Saving electricity

   / Saving electricity #41  
Oh jeez, I do hate to RTFM...:eek:
I'll have to look for the books on the new fridge & freezer...
Wouldn't have thought I might have to heat the cold room so they'll work better !!!!! Just checked, it's about 56F in the cold room.

Pete
 
   / Saving electricity #42  
I spent most of a career working for an electric utility. IMO most rates are set to reflect the cost of service. And residential customers, because of the embedded cost of getting power to them, are pretty expensive. You have to factor some of that cost into their rates. Then you spread embedded costs over use. Someone who uses ten times more juice will see embedded or fixed costs be a smaller share of their rates, that's not unfair, it's just math.

I have come to the belief that saving energy and being efficient should use the Greek philosophy... Moderation in all things. I do what I can to limit appliances and entertainment devices use to real need... i.e. when someone is actually around and the washer is full. I built my home with a geothermal heatpump, and us less than half the energy to heat and cool I did in my bigger, conventionally headed previous home. I put LED lights - which I happen to really like - in fixtures that are on a lot, and in those that are difficult to reach. They last a very, very long time. I use a clothes line when weather's nice, but am not a fanatic about it. I unplug a lot of wall wart transformers when not in use... Not all, but those I use less often. I don't worry about hot water, since my geo heat pump provides it as a side benefit, but I don't waste water.

Anyone can save some energy, but the more you save the harder it gets to find new ways to save. So shoot for a reasonable lifestyle that is aware of energy use and doesn't waste, and don't worry about it.
 
   / Saving electricity #43  
Pete, I don't know whether that applies to all refrigerators and freezers or not. I was quoting from the manual of a pretty cheap Galaxy refrigerator, but at the same time we bought it (when we bought this house in Sept. '05), we bought a little nicer Kenmore for the kitchen. The Kenmore has an ice maker and water dispenser, too. But the manual for it says:

NOTE: Do not install this refrigerator near an oven, radiator, or other heat source, nor in a location where the temperature will fall below 55F (13C).

So does the same apply to other brands?:confused: I don't know.
 
   / Saving electricity #44  
I'm not sure what your speaking of when saying "smart meter".

Perhaps Oncor's Information Site will explain. Oncor is the one who delivers our electricity and owns the lines and poles, although TXU Energy is our retailer; i.e., the company that sends the bill.

Naturally, Oncor claims this is a great advance for the consumer, and maybe it is. However, the only benefit I can see so far is that Oncor will no longer have to pay a salary to meter readers who currently come by on foot each month.

Oncor's earlier schedule showed that my neighborhood would be getting the smart meters in June; now it only shows it will be June through the end of this year.

There's been a lot of complaints, and even lawsuits, by people who got the new meters and claimed their electric bills skyrocketed; huge increases. But the last I read was that Oncor says those were due to erroneous meter readings on the old meters when they were removed. So I guess I'll see before the end of the year.

And of course Oncor also says, " There will be a surcharge of $2.19 each month for the next 11 years." In other words our electric bill goes up, as usual, but they say we can learn to reduce our electricity usage and save more than that. Yeah, right. What if you're already doing all the right things?
 
   / Saving electricity #45  
.....
Newer appliances.... hmmmm.... not always so straight forward, (total) cost wise. Newer refrigerators (until you get into really high end ones), tend to have smaller hp compressors running at higher rpm and use thinner wall coils - translation - many of these newer fridges burn out in < 5 years. If you need/want to make the jump, talk with an appliance repair guy that has been at it 10+ years, for a recommendation. Eventually, I want to make the move to a Sunfrost fridge, they seem to balance energy with lifespan pretty well.

Refrigerators, home compost bins and sustainable living products - Sun Frost

Sunfrost developed their original units to safely store medicines and vaccines in remote parts of the world, VERY off grid. In the original design, efficiency was a priority, as was long life.... the nearest repairman would often be hours or days away (by plane). I'm hoping the legacy lives on long enough for me to buy a unit for my next house. DC is an option for their units.
....
Rgds, Dave.

Appliances are not made to last that is for sure. Our Maytag fridge had problems right before the five year warranty was up. Thankfully I noticed it did not sound right and we got a replacement compressor before the old one completely failed. It took a good week to get the new compressor which is unacceptable these days. The Whirlpool front loader washer sounds like it is about to fly apart. The repair man had a list of repairs it needed which really did cost more than a new unit. We decided to run it to complete failure. :D It has been running for a good year or more though the wife has to open the door with a screw driver. :eek:

The link to the Sun Frost appliances is interesting. I would pay more for an efficient unit that will LAST. But the Sun's units are small CF wise. Dang it.

Our biggest power using device is the likely the water heater at $30 a month. The clothes washer and dryer are right up there since they run constantly keeping up with the kids clothes. We heat with wood so it is easy to see our AC cost in the summer which is $30-60. Usually $30 but last years long hot spells cost us $60 a month. I will pay $2 a day to be cool. I used to live in houses in FLA, during the summer, with no AC. Tain't fun. :eek:

Later,
Dan
 
   / Saving electricity
  • Thread Starter
#46  
There are a few problems with smart meters.

Some folks that have extensive alternative energy systems can program their entire house to go off-grid whenever they want. Folks like this are smart enough to add a 10 or 15 minute guard band around switching off/on before/after peak time periods. They still get charged for peak usage activity, when there is none. Yet another reason I plan to be off-grid eventually.

As has been detailed here and elsewhere, the consumer always pays more. If consumers DO manage to reduce their consumption, then the utility is typically awarded higher rates and or fees to cover the revenue loss.

The pols have used an Enviro/Techno babble smoke screen (quite effectively, I have to grudgingly give 'em that) to hide behind these cost increases. I wish you good luck with it Bird, but I suspect that $2.19/month will just be the beginning. Our provincial cost hike (only one of many) here May 01 is what got me to start this thread.

I do get what it takes to support the electrical infrastructure - costs had to go up. A much better use of money would have been to adjust the base Cents/kwh rate (24 hours a day, No Time of Use nonsense) to where it needed to be to fund repairs/expansion - that way if you use more, pay more - no sane person would have a problem with that. THEN, instead of blowing billions on updating the surveillance net (I'll get back to this), er, I mean the electric grid, THAT money saved could be spent on implementing more utility scale alternative energy projects, or just paying down the debt on existing ones.

Some people object to the surveillance aspect of at new smart meters - pretty easy to detect household activity/useage/occupancy patterns. I won't discuss the personal liberty issues here, as Orwell covered this famously, a long time ago. What I will comment on is security - major corporations have proved time and time again that they can't secure credit card data - I have little faith that my electric data is secure. A LEO told me a long time ago "If you go away on vacation in the summer, don't just turn your AC off". A house with closed windows and no AC running during a heat wave, well, you might as well put out a "Come on In" sign.... Thanks to technology, the bad guys don't even have to drive by to see if you are home. Maybe this is just a plan to save criminals gasoline ?

GO GO GREEN CRIMINALS !!! I'll leave it to the reader to decide if I'm talking about pols, or my neighbourhood ones.

This has become nothing but a money game, at all levels. One of the larger local privatized utilities has acquired a rep as real shake down artists. A buddy of mine moved into a house, a couple of years later this utility changed out the meter (this was before smart meters). Then they send him a bill for a couple of thousand dollars, claiming that the earlier meter "was not accurate". My view would have been, 1) So what, that was your goof, nothing to do with me, 2) if you guys are not competent enough to have a properly working meter in place, how can I believe anything that you say ?

Almost went to court, my buddy settled for about 40 cents on the dollar, of what they were claiming. It was either that, or do without electricity. As I joke about it with my buddy "Almost makes you nostalgic for the old time mob, as these utilities make them look like kindly amateurs !".

I have some visibility into the behind the scenes at said utility. Sad to say, the general environment is deteriorating to the point where it is an unsafe place to work. But, as long as the execs can retain their bonuses, perks and golden parachutes, while minimizing their exposure to jail time, the party goes on. Some smaller jurisdictions have had enough, and are DE-privatizing their utilities - when you live in a small town, your constituents screaming can keep you awake at night.


Dan - good data points about Name Brand appliances that barely make it through the warranty. Unfortunately, this is the rule, not the exception now a days. I see this pattern with most products, even many commercial or industrial ones.

Rgds, D.
 
   / Saving electricity #47  
From what I've heard, the power plants need to handle the peak capacity. This is during the middle of the day. If they can get people to use less electricity during the peak time, it makes it so they don't need to build another power plant. If it's not charging more, then what would it take to get people to use less in the middle of the day. I'm sure if a power company needs to build another plant it would cost the consumer a lot more.
 
   / Saving electricity
  • Thread Starter
#48  
Let's say I decide to throw a big party at my house. All sorts of people show up at the party. Part way through the evening, I start circulating amongst the crowd, demanding people donate money as we are running out of toilet paper.

Most governments are big on encouraging growth. They control Immigration levels, and issue Building and Development permits - 2 areas that have major impacts on physical growth in a country. The logic is Growth = Bigger Tax base.

THEN, when it comes to maintaining roads, building new ones, and supplying all the electricity for THE NEW GROWTH THE GUBMINT WANTED - "Wow, that is expensive, we don't have money for that !". Makes about as much sense as my toilet paper analogy.

Agreed NorTrac, Peak Demand is the key design parameter for a power grid. The money getting blown on Smart Meters (or more broadly, the marketing buzz word in the industry is Smart Grid) could have been put to much better use.

1) Build more conventional and alternative energy generating capacity.

2) Spend more R&D $$$$ on storage technology. This is one area that needs much more work. I believe there is a site in Upstate NY that now has their flywheel storage system running, much more needs to be done in this area, and in all the other areas being studied.

3) Canada really needs to get to work on the basic grid layout. The transmission grid is mostly north/south oriented, between Canada/USA. Nothing wrong with the what we have now, power flows both directions between States/Provinces as needed. What is needed is for us to get off our Canadian duffs and build high voltage transmission lines East/West.

Depending where you are, the billing history might be a little different, but here it went something like this:

Start adding more general taxes (GST, HST)

Then, add some surcharges (Debt Retirement, Cable Reel Eco fees, Cayman slush fund fee....)

Make sure you are applying the general (HST) taxes to these new Fees, as for certain, the customer is definitely getting "Serviced" (the S portion of our HST).

And on, and on, and on.... with the new fees, that TYPICALLY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH CONSUMPTION, just the waste incurred by the gubmint.

Then after a while, I imagine the conversation in Queen's Park (provincial gubmint seat) went something like this:

"Ya know, we better cool it with these new Fees, these normally docile Canucks are starting to notice. We've even heard talk of a protest march, and it sounds like they are planning to throw stale Timbits (Canuck translated - donut holes) at us !"

"Changeup time - we're gonna do the old Green Wash/Technobabble 2 step, and ram 'em with these new Smart Meters on their houses"

"AND, we are going to tell them that they have the "opportunity" to reduce their electric bills, using these Smart Meters".

Much laughter ensues, as Pols exit the meeting to hop into their waiting limos.



Yeah... I've probably had either too much, or not enough coffee this morning....... but the point is that where I am, the Smart Meters are just the icing on the cake, built out of ever increasing Fees, that have little/nothing to do with consumption.

AKA, another tax grab.

Rgds, D.
 
   / Saving electricity #49  
This thread pushed me to go look up "Smart Grid." Just putting a digital meter on the house is a who cares for me. I don't need the ability to see how much power I am using RIGHT NOW. That is meaningless data to me.

There is at least one local company hiring quite a few people to make products for the "Smart Grid."

Wikipedia seems to have a good report:
Smart grid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some of what is described as part of the Smart Grid make sense. Better management of the power grid, reliability, etc.

But frankly, I think it really is about this:
Peak curtailment/leveling and time of use pricing

To reduce demand during the high cost peak usage periods, communications and metering technologies inform smart devices in the home and business when energy demand is high and track how much electricity is used and when it is used. It also gives utility companies the ability to reduce consumption by communicating to devices directly in order to prevent system overloads. An example would be a utility reducing the usage of a group of electric vehicle charging stations. To motivate them to cut back use and perform what is called peak curtailment or peak leveling, prices of electricity are increased during high demand periods, and decreased during low demand periods. It is thought that consumers and businesses will tend to consume less during high demand periods if it is possible for consumers and consumer devices to be aware of the high price premium for using electricity at peak periods. This could mean making trade-offs such as cooking dinner at 9 pm instead of 5 pm. When businesses and consumers see a direct economic benefit of using energy at off-peak times become more energy efficient, the theory is that they will include energy cost of operation into their consumer device and building construction decisions. See Time of day metering and demand response.
According to proponents of smart grid plans,[who?] this will reduce the amount of spinning reserve that electric utilities have to keep on stand-by, as the load curve will level itself through a combination of "invisible hand" free-market capitalism and central control of a large number of devices by power management services that pay consumers a portion of the peak power saved by turning their devices off.

Of course the "invisible hand" is supposed to refer to the FREE market setting prices. Power utilities are not a FREE market but a closed, managed market. A true invisible hand wold be the fair pricing of power, sold by multiple companies, during peak demand but I think the ability to bill for power by time is a way to generate profits in the guise of being green.

Duke is on its third try to merge with Progress. Progress was a company formed when CPL and FPL merged just a few short years ago. Duke/Progress wants to pass on the COST of the merger, primarily costs of laying off employees, to the consumer who has not choice but to buy power from Duke/Progress. If the merger is good for the consumer the price should DROP over time and any costs of the merger should be eaten by the companies profits. So far the merger had been beaten back by the Feds. It will be interesting to see what NC does in the next go around.

Later,
Dan
 
   / Saving electricity #50  
After sitting pondering why you guys unplugged your washer and dryers, I then realised that the American power sockets don't have ON/OFF switches, makes sense!

To save electricity (which I have to do to make up for the Desktop PC being on for around 6 hours a day) I make sure the refrigerator isn't set too high, use fluorescent bulbs all through the house (even though they don't last near as long as incandescent bulbs paradoxically), and when there is nothing really worth watching I keep the 42" Plasma (which draws 150 Watts when in use) turned off (but I'll admit I do leave it on standby until bedtime then I switch it off 100%).

Oh yeah, I also make sure the kettle is only filled as much as I need it filled, which normally barely even gets it fuller than the MIN mark.

I could do better, but if I worried about doing anything else on top of what I already do, I'd have a break down.

Oh and we are paying £150 per month for both Gas and Electricity here, which equates (obviously) to £75 Electricity, which is $121 in dollars.
 

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