So, you want to install a solar photovoltaic system on your roof and join those taking action to reverse climate change. You want to be part of the solution to the growing gap between energy demand and new power plant construction by installing distributed alternate energy generation. You’ve consulted your Special 30th Anniversary Edition of the Real Goods Solar Living Source Book, trimmed your home’s energy demand as much as you can without freezing in the dark and you are ready to order your equipment.
Wait! Have you contacted your local utility?
Almost every utility in the nation has some type of policy or regulation that could impact your ability to generate your own power from your own alternate energy system. Utility policies are a function of State regulations and individual utility company choices. Before you dump that list of PV parts into your checkout basket, contact your utility to make sure you can do what you want to do without being surprised by extra fees, technical restrictions or a hostile utility engineer that doesn’t get what you are trying to do.
The Network for New Energy Choices grades States on net-metering and interconnection laws and gives them an “A” through “F” score on how well they assist consumers with installing alternate energy distributed generation systems. The grades are based on a comparison with recommended regulations featured in the model regulations from the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.
Here are the results from the Network for New Energy Choices report.
Net Metering Grades
A IREC Model , New Jersey, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Maryland, California.
B Oregon, Delaware, Iowa, Nevada, Connecticut, Ohio, New Mexico.
C Arkansas, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Maine, Louisiana, Virginia, North Dakota, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Montana, Vermont, Missouri.
D Washington, New York, Texas, Kentucky, Michigan, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Indiana, West Virginia.
F Utah, D.C., Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin.
Interconnection Grades
A IREC Model.
B New Jersey, Arizona.
C California, Ohio, Texas, New York, Colorado, Oregon* , Massachusetts, Georgia, New Mexico* , Vermont, Minnesota.
D Rhode Island, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Arkansas, New Hampshire, Virginia, Iowa, Maryland*, Montana, Michigan, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Connecticut.
F North Carolina, D.C., Wyoming, Louisiana, Delaware, Hawaii, Utah, Washington, Missouri.
The Network for New Energy Choices offers these definitions to explain the difference between interconnection and net-metering and their report offers more details showing what makes a good regulation.
Interconnection – the technical rules for customers to “plug in” to the grid.
Net Metering – the billing arrangement by which customers realize savings from their systems, here 1-kWh generated by the customer has the exact same value as 1-kWh consumed by the customer.
States scoring an A or B are obviously trying to allow distributed alternate energy generators to start-up in their states. States scoring a C are pretending that they care about distributed alternate energy generators. And, States scoring a D or F obviously aren’t interested in having distributed alternative energy play any roll in meeting their electricity demands. The interesting thing is that states scoring A’s are finding spin-off results that improve their economies, reduce costs for customers, and reap financial benefits for their utilities. States scoring D’s and F’s are telling manufacturing industries, businesses and citizens to forget about making any money in the new economy where green businesses are growing new jobs and creating new business opportunities.
The killer in all of this is that a comparison of the top ten states by non-farm employees working in the manufacturing industry are in many cases, the same states that score the lowest on net-metering and interconnection support.
Rank. State – Net-metering Grade/ Interconnection Grade
1. Indiana - D/D
2. Wisconsin - F/D
3. Arkansas - C/D
4. Iowa - B/D
5. Mississippi- no grade/no grade
6. Alabama – no grade/no grade
7. Michigan - D/D
8. Ohio - B/C
9. Tennesse- no grade/no grade
10.Kentucky- D/no grade
So, the states potentially best equipped to make and supply distributed generation equipment and reap the corresponding economic benefits are shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to alternate energy development.
If you live in a State scoring anything less than a B, it’s time to take action. In less time than it took to read this, you can email your state representatives. Tell them you support distributed alternate energy and you think it’s time that they woke up and supported it too. Tell them you’re tired of being a C student- or worse, and you want to get A’s the next time the Network for New Energy Choices scores your State.
To find more details about your utility or your State and how they treat distributed alternate energy generation, visit the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & efficiency (DSIRE) web site and see how they stack up.
Showing posts with label Wind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wind. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Why Utility Executives Hate Renewable Energy Portfolio Standards
Did you ever wonder why Renewable Energy provides less than ten percent of this nation’s electric energy? What the heck is an RPS and why should you take action to support them? And, finally if RPS’s are such a good idea, why do many utility executives hate them?
Defining Renewable Portfolio Standards
Renewable Portfolio Standards are not exactly on everyone’s mind these days. A Google search of RPS is just as likely to turn up sites about Rock – Paper – Scissors. Some insist that RPS is a game, but for states moving ahead with renewable energy industries, Renewable Portfolio Standards, sometimes called Renewable Electricity Standards, can be just the extra push that renewables need to become a big player in the electric energy generation game.
“A renewable portfolio standard is a state policy that requires electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Currently there are 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have RPS policies in place. Together these states account for more than half of the electricity sales in the United States.
Four other states, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have nonbinding goals for adoption of renewable energy instead of an RPS.
Three states, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have set voluntary goals for adopting renewable energy instead of portfolio standards with binding targets.”
Source: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Today renewable energy makes up less than 10% of the generation mix anywhere in the nation. And, 8% of that is from conventional large hydroelectric dam facilities. Wind generation even with its recent strong growth amounts to less than 1% of the generation mix and solar comes in at 0.04% of the generation resource in 2005.
Non-renewable resources mostly fossil fuel related, still account for 89.9% of the electricity generated in the USA.
Utility Executives Hate Renewable Portfolio Standards
So, why do some utility executives appose Renewable Portfolio Standards? It’s simple. No one likes it when someone else tells them what to do, especially when that someone else is outside the industry and expertise of that industry. Utility executives feel that the public is ill-informed about the true costs of electric energy generation. Utility executives with electrical engineering background especially feel that the public has arrived at their “pro-renewable” stance based on incomplete or faulty information. “If you knew what I know….,” you can hear them saying.
Frankly, I think that these executives are right. You don’t have to review too many of my previous blogs to find examples of misguided renewable cheerleaders getting carried away with a few acts or ignoring the facts all together. One mission of this blog is to correct that lack of information. The Union of Concerned Scientists must feel the same way because their FAQ does a pretty nice job of answering those happy hour questions about renewable energy.
Despite gains made in renewable energy production and in spite of the fact that the “fuel” for wind and solar energy is free, the fact still remains that all renewable energy resources cost more to get into the grid than non-renewable energy.
The Bottom Line for Renewable Energy
So, here is the real reason utility executives hate RPS. It raises rates and these guys have never ever gotten one phone call from any of their consumers yelling at them for having rates that were too low. Oh no my friends. I know from personal experience being the main person fielding angry customer complaints that I never, ever in fifteen years of dealing with angry customers – had a customer angry with me because rates were too low; quite the opposite in fact. And, since utility executives are trying to deliver electricity at the best rates possible, no one wants to be forced into RPS regulations mandating higher rates. Or, worse yet mandating rate freezes while requiring RPS targets, similar to what the retail deregulation experience did in many states.
A recent study by American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy of the financial impacts of RPS adoption shows that over all energy costs would go down but the cost savings do not happen right away and this study shows that electricity rates by themselves go up as a result of RPS implementation.
Renewable Energy Management
Renewable Energy tends to be a small scale disbursed generation resource. This requires more coordination for dispatching electricity to the load or demand centers that need the juice. Having a host of renewable energy resource generators to coordinate instead of one huge coal fired power plant gives utility executives nightmares. While there can be positive aspects to a more widely distributed generation resource, there is also the real possibility that making the system more complicated will lead to more system failures, brown-outs and black outs from mistakes made in the dispatch process.
What Can You Do to help Push Renewable Energy Electricity Generation and RPS forward?
So, how do we get around this opposition and get state legislators to adopt renewable portfolio standards?
There are three things that you must do to save the world.
First, know what you are talking about. Get the facts. Find out what alternate energy can really do. Parroting phrases like, “the State of Nevada has enough solar energy to power the entire US economy” is counter-productive. This may be a true statement, but unless you support extensive transmission line construction, no one cares what happens in Nevada.
Second, become a vocal, but polite voice advocating renewable energy development through the adoption of Renewable Energy or Renewable Electricity Portfolio Standards. Write to state and national elected officials and your utility executives and tell them that you support higher rates as long as those increases go toward the addition of renewable energy resources in their generation portfolios.
Finally the absolute most important thing that you can do to help renewable energy become a bigger percentage of the electricity generation mix is stop using electricity stupidly. This is more than just turning the lights off. Residential lighting in the US accounts for only about five percent of the entire electric energy demand. So even if you use headlamps all the time you haven’t done much to reduce energy use. Energy conservation means doing the same work smarter, by buying the most energy efficient appliances; hunting down and eliminating phantom electric loads in your house; making sure your home has the best insulation levels and high quality windows possible. Utility executives are not generating electricity because it’s a lot of fun. They are generating electricity because you are asking for it. Read some previous postings to find out more about energy conservation.
My next Blog will explain why utility executives think environmentalists are a pain in the ass.
©Mark Richard Daily
Defining Renewable Portfolio Standards
Renewable Portfolio Standards are not exactly on everyone’s mind these days. A Google search of RPS is just as likely to turn up sites about Rock – Paper – Scissors. Some insist that RPS is a game, but for states moving ahead with renewable energy industries, Renewable Portfolio Standards, sometimes called Renewable Electricity Standards, can be just the extra push that renewables need to become a big player in the electric energy generation game.
“A renewable portfolio standard is a state policy that requires electricity providers to obtain a minimum percentage of their power from renewable energy resources by a certain date. Currently there are 24 states plus the District of Columbia that have RPS policies in place. Together these states account for more than half of the electricity sales in the United States.
Four other states, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have nonbinding goals for adoption of renewable energy instead of an RPS.
Three states, Missouri, Virginia, and Vermont, have set voluntary goals for adopting renewable energy instead of portfolio standards with binding targets.”
Source: Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, U.S. Department of Energy
Today renewable energy makes up less than 10% of the generation mix anywhere in the nation. And, 8% of that is from conventional large hydroelectric dam facilities. Wind generation even with its recent strong growth amounts to less than 1% of the generation mix and solar comes in at 0.04% of the generation resource in 2005.
Non-renewable resources mostly fossil fuel related, still account for 89.9% of the electricity generated in the USA.
Utility Executives Hate Renewable Portfolio Standards
So, why do some utility executives appose Renewable Portfolio Standards? It’s simple. No one likes it when someone else tells them what to do, especially when that someone else is outside the industry and expertise of that industry. Utility executives feel that the public is ill-informed about the true costs of electric energy generation. Utility executives with electrical engineering background especially feel that the public has arrived at their “pro-renewable” stance based on incomplete or faulty information. “If you knew what I know….,” you can hear them saying.
Frankly, I think that these executives are right. You don’t have to review too many of my previous blogs to find examples of misguided renewable cheerleaders getting carried away with a few acts or ignoring the facts all together. One mission of this blog is to correct that lack of information. The Union of Concerned Scientists must feel the same way because their FAQ does a pretty nice job of answering those happy hour questions about renewable energy.
Despite gains made in renewable energy production and in spite of the fact that the “fuel” for wind and solar energy is free, the fact still remains that all renewable energy resources cost more to get into the grid than non-renewable energy.
The Bottom Line for Renewable Energy
So, here is the real reason utility executives hate RPS. It raises rates and these guys have never ever gotten one phone call from any of their consumers yelling at them for having rates that were too low. Oh no my friends. I know from personal experience being the main person fielding angry customer complaints that I never, ever in fifteen years of dealing with angry customers – had a customer angry with me because rates were too low; quite the opposite in fact. And, since utility executives are trying to deliver electricity at the best rates possible, no one wants to be forced into RPS regulations mandating higher rates. Or, worse yet mandating rate freezes while requiring RPS targets, similar to what the retail deregulation experience did in many states.
A recent study by American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy of the financial impacts of RPS adoption shows that over all energy costs would go down but the cost savings do not happen right away and this study shows that electricity rates by themselves go up as a result of RPS implementation.
Renewable Energy Management
Renewable Energy tends to be a small scale disbursed generation resource. This requires more coordination for dispatching electricity to the load or demand centers that need the juice. Having a host of renewable energy resource generators to coordinate instead of one huge coal fired power plant gives utility executives nightmares. While there can be positive aspects to a more widely distributed generation resource, there is also the real possibility that making the system more complicated will lead to more system failures, brown-outs and black outs from mistakes made in the dispatch process.
What Can You Do to help Push Renewable Energy Electricity Generation and RPS forward?
So, how do we get around this opposition and get state legislators to adopt renewable portfolio standards?
There are three things that you must do to save the world.
First, know what you are talking about. Get the facts. Find out what alternate energy can really do. Parroting phrases like, “the State of Nevada has enough solar energy to power the entire US economy” is counter-productive. This may be a true statement, but unless you support extensive transmission line construction, no one cares what happens in Nevada.
Second, become a vocal, but polite voice advocating renewable energy development through the adoption of Renewable Energy or Renewable Electricity Portfolio Standards. Write to state and national elected officials and your utility executives and tell them that you support higher rates as long as those increases go toward the addition of renewable energy resources in their generation portfolios.
Finally the absolute most important thing that you can do to help renewable energy become a bigger percentage of the electricity generation mix is stop using electricity stupidly. This is more than just turning the lights off. Residential lighting in the US accounts for only about five percent of the entire electric energy demand. So even if you use headlamps all the time you haven’t done much to reduce energy use. Energy conservation means doing the same work smarter, by buying the most energy efficient appliances; hunting down and eliminating phantom electric loads in your house; making sure your home has the best insulation levels and high quality windows possible. Utility executives are not generating electricity because it’s a lot of fun. They are generating electricity because you are asking for it. Read some previous postings to find out more about energy conservation.
My next Blog will explain why utility executives think environmentalists are a pain in the ass.
©Mark Richard Daily
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Why Electric Utility Executives Hate Net-Metering
Net- Metering is a specific utility term used to describe the way utilities may allow small home generators to feed electricity back onto their electric distribution wire grids.
The DSIRE database, (Data base of State Incentives for Renewable & Efficiency) lists each state’s renewable programs. They define net- metering like this:
“Net Metering Rules For those consumers who have their own electricity generating units, net metering allows for the flow of electricity both to and from the customer through a single, bi-directional meter. With net metering, during times when the customer's generation exceeds his or her use, electricity from the customer to the utility offsets electricity consumed at another time. In effect, the customer is using the excess generation to offset electricity that would have been purchased at the retail rate. Under most state rules, residential, commercial, and industrial customers are eligible for net metering, but some states restrict eligibility to particular customer classes.”
This is a widely accepted definition but gets confused by some utility programs that don’t really offer net-metering. Instead they offer wholesale or avoided cost metering. This often requires two meters installed at the customer’s expense. One meter records the kWh flowing into their house from the utility grid and the other meter records the flow of electricity from the home’s power generation sources like a PV array or small wind turbine. The market drives the cost of electricity just like it does other commodities and the price we all pay on our electric bill reflects market value as well as actual costs for delivery. In the case of small alternate energy generators, utilities typically pay a wholesale rate for any energy that they buy directly.
One myth that is often used to oppose net-metering is the myth that meters go forward more accurately than they go backwards. Eletromechanical meters have no physical reason to run any differently more or less accurately no matter which way the current is going. Yet, this is the reason that many utilities require two meters. Two meters doubles your minimum monthly service charge and throws an un-necessary obstacle into the net-metering road.
Utilities that offer true net-metering, allow one meter that goes both directions. With this arrangement, consumer’s gain by having any energy that they generate going back to cancel the incoming kWh hours.
Once the meter hits zero on the register the price changes. Now you are making a net contribution to the grid instead of just canceling out your utility company generated power. So, the price you make on each kWh goes down to the wholesale rate which is typically 40 to 60 percent less than the retail rate. So, if you are going to run payback numbers for your project, you need to find out the average retail rate per kWh when you calculate the financial benefits of installing your own net-metering equipment.
Safety has always been very important to electric utilities and rightfully so. You can’t make any mistakes handling 14,000 volts of electricity without serious – usually fatal consequences. So, may utilities require a long list of lock out safety requirements and a hefty insurance liability policy from homeowners interested in installing net metering equipment.
Some utilities require a physical lock out device accessible to utility personnel; all day every day so that they can isolate your system from the grid while they are working on distribution circuits effected by your system.
I heard a good talk several years ago by a knowledgeable engineer about the potential danger from net-metering facilities. He seemed to think that the likely hood of a 12 or 24 volt 1.5 to 3.0KW net-metering system back feeding enough voltage to injury a line worker was a remote possibility and said it really was not scientifically supportable. Yet many utilities still persist in adding this substantial obstacle to net- metering installations from home owners.
Today, there are several alternate energy system inverters that take care of most of the legitimate interconnection and safety issues raised by utility regulations.
The main problem with net metering relates to the way you get billed for electricity. In most locations there are two parts to your bill. One part is a kWh charge that is supposed to cover all of the costs of getting each kWh to your house from the generation facility. The other part of your bill has a fixed minimum monthly charge or availability of service fee that is supposed to cover those expenses that a distribution utility incurs whether you use any electricity or not. If you leave town and throw your main breaker to the off position, you will not use any kWh. But, your meter is still sitting there ready for action and the wires coming to your house are still in the air or under the ground waiting for something to do and the utility company still needs to send a meter reader or use software to read your meter remotely just in case you use some juice that month. These fixed costs, like property taxes, accounting expenses and administrative expenses continue whether you use electricity or not. Also these expenses are often so high that utilities bundle a portion of the fixed expense into your kWh charge. So, if you are a net-metering customer whose meter hits zero or generates a lot of your own power that displaces the utility grid power , you are cutting into their revenue, without making a meaningful contribution to cutting the costs for buying power during the night and on cloudy days.
What may change utility attitudes toward net-metering is the growing need for additional generation resources and the clamor over fossil fuel generation. Utility executives maybe looking for net-metering resources to fill in peak daytime loads when the sun is shining, thus taking some of the pressure off financing new fossil fuel resources.
Do you have a question about how your electricity gets to your house? Ask me. I'll try to find out? GOt any other questions about electric energy generation? Ask me. I'll get some answers.
The DSIRE database, (Data base of State Incentives for Renewable & Efficiency) lists each state’s renewable programs. They define net- metering like this:
“Net Metering Rules For those consumers who have their own electricity generating units, net metering allows for the flow of electricity both to and from the customer through a single, bi-directional meter. With net metering, during times when the customer's generation exceeds his or her use, electricity from the customer to the utility offsets electricity consumed at another time. In effect, the customer is using the excess generation to offset electricity that would have been purchased at the retail rate. Under most state rules, residential, commercial, and industrial customers are eligible for net metering, but some states restrict eligibility to particular customer classes.”
This is a widely accepted definition but gets confused by some utility programs that don’t really offer net-metering. Instead they offer wholesale or avoided cost metering. This often requires two meters installed at the customer’s expense. One meter records the kWh flowing into their house from the utility grid and the other meter records the flow of electricity from the home’s power generation sources like a PV array or small wind turbine. The market drives the cost of electricity just like it does other commodities and the price we all pay on our electric bill reflects market value as well as actual costs for delivery. In the case of small alternate energy generators, utilities typically pay a wholesale rate for any energy that they buy directly.
One myth that is often used to oppose net-metering is the myth that meters go forward more accurately than they go backwards. Eletromechanical meters have no physical reason to run any differently more or less accurately no matter which way the current is going. Yet, this is the reason that many utilities require two meters. Two meters doubles your minimum monthly service charge and throws an un-necessary obstacle into the net-metering road.
Utilities that offer true net-metering, allow one meter that goes both directions. With this arrangement, consumer’s gain by having any energy that they generate going back to cancel the incoming kWh hours.
Once the meter hits zero on the register the price changes. Now you are making a net contribution to the grid instead of just canceling out your utility company generated power. So, the price you make on each kWh goes down to the wholesale rate which is typically 40 to 60 percent less than the retail rate. So, if you are going to run payback numbers for your project, you need to find out the average retail rate per kWh when you calculate the financial benefits of installing your own net-metering equipment.
Safety has always been very important to electric utilities and rightfully so. You can’t make any mistakes handling 14,000 volts of electricity without serious – usually fatal consequences. So, may utilities require a long list of lock out safety requirements and a hefty insurance liability policy from homeowners interested in installing net metering equipment.
Some utilities require a physical lock out device accessible to utility personnel; all day every day so that they can isolate your system from the grid while they are working on distribution circuits effected by your system.
I heard a good talk several years ago by a knowledgeable engineer about the potential danger from net-metering facilities. He seemed to think that the likely hood of a 12 or 24 volt 1.5 to 3.0KW net-metering system back feeding enough voltage to injury a line worker was a remote possibility and said it really was not scientifically supportable. Yet many utilities still persist in adding this substantial obstacle to net- metering installations from home owners.
Today, there are several alternate energy system inverters that take care of most of the legitimate interconnection and safety issues raised by utility regulations.
The main problem with net metering relates to the way you get billed for electricity. In most locations there are two parts to your bill. One part is a kWh charge that is supposed to cover all of the costs of getting each kWh to your house from the generation facility. The other part of your bill has a fixed minimum monthly charge or availability of service fee that is supposed to cover those expenses that a distribution utility incurs whether you use any electricity or not. If you leave town and throw your main breaker to the off position, you will not use any kWh. But, your meter is still sitting there ready for action and the wires coming to your house are still in the air or under the ground waiting for something to do and the utility company still needs to send a meter reader or use software to read your meter remotely just in case you use some juice that month. These fixed costs, like property taxes, accounting expenses and administrative expenses continue whether you use electricity or not. Also these expenses are often so high that utilities bundle a portion of the fixed expense into your kWh charge. So, if you are a net-metering customer whose meter hits zero or generates a lot of your own power that displaces the utility grid power , you are cutting into their revenue, without making a meaningful contribution to cutting the costs for buying power during the night and on cloudy days.
What may change utility attitudes toward net-metering is the growing need for additional generation resources and the clamor over fossil fuel generation. Utility executives maybe looking for net-metering resources to fill in peak daytime loads when the sun is shining, thus taking some of the pressure off financing new fossil fuel resources.
Do you have a question about how your electricity gets to your house? Ask me. I'll try to find out? GOt any other questions about electric energy generation? Ask me. I'll get some answers.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Alternate Electric Generation Systems need Facts
It happened again Saturday. I was in a room of about thirty people eager to hear about the Sierra Club’s Cool Cities program. These thirty people appeared to be well educated. We were all certainly well feed because the meeting was at an Irish Pub. I thought about speaking up. Maybe it was the pint of Guinness. Maybe it was the weekend. At any rate, I bit my tongue and sat on my hands to avoid climbing on my soap box and alienating the few remaining friends I have.
Well meaning speakers got on the subject of net metering, wind power and hydro-electric energy generation. They were making the kind of statements that make uneducated crowds cheer and utility executives barf.
Here are some of the comments. “We have wind resources that should be used to replace dirty coal fired power plants”. “Solar energy systems are available that can be built into your house and power your home without the need for dirty coal fired power plants”.
Man, if it were only that simple.
Yes, there are wind resources throughout the United States that could be developed to provide power into the grid. Yes, there are integrated solar photo-voltaic systems that can be built into your house to provide clean energy. Yes, there are low head and small hydro-electric opportunities across the USA that contribute power to the nationwide electric grid. These things exist today and people are actually doing them, but there is more to the story. I believe that blindly repeating these cheer leader statements creates a climate of distrust between utilities and consumers that destroys the working relationships needed to really solve our electric energy problems.
The future of all of these technologies is exiting and optimistic. Yet, there are some very valid reasons that utilities might balk at massive expenditures to bring these technologies into the system today.
Wind Power- Wind power has seen exponential growth in construction and development, but it is still a small portion of the generating resource that keeps all of our lights on. In many areas the wind blows hard enough to get your attention but not hard enough to make a financially viable resource. The obvious limitation is that we expect electricity all the time, but the wind doesn’t blow all the time even in the Dakotas. Yes, some day there may be enough wind generation equipment well connected and spread out over a big enough area that system managers can “schedule” reliable power to load centers (like your neighborhood). Today however, utilities know that you will not wait to have electricity until the wind is blowing. This means that while wind can make a growing contribution to the grid, utilities feel that they must have base load reliable power generation that they can schedule to meet your power needs. So now, they are building and paying for wind facilities and coal fired facilities at the same time. This is part of the reason that generation utilities grimace in a crowd that’s screaming for more wind power. The other limitation to wind power is that people don’t usually like to live in a good wind resource area. While Chicago may be an exception, wind resources aren’t located near major population centers. So now we are talking major transmission facility construction and the people that are usually pro- wind, seem to be Not in My Back Yard (NIMBYS) when it comes to building transmission systems. Studying your wind resource for a full 12 months is the only way to find out what the wind power potential is for your site. You can get a rough idea about wind resources national wide from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Solar Power-New developments in thin film construction for solar panels promise to make collectors that will turn 50 percent of the light that hits them into power instead of the 10 to 25 percent efficiency of panels in service today. Today you can buy solar roofing materials that do double duty. These new products have been commercially available for years and protect your roof like shingles while making electricity at the same time. Thousands of homes across the nation are using solar panels called photo-voltaic systems to power their homes. So why not just go solar now? -Two reasons. First they aren’t going to power my home unless I make major (read expensive) changes to my home’s building envelope (walls, attic insulation, windows) and appliances (refrigerator, well pump, stock tank heater, etc). Second, no one wants to be in the dark when the sun goes down, so making central station solar generation, puts us in the dark just when we get home and want the power. The exception to that is business and air conditioning loads. Here again we run into a “disconnect” between wishful thinking and reality. A simple Photo voltaic system with controls and equipment will set you back $10,000 to $20,000 for a modest system capable of generating 1.5 KW (kilo-Watts) and every five to seven years you get to replace batteries at about $4- 5 K a wack. When I go through my house and add up the load demands my appliances and equipment require, I’m in trouble and I’ll bet your home and business is in the same situation. It takes a very large and very expensive system to supply the 500 kWh per month average energy demand of homes in the USA. If you are serious about going solar you have to get a copy of the Real Goods Source book. It’s a product catalogue and a how to manual rolled into one book.
Hydroelectric power- Big dams have gotten a lot of bad press lately. Never mind that customers in big dam areas have some of the lowest power bills in the nation. Big dams create a host of other environmental problems that have their own opponents. Small hydro facilities in the 500 KW range are springing up nation-wide MARK FIND OUT FACTS. These facilities have real potential to contribute to the electric grid in regions that have the resource. So why aren’t utilities knocking down the doors to license and build these facilities? Well, there are two reasons, licensing and building. Each permit to build generation equipment requires a long drawn out battle because of all of the conflicting issues. Why go through multiple battles 500 to 1000 KW at a time when you can fight one 100 or 500 Megawatt battle and build the facility closer to the load demanding the power?
Even the smallest hydroelectric system can use more water and more water fall than you think. If you think you have a small hydroelectric resource you must do the research and study of your water resource to find out the potential to make electricity. The Real goods catalogue can help, but other hydroelectric education resources are available.
So, there you have it. I know it’s confusing. I know that in one sentence I sound like a democrat and the next sounds more republican. I had one women read my stuff and get real confused about which side I was on, and that is the problem today. It seems we have to pick sides and one side is for dirty coal and the other side is for clean renewable energy. The truth is both sides want electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Utilities are mandated by law to do two things. First they have to supply the amount of power you want when you want it. Second, they have to do it at the least possible expense. If that wasn’t hard enough, they have to get permits and design approval ten years before you want the power. No wonder some of those executives are cranky.
My next blog will explain why most utility executives hate net-metering.
Well meaning speakers got on the subject of net metering, wind power and hydro-electric energy generation. They were making the kind of statements that make uneducated crowds cheer and utility executives barf.
Here are some of the comments. “We have wind resources that should be used to replace dirty coal fired power plants”. “Solar energy systems are available that can be built into your house and power your home without the need for dirty coal fired power plants”.
Man, if it were only that simple.
Yes, there are wind resources throughout the United States that could be developed to provide power into the grid. Yes, there are integrated solar photo-voltaic systems that can be built into your house to provide clean energy. Yes, there are low head and small hydro-electric opportunities across the USA that contribute power to the nationwide electric grid. These things exist today and people are actually doing them, but there is more to the story. I believe that blindly repeating these cheer leader statements creates a climate of distrust between utilities and consumers that destroys the working relationships needed to really solve our electric energy problems.
The future of all of these technologies is exiting and optimistic. Yet, there are some very valid reasons that utilities might balk at massive expenditures to bring these technologies into the system today.
Wind Power- Wind power has seen exponential growth in construction and development, but it is still a small portion of the generating resource that keeps all of our lights on. In many areas the wind blows hard enough to get your attention but not hard enough to make a financially viable resource. The obvious limitation is that we expect electricity all the time, but the wind doesn’t blow all the time even in the Dakotas. Yes, some day there may be enough wind generation equipment well connected and spread out over a big enough area that system managers can “schedule” reliable power to load centers (like your neighborhood). Today however, utilities know that you will not wait to have electricity until the wind is blowing. This means that while wind can make a growing contribution to the grid, utilities feel that they must have base load reliable power generation that they can schedule to meet your power needs. So now, they are building and paying for wind facilities and coal fired facilities at the same time. This is part of the reason that generation utilities grimace in a crowd that’s screaming for more wind power. The other limitation to wind power is that people don’t usually like to live in a good wind resource area. While Chicago may be an exception, wind resources aren’t located near major population centers. So now we are talking major transmission facility construction and the people that are usually pro- wind, seem to be Not in My Back Yard (NIMBYS) when it comes to building transmission systems. Studying your wind resource for a full 12 months is the only way to find out what the wind power potential is for your site. You can get a rough idea about wind resources national wide from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
Solar Power-New developments in thin film construction for solar panels promise to make collectors that will turn 50 percent of the light that hits them into power instead of the 10 to 25 percent efficiency of panels in service today. Today you can buy solar roofing materials that do double duty. These new products have been commercially available for years and protect your roof like shingles while making electricity at the same time. Thousands of homes across the nation are using solar panels called photo-voltaic systems to power their homes. So why not just go solar now? -Two reasons. First they aren’t going to power my home unless I make major (read expensive) changes to my home’s building envelope (walls, attic insulation, windows) and appliances (refrigerator, well pump, stock tank heater, etc). Second, no one wants to be in the dark when the sun goes down, so making central station solar generation, puts us in the dark just when we get home and want the power. The exception to that is business and air conditioning loads. Here again we run into a “disconnect” between wishful thinking and reality. A simple Photo voltaic system with controls and equipment will set you back $10,000 to $20,000 for a modest system capable of generating 1.5 KW (kilo-Watts) and every five to seven years you get to replace batteries at about $4- 5 K a wack. When I go through my house and add up the load demands my appliances and equipment require, I’m in trouble and I’ll bet your home and business is in the same situation. It takes a very large and very expensive system to supply the 500 kWh per month average energy demand of homes in the USA. If you are serious about going solar you have to get a copy of the Real Goods Source book. It’s a product catalogue and a how to manual rolled into one book.
Hydroelectric power- Big dams have gotten a lot of bad press lately. Never mind that customers in big dam areas have some of the lowest power bills in the nation. Big dams create a host of other environmental problems that have their own opponents. Small hydro facilities in the 500 KW range are springing up nation-wide MARK FIND OUT FACTS. These facilities have real potential to contribute to the electric grid in regions that have the resource. So why aren’t utilities knocking down the doors to license and build these facilities? Well, there are two reasons, licensing and building. Each permit to build generation equipment requires a long drawn out battle because of all of the conflicting issues. Why go through multiple battles 500 to 1000 KW at a time when you can fight one 100 or 500 Megawatt battle and build the facility closer to the load demanding the power?
Even the smallest hydroelectric system can use more water and more water fall than you think. If you think you have a small hydroelectric resource you must do the research and study of your water resource to find out the potential to make electricity. The Real goods catalogue can help, but other hydroelectric education resources are available.
So, there you have it. I know it’s confusing. I know that in one sentence I sound like a democrat and the next sounds more republican. I had one women read my stuff and get real confused about which side I was on, and that is the problem today. It seems we have to pick sides and one side is for dirty coal and the other side is for clean renewable energy. The truth is both sides want electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Utilities are mandated by law to do two things. First they have to supply the amount of power you want when you want it. Second, they have to do it at the least possible expense. If that wasn’t hard enough, they have to get permits and design approval ten years before you want the power. No wonder some of those executives are cranky.
My next blog will explain why most utility executives hate net-metering.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
The Death of the Electric Utility Industry- Part Two
So, here is the scenario for the demise of central station electricity power grids. Many of the key elements are already visible. First you have climbing electric rates. Today, no one is predicting a decrease in electric rates. In fact no one is predicting stabilization of electric rates in the near future.
Next as central station power production rates climb, costs for alternative power systems keep going down. Innovations in wind turbine design, solar photo-voltaic output and other alternate electricity systems continue to drive down the costs of delivering power to your house from these choices. And, the majority of these systems are designed to work right at your house. No more buried cable or over head power lines for residential development. Bye Bye wires companies. No more distribution meters on homes for local distribution companies, adios distribution companies.
Of course this isn’t going to happen tomorrow, but the trends are there. Today the driving expense for wholesale power costs are power plants and transmission grids. These two features of the electric utility industry are also the most damaging to the environment. Witness the reduction in the number of proposed coal fired power plants as investors and consumer re-evaluate their roles in a climate change environment. Take away the residential load and what happens? Poof, now all that’s left is business and industrial loads.
Here too the trend is moving to disbursed generation facilities. Part of this movement is to improve reliability and part is a direct response to increasing rates and the lack of control that businesses feel over electric utility rate increases. The Y2K scare drove many industries to set up back up power systems that were under their control, just in case. So, many facilities have already done some of the planning to be grid free.
What can you do about all of this. Get informed. Find out how solar and wind might work at your house. Use existing tools to calculate what it would take for you to get off the grid. Even if you choose not to make the plunge, like me, you will at least understand your energy appetite and be able to have some control over your own climate change emissions. Here are some sites to get you started with your quest.
For innovations in wind energy see- http://www.getsmartenergy.com/
For help sizing your photovoltaic system see- http://www.realgoodssolar.com/
For help reducing your home energy use see- http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/reduce.html
I like electric utilities, really I do. I’m not ready to do this stuff by myself. I want a team of lineman ready to help get the lights back on after a storm. I want an office of skilled engineers designing a safe and reliable system to keep my home running. What I don’t want is an industry wide arrogance about individual energy choices that assumes central station power generation is the only economical way to go. That may be true today, but tomorrow will be here sooner than many utility executives can imagine.
Next as central station power production rates climb, costs for alternative power systems keep going down. Innovations in wind turbine design, solar photo-voltaic output and other alternate electricity systems continue to drive down the costs of delivering power to your house from these choices. And, the majority of these systems are designed to work right at your house. No more buried cable or over head power lines for residential development. Bye Bye wires companies. No more distribution meters on homes for local distribution companies, adios distribution companies.
Of course this isn’t going to happen tomorrow, but the trends are there. Today the driving expense for wholesale power costs are power plants and transmission grids. These two features of the electric utility industry are also the most damaging to the environment. Witness the reduction in the number of proposed coal fired power plants as investors and consumer re-evaluate their roles in a climate change environment. Take away the residential load and what happens? Poof, now all that’s left is business and industrial loads.
Here too the trend is moving to disbursed generation facilities. Part of this movement is to improve reliability and part is a direct response to increasing rates and the lack of control that businesses feel over electric utility rate increases. The Y2K scare drove many industries to set up back up power systems that were under their control, just in case. So, many facilities have already done some of the planning to be grid free.
What can you do about all of this. Get informed. Find out how solar and wind might work at your house. Use existing tools to calculate what it would take for you to get off the grid. Even if you choose not to make the plunge, like me, you will at least understand your energy appetite and be able to have some control over your own climate change emissions. Here are some sites to get you started with your quest.
For innovations in wind energy see- http://www.getsmartenergy.com/
For help sizing your photovoltaic system see- http://www.realgoodssolar.com/
For help reducing your home energy use see- http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-and-you/reduce.html
I like electric utilities, really I do. I’m not ready to do this stuff by myself. I want a team of lineman ready to help get the lights back on after a storm. I want an office of skilled engineers designing a safe and reliable system to keep my home running. What I don’t want is an industry wide arrogance about individual energy choices that assumes central station power generation is the only economical way to go. That may be true today, but tomorrow will be here sooner than many utility executives can imagine.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Wind Energy Could Be Mainstream Generation Resource Soon
With over 11,000 megawatts of wind energy on line in the USA and 2,000 of it coming on line in 2006 alone, wind stands to be a major contributor to renewable energy generation.
One of the obstacles to the adoption of wind generation as a major electric energy generation source in the Untied States has been the contention by some in the Utility industry that wind energy must be covered by duplicate dispatchable fixed output generation facilities. This argument has been used to down play the importance and usefulness of wind energy to the growing renewable energy moment. The argument goes like this.
Since the wind can stop blowing at any time, coal or other conventional generation resources must be built simultaneously with wind production facilities, just in case the wind stops blowing. While it maybe true that wind is not as reliable as conventional generation, according to a Utility Wind Integration Group ( UWIG) report entitled, “ Utility Wind Generation State of the Art”, studies confirm that wind generation can stand alone as a generation source without the requirement for fossil fuel back up. The anti wind sentiment also dampened the enthusiasm of utility planners to the acceptance of combined cycle gasification technologies and other advance clean coal and clean fossil fuel technologies because they argued that the extra expense of these unproven technologies was not justified if wind generators could kick in any time the wind was blowing hard enough to cover the demand.
While some of you may see a pattern here ( read conspiracy) I think that utilities justifiably and sincerely are concerned about the impact that wind generators might have on a stable energy grid. Restarting a coal fired plant (50% or more of the USA’s generation fuel) is no easy task. Neither is balancing load requirements with available electricity generation facilities. While some may retort that this is not rocket science, I think its pretty close. Keep in mind that terribly expensive things happen to utilities when there is not enough power available to cover the demand from millions of independent homes and businesses. Every kilowatt hour sent to your house or business comes from a system that plans ahead for your equipment to come on even when you haven’t told anyone that you have the equipment.
Utilities have developed sophisticated computer models that use weather forecasts, seasonal business cycle histories and historic residential demand data for the average home in their service area. They are prepared to turn on, ramp up and stoke up generation facilities or turn off, ramp down or slow down every generator in the USA every thirty minutes to an hour 24 hours a day 365 days per year. Just to keep us in “cold beer and toast”, as Amory Lovins says. I think it’s a bit more serious than just cold beer and toast, but a surprising amount of energy is wasted every year.
The UWIG report acknowledges that Wind Generators are a different type of generator but assure planners that wind generation can fit into the existing electricity generation system nationwide, with the proper planning, design and integration.
Electric energy dispatchers rely heavily on weather forecaster’s temperature predictions for scheduling their power delivery. The UWIG report says that weather forecasters are 80% effect at predicting wind speeds and durations. This additional weather data can go a long way towards making wind generators as reliable, predicable and dispatch able as fossil fuel generators.
Recent policy approvals for amendments to the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 lend new support for renewable energy initiatives. This could be the perfect storm that renewable energy needs to get a little help out there. The coal, nuclear and oil industries have subsidies and federal support that has been in place for decades. Now is the time to lend that same support to renewable energy by supporting Renewable Electricity Standards.
California, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado – have or are implementing Renewable Portfolio Standards of 20 percent or more. Now is the time to take it nation wide. Contact your congress person today.
What are your energy questions these days? Drop me a note and I'll try to cover your question in a future blog.
© Mark Daily 2007
One of the obstacles to the adoption of wind generation as a major electric energy generation source in the Untied States has been the contention by some in the Utility industry that wind energy must be covered by duplicate dispatchable fixed output generation facilities. This argument has been used to down play the importance and usefulness of wind energy to the growing renewable energy moment. The argument goes like this.
Since the wind can stop blowing at any time, coal or other conventional generation resources must be built simultaneously with wind production facilities, just in case the wind stops blowing. While it maybe true that wind is not as reliable as conventional generation, according to a Utility Wind Integration Group ( UWIG) report entitled, “ Utility Wind Generation State of the Art”, studies confirm that wind generation can stand alone as a generation source without the requirement for fossil fuel back up. The anti wind sentiment also dampened the enthusiasm of utility planners to the acceptance of combined cycle gasification technologies and other advance clean coal and clean fossil fuel technologies because they argued that the extra expense of these unproven technologies was not justified if wind generators could kick in any time the wind was blowing hard enough to cover the demand.
While some of you may see a pattern here ( read conspiracy) I think that utilities justifiably and sincerely are concerned about the impact that wind generators might have on a stable energy grid. Restarting a coal fired plant (50% or more of the USA’s generation fuel) is no easy task. Neither is balancing load requirements with available electricity generation facilities. While some may retort that this is not rocket science, I think its pretty close. Keep in mind that terribly expensive things happen to utilities when there is not enough power available to cover the demand from millions of independent homes and businesses. Every kilowatt hour sent to your house or business comes from a system that plans ahead for your equipment to come on even when you haven’t told anyone that you have the equipment.
Utilities have developed sophisticated computer models that use weather forecasts, seasonal business cycle histories and historic residential demand data for the average home in their service area. They are prepared to turn on, ramp up and stoke up generation facilities or turn off, ramp down or slow down every generator in the USA every thirty minutes to an hour 24 hours a day 365 days per year. Just to keep us in “cold beer and toast”, as Amory Lovins says. I think it’s a bit more serious than just cold beer and toast, but a surprising amount of energy is wasted every year.
The UWIG report acknowledges that Wind Generators are a different type of generator but assure planners that wind generation can fit into the existing electricity generation system nationwide, with the proper planning, design and integration.
Electric energy dispatchers rely heavily on weather forecaster’s temperature predictions for scheduling their power delivery. The UWIG report says that weather forecasters are 80% effect at predicting wind speeds and durations. This additional weather data can go a long way towards making wind generators as reliable, predicable and dispatch able as fossil fuel generators.
Recent policy approvals for amendments to the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 lend new support for renewable energy initiatives. This could be the perfect storm that renewable energy needs to get a little help out there. The coal, nuclear and oil industries have subsidies and federal support that has been in place for decades. Now is the time to lend that same support to renewable energy by supporting Renewable Electricity Standards.
California, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado – have or are implementing Renewable Portfolio Standards of 20 percent or more. Now is the time to take it nation wide. Contact your congress person today.
What are your energy questions these days? Drop me a note and I'll try to cover your question in a future blog.
© Mark Daily 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Wind Energy Could Be Mainstream Generation Resource Soon
With over 11,000 megawatts of wind energy on line in the USA and 2,000 of it coming on line in 2006 alone, wind stands to be a major contributor to renewable energy generation.
One of the obstacles to the adoption of wind generation as a major electric energy generation source in the Untied States has been the contention by some in the Utility industry that wind energy must be covered by duplicate dispatchable fixed output generation facilities. This argument has been used to down play the importance and usefulness of wind energy to the growing renewable energy moment. The argument goes like this.
Since the wind can stop blowing at any time, coal or other conventional generation resources must be built simultaneously with wind production facilities, just in case the wind stops blowing. While it maybe true that wind is not as reliable as conventional generation, according to a Utility Wind Integration Group ( UWIG) report entitled, " Utility Wind Generation State of the Art", studies confirm that wind generation can stand alone as a generation source without the requirement for fossil fuel back up.
The anti wind sentiment also dampened the enthusiasm of utility planners to the acceptance of combined cycle gasification technologies and other advance clean coal and clean fossil fuel technologies because they argued that the extra expense of these unproven technologies was not justified if wind generators could kick in any time the wind was blowing hard enough to cover the demand.
While some of you may see a pattern here ( read conspiracy) I think that utilities justifiably and sincerely are concerned about the impact that wind generators might have on a stable energy grid. Restarting a coal fired plant (50% or more of the USA’s generation fuel) is no easy task. Neither is balancing load requirements with available electricity generation facilities. While some may retort that this is not rocket science, I think its pretty close. Keep in mind that terribly expensive things happen to utilities when there is not enough power available to cover the demand from millions of independent homes and businesses. Every kilowatt hour sent to your house or business comes from a system that plans ahead for your equipment to come on even when you haven’t told anyone that you have the equipment.
Utilities have developed suffisticated computer models that use weather forecasts, seasonal business cycle histories and historic residential demand data for the average home in their service area. They are prepared to turn on, ramp up and stoke up generation facilities or turn off, ramp down or slow down every generator in the USA every thirty minutes to an hour, 24 hours a day 365 days per year. Just to keep us in cold beer and toast. Well, I guess it is more than just cold beer and toast.
The UWIG report acknowledges that Wind Generators are a different type of generator but assure planners that wind generation can fit into the existing electricity generation system nationwide, with the proper planning, design and integration.
Electric energy dispatchers rely heavily on weather forecaster’s temperature predictions for scheduling their power delivery. The UWIG report says that weather forecasters are 80% effect at predicting wind speeds and durations. This additional weather data can go a long way towards making wind generators as reliable, predicable and dispatch able as fossil fuel generators.
Recent policy approvals for amendments to the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 lend new support for renewable energy initiatives. This could be the perfect storm that renewable energy needs to get a little help out there. The coal, nuclear and oil industries have subsidies and federal support that has been in place for decades. Now is the time to lend that same support to renewable energy by supporting Renewable Electricity Standards.
Over twenty states including,California, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado – have or are implementing Renewable Portfolio Standards of 20 percent or more. Now is the time to take it nation wide.
Have you contacted your legislators to show support for Renewable Energy Standards? I'd like to hear from you one way or the other about this. What are your thoughts on the subject?
© Mark Daily 2007
One of the obstacles to the adoption of wind generation as a major electric energy generation source in the Untied States has been the contention by some in the Utility industry that wind energy must be covered by duplicate dispatchable fixed output generation facilities. This argument has been used to down play the importance and usefulness of wind energy to the growing renewable energy moment. The argument goes like this.
Since the wind can stop blowing at any time, coal or other conventional generation resources must be built simultaneously with wind production facilities, just in case the wind stops blowing. While it maybe true that wind is not as reliable as conventional generation, according to a Utility Wind Integration Group ( UWIG) report entitled, " Utility Wind Generation State of the Art", studies confirm that wind generation can stand alone as a generation source without the requirement for fossil fuel back up.
The anti wind sentiment also dampened the enthusiasm of utility planners to the acceptance of combined cycle gasification technologies and other advance clean coal and clean fossil fuel technologies because they argued that the extra expense of these unproven technologies was not justified if wind generators could kick in any time the wind was blowing hard enough to cover the demand.
While some of you may see a pattern here ( read conspiracy) I think that utilities justifiably and sincerely are concerned about the impact that wind generators might have on a stable energy grid. Restarting a coal fired plant (50% or more of the USA’s generation fuel) is no easy task. Neither is balancing load requirements with available electricity generation facilities. While some may retort that this is not rocket science, I think its pretty close. Keep in mind that terribly expensive things happen to utilities when there is not enough power available to cover the demand from millions of independent homes and businesses. Every kilowatt hour sent to your house or business comes from a system that plans ahead for your equipment to come on even when you haven’t told anyone that you have the equipment.
Utilities have developed suffisticated computer models that use weather forecasts, seasonal business cycle histories and historic residential demand data for the average home in their service area. They are prepared to turn on, ramp up and stoke up generation facilities or turn off, ramp down or slow down every generator in the USA every thirty minutes to an hour, 24 hours a day 365 days per year. Just to keep us in cold beer and toast. Well, I guess it is more than just cold beer and toast.
The UWIG report acknowledges that Wind Generators are a different type of generator but assure planners that wind generation can fit into the existing electricity generation system nationwide, with the proper planning, design and integration.
Electric energy dispatchers rely heavily on weather forecaster’s temperature predictions for scheduling their power delivery. The UWIG report says that weather forecasters are 80% effect at predicting wind speeds and durations. This additional weather data can go a long way towards making wind generators as reliable, predicable and dispatch able as fossil fuel generators.
Recent policy approvals for amendments to the National Energy Policy Act of 2005 lend new support for renewable energy initiatives. This could be the perfect storm that renewable energy needs to get a little help out there. The coal, nuclear and oil industries have subsidies and federal support that has been in place for decades. Now is the time to lend that same support to renewable energy by supporting Renewable Electricity Standards.
Over twenty states including,California, New Mexico, Minnesota, Oregon, and Colorado – have or are implementing Renewable Portfolio Standards of 20 percent or more. Now is the time to take it nation wide.
Have you contacted your legislators to show support for Renewable Energy Standards? I'd like to hear from you one way or the other about this. What are your thoughts on the subject?
© Mark Daily 2007
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Electricity Generation Requires a New Way to Talk and Listen
We could save the Universe if we just learned how to talk to each other. In 2002 Adam Kahane wrote a wonderful article called "Changing the World by Changing How We Talk and Listen". Mr. Kahane lays out a compelling argument for why so many of our most complicated world problems never get solved. Not only do they never get solved, but some problems never seem to change. The vitriolic arguments use the same words and phrases over and over again until all sides are red in the face with frustration. While his article draws from his experience mediating factions during the Guatamala’s peace vision, his principles apply well to any area of conflict. He clearly shows why frustration grows and how to resolve it.
Today frustration is growing in the great debate about how to power our modern society. And, this debate is now officially mainstream as of last night. Last night I saw a REMAX Real Estate television commercial with a sharp looking couple cheerfully telling their wonderful REMAX real estate agent that they wanted a home powered by solar and wind energy and maybe even bio- gases. Then the mythical wife wrinkles her nose as pictures of dairy cows swirl by while she says, "Well, maybe not methane gas".
Living technicolor proof that what Carl Sagan said long ago is true now more than ever. "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
One solution may be to follow Adam Kahane’s prescription for talking and listening. He claims that there are "four distinct conversational modes". Every discussion, whether it focuses on how to stop the genocide of pregnant women stacked like cord wood in a mass grave or how to create electric energy reliability without green house gases, must go through each of these four distinct conversational modes. These modes are "Downloading, Debating, Reflective Dialogue and Generative Dialogue". No long term solutions to any serious problems have ever occurred without the stake holders or effected players getting together and working through all four of these modes in order. You can’t skip any of the steps and you can’t change the order of the progression without destroying trust. And trust, is the foundation of any problem’s solution. It can only be obtained if each mode is played out in order.
Today the electric industry, environmental groups, and your average electricity customer are stuck somewhere between Downloading and Debating. Downloading occurs when stakeholders repeat facts about their solution over and over again. They list the reasons their special solution is the only answer to the problem and they repeatedly dismiss anyone else’s solution as unrealistic. In our current debate, this is why utility executives fight tooth and toe nail against renewable portfolio standards and why environmental groups continually deride, coal, nuclear and large hydro power projects. Downloading keeps everyone stuck in a constant shouting match about potential solutions while one side accuses the other side of not understanding the real problem and not have the sense or vision to propose a real world solution. While we must go through this part of the discussion, Downloading offers nothing new. All sides get stuck in their own self confidence believing they have the solution while belittling other solutions. We don’t need more facts about fuels. We need to go beyond downloading facts to come up with a radical new solution. This is not an argument to wait until technology saves us with a magic energy pill. It is a plea for us to get the objective facts on the table and move to the next step.
Downloading "facts" as both sides see it, sets up the second mode of communication - Debating. Here we see more of what "is" but offer no new solutions to the problem. We talk about more coal or add the concept of clean coal. We talk about more solar and add Concentrating Solar Power. We throw acronyms around like CSP and IGCC. The discussion logjams into talking heads and dueling experts with the consumer shaking their heads in disgust as they head for the fridge for another cold beer. Debating fosters winners and losers, without getting to the real understanding of other solutions or the role of all solutions in solving the problem. This won’t happen until debating ends and understanding begins to dawn on all of the players.
This is where Reflective dialogue comes into play. It’s the light bulb going on when the person realizes," Oh yeah, I see now that a photovoltaic system will not meet my energy needs if I continue to demand this level of power". Or, it’s the utility executive that really begins to see that some of his customers are bailing from central station grids, changing their life styles to allow small scale wind and solar systems to meet their energy needs. Its making realistic assessments about the role of energy conservation. Its getting into each other’s heads and gaining empathy for the real world situation that the other person is coming from. Reflective Dialogue will not produce the answers to the puzzle, but it will set up the trust and understanding that is vital to getting to what Steven Covey calls the "Third Alternative". That is the solution that makes everyone pretty happy without making anyone feel terribly mad. It makes all stake holders winners because through Reflective dialogue they finally understand why that crazy SOB thinks the way that they think. It begins to give validity to multiple solutions and sets the foundation for the next mode of dialogue, Generative Dialogue.
According to Kahane, Generative Dialogue produces a "deeper unity of purpose". The big light bulb finally gets lit in each and every stake holder and every one realizes that the only way to stop the atrocities of war or save the world from energy related side effects , or power civilization without destroying it, is to come together and work together on that "Third Alternative" . The alternative that makes every stake holder look like a hero to their constituents. It’s the solution that allows everyone to go home with their heads held high taking rightful credit for solving the problem without sacrificing their sense of what is right.
This is where we as a nation and a world need to go when it comes to deciding our energy future. When history is written describing how this generation met the challenges of our time and produced a workable and healthy energy solution to power the future, the record will show that we went through each of these "four distinct conversational modes".
We must keep this conversation going until we can all collectively make it through all four modes. As the Guatemalans found during their peace initiative, the stakes are way too high to do anything else. Does this mean that all we have to do is go through the four steps and like the addict finishing the twelve step rehabilitation program all problems are solved? Of course not. There will be good days and bad days. There will still be debates and downloading, setbacks and discouragement. Clearly, the methods being used to solve the problem today are not working. Its time to try something different. "Insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result," said Werner Erhart.
It is time to stop the insanity.
Today frustration is growing in the great debate about how to power our modern society. And, this debate is now officially mainstream as of last night. Last night I saw a REMAX Real Estate television commercial with a sharp looking couple cheerfully telling their wonderful REMAX real estate agent that they wanted a home powered by solar and wind energy and maybe even bio- gases. Then the mythical wife wrinkles her nose as pictures of dairy cows swirl by while she says, "Well, maybe not methane gas".
Living technicolor proof that what Carl Sagan said long ago is true now more than ever. "We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
One solution may be to follow Adam Kahane’s prescription for talking and listening. He claims that there are "four distinct conversational modes". Every discussion, whether it focuses on how to stop the genocide of pregnant women stacked like cord wood in a mass grave or how to create electric energy reliability without green house gases, must go through each of these four distinct conversational modes. These modes are "Downloading, Debating, Reflective Dialogue and Generative Dialogue". No long term solutions to any serious problems have ever occurred without the stake holders or effected players getting together and working through all four of these modes in order. You can’t skip any of the steps and you can’t change the order of the progression without destroying trust. And trust, is the foundation of any problem’s solution. It can only be obtained if each mode is played out in order.
Today the electric industry, environmental groups, and your average electricity customer are stuck somewhere between Downloading and Debating. Downloading occurs when stakeholders repeat facts about their solution over and over again. They list the reasons their special solution is the only answer to the problem and they repeatedly dismiss anyone else’s solution as unrealistic. In our current debate, this is why utility executives fight tooth and toe nail against renewable portfolio standards and why environmental groups continually deride, coal, nuclear and large hydro power projects. Downloading keeps everyone stuck in a constant shouting match about potential solutions while one side accuses the other side of not understanding the real problem and not have the sense or vision to propose a real world solution. While we must go through this part of the discussion, Downloading offers nothing new. All sides get stuck in their own self confidence believing they have the solution while belittling other solutions. We don’t need more facts about fuels. We need to go beyond downloading facts to come up with a radical new solution. This is not an argument to wait until technology saves us with a magic energy pill. It is a plea for us to get the objective facts on the table and move to the next step.
Downloading "facts" as both sides see it, sets up the second mode of communication - Debating. Here we see more of what "is" but offer no new solutions to the problem. We talk about more coal or add the concept of clean coal. We talk about more solar and add Concentrating Solar Power. We throw acronyms around like CSP and IGCC. The discussion logjams into talking heads and dueling experts with the consumer shaking their heads in disgust as they head for the fridge for another cold beer. Debating fosters winners and losers, without getting to the real understanding of other solutions or the role of all solutions in solving the problem. This won’t happen until debating ends and understanding begins to dawn on all of the players.
This is where Reflective dialogue comes into play. It’s the light bulb going on when the person realizes," Oh yeah, I see now that a photovoltaic system will not meet my energy needs if I continue to demand this level of power". Or, it’s the utility executive that really begins to see that some of his customers are bailing from central station grids, changing their life styles to allow small scale wind and solar systems to meet their energy needs. Its making realistic assessments about the role of energy conservation. Its getting into each other’s heads and gaining empathy for the real world situation that the other person is coming from. Reflective Dialogue will not produce the answers to the puzzle, but it will set up the trust and understanding that is vital to getting to what Steven Covey calls the "Third Alternative". That is the solution that makes everyone pretty happy without making anyone feel terribly mad. It makes all stake holders winners because through Reflective dialogue they finally understand why that crazy SOB thinks the way that they think. It begins to give validity to multiple solutions and sets the foundation for the next mode of dialogue, Generative Dialogue.
According to Kahane, Generative Dialogue produces a "deeper unity of purpose". The big light bulb finally gets lit in each and every stake holder and every one realizes that the only way to stop the atrocities of war or save the world from energy related side effects , or power civilization without destroying it, is to come together and work together on that "Third Alternative" . The alternative that makes every stake holder look like a hero to their constituents. It’s the solution that allows everyone to go home with their heads held high taking rightful credit for solving the problem without sacrificing their sense of what is right.
This is where we as a nation and a world need to go when it comes to deciding our energy future. When history is written describing how this generation met the challenges of our time and produced a workable and healthy energy solution to power the future, the record will show that we went through each of these "four distinct conversational modes".
We must keep this conversation going until we can all collectively make it through all four modes. As the Guatemalans found during their peace initiative, the stakes are way too high to do anything else. Does this mean that all we have to do is go through the four steps and like the addict finishing the twelve step rehabilitation program all problems are solved? Of course not. There will be good days and bad days. There will still be debates and downloading, setbacks and discouragement. Clearly, the methods being used to solve the problem today are not working. Its time to try something different. "Insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting a different result," said Werner Erhart.
It is time to stop the insanity.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Stop Building Power Plants- Get Smart
While CEO’s scurry around making grand plans to build more power plants and so called environmentalists lecture about the need for sustainable and renewable power, everyone is missing the point. Why Amory Lovins hasn’t gotten farther with his "Negawatts" concept is easy to see. When energy conservation meets your electricity needs, nobody makes the big bucks. And, it requires you to take action instead of blaming our energy problems on utilities, governments, or embryonic industries.
Many Western and Southern home owners could and are harnessing the sun. Plains and coastal states are harnessing the wind. Agricultural states could expand bio-fuels. Any place with garbage could do a better job making bio-gas. In many cases these technologies could be employed by home owners to power their homes, today; no waiting; no government action; no utility action. Yet, these solutions will take a big bite out of your wallet and require you to be the "utility company". The main problem is everyone wants to make sure that they have a wall street style payback and they want juice at the flip of the switch; without learning about battery storage levels or wind speeds. The other problem is that our homes and lifestyles are not built to conserve energy. The housing industry continues to confuse size and space with imagination. And, no one seems to be able to find south until after the house is built. So what’s a Boy Scout to do? It is still possible to conserve energy no matter what your house is like. The key is to learn what uses energy at your place and resolve to take action.
Enough free or low cost actions could be taken, that, when combined across the nation would have a real impact on our national energy appetite. The web has a plethora of sites devoted to energy audits and check lists for saving energy in the typical American home. If you haven’t visited them, this cold winter might be the time to start looking for ways you can save on your energy bill. If you are too lazy to do that, at least read this.
There really is no such thing as a typical American home. Size matters and so does construction, number of occupants, number of teenagers and the number and kind of appliances. Having said that, there are "typical" things that we know about homes.
The largest percentage of energy use in the American home goes to space heating. When it comes to space heating expenses, there are variables that you can so something about for a reasonable price and there are variables that you can’t touch unless you burn your house down and start over. This article focuses on simple non-flammable ideas.
The thermostat is a quick and easy way to cut costs. If you don’t have a programmable setback thermostat, you can save energy and pay for the cost of the new thermostat in about three winter months of heating or about four summer months of cooling. You can do this setback ritual by hand, but the only customer that I’ve known to pull this off was a Professor of Mathematics at a four year college. Even he got tired of it after several years. You save one percent off the heating part of your bill for every degree of set back you practice for ten hours or more a day. Other simple things that you can do to save on space heating costs include adding more air tight layers to windows ( plastic, glass, plexiglass) with more than 1/4 inch and less than 11/2 inches of space between each layer. One really simple thing you can do to lower heating costs is to take the screens off your south facing windows. This allows up to ten percent more of the sun’s heat to warm the inside of your house for free. Leaving drapes open during the day and closing them at night also helps. Leaving drapes closed on the south side is a really bad idea unless you just like sending money to your utility company. One other simple thing that you can do to cut heating costs is to caulk cracks and holes. I’ve read that 40 percent of a typical homes heating expense comes from air infiltration. When in, doubt caulk every inside joint where different construction materials meet. Or, better yet get a blower door test and find out exactly where the holes are. Many electric utilities offer a free or reduced cost blower door test service.
Water heating is the next biggest utility expense. Here again the thermostat is the first place to look. Most utilities have been recommending that water heater thermostats be set no higher than 120 degrees for years. On electric water heaters, you must make sure that both thermostats are set at the same temperature. There are almost always two thermostats on an electric water heater so keep looking until you find both. Adding an insulating blanket is the next best thing to do, unless your water heater warranty says, "no". Gas water heaters can also be insulated, but you must make sure that the installation meets all, and I mean all, safety requirements listed in your owners manual.
After that, doing all your laundry with cold water, installing low flow fixtures for showers and faucets and politely asking people to take shorter showers are about your only choices. There are some tips to getting good quality low flow fixtures. The styles that say "aerated" or "jet air" or something like that make the water travel a little faster and make you feel like you are getting more water. This is especially helpful for shower heads. If the box doesn’t brag about some special feature like this it probably means that the low flow is achieve by just choking off the water. This makes for wimpy showers.
Next on the energy evil doers list for the typical home is refrigeration. Unless you have to have rock hard ice cream and milk so cold it makes your teeth hurt, you can save some money here. You will need a thermometer to do this right. Most refrigerators have useless dials that say "colder" or "warmer". Obviously warmer is less expensive to run than colder but the Colorado State Health Department requires commercial coolers to be 40 Fahrenheit degrees plus or minus two degrees and freezing happens at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so a thermometer works best. Here again you save one percent off the refrigeration part of your bill for every degree of setback you do. Two other easy saving tips for refrigerators include keeping the fridge full but not too full and keeping the back and bottom of the outside clean and dust free. Many homeowners keep a half full freezer in the garage, just incase they bring home some road kill. If its getting close to empty, stick the rest of it in your half empty freezer compartment of your regular fridge and unplug the freezer.
Then next biggest bite on your energy bill are your appliances. Unless you have a welding machine in the garage, this part of your bill is usually small. Lately news media have been fussing over "phanton loads" and blame today’s high tech "always on" appliances for this expense. The cost and the energy use for phantom loads are small. The only real way to find "phantom loads" and determine how much of a chunk they take out of your wallet is to get an appliance meter and check them. I got a Kill-O-Watt meter for Christmas several years ago and I like to experiment. My stereo has a remote control that powers it up and changes features and volume. As far as I can tell, it only uses electricity when the power is on. Somehow it hibernates very efficiently and draws zero power. My television on the other hand uses 8 watts all the time, even when it is turned off. This adds up to a whopping 69 cents per month. Some recent articles claim that you should install a light stick for these appliances and turn them off. You can spend $10.00 for a simple light stick and in fourteen months you will start saving 69 cents per month. You may also have to reprogram equipment when you kill the power. Only you can decide which way to go.
Lighting is one area that deserves attention. Its not that there are big savings to be had here, but its easy and it works. Fluorescent lighting offers more light per watt than regular incandescent or halogen bulbs. New LED lighting can offer even more savings, but the systems are harder to find and more expensive. There are also some fiber optic lights on the market that can save money over incandescent or halogen bulbs, but they are expensive to install.
In your home, compact fluorescent lights can take the place of any incandescent bulb as long as it fits into the fixture - some can’t. Always measure before you buy. A 16 watt compact fluorescent bulb can save you $36 dollars a year if you replace a 60 watt incandescent bulb that’s on 24 hours a day every day. Compact fluorescent bulbs last ten times as long making them ideal replacements for hard to reach places or commercial applications. Some compact fluorescent bulbs have a hard time starting in cold weather so use caution in outdoor applications. Having said that, I’ve used a 60 watt GE capsule compact fluorescent bulb on my front porch north of Gunnison, Colorado for years without problems. It protests a little when its below zero, but it always gets going after a few minutes.
The key to energy and cost savings in your home is self education. Knowing which pieces of equipment to keep an eye on is the best way to save money and avoid surprises. The following formula is the foundation to that education. Your electric bill equals watts divided by 1000, times Time times the rate per kWh. Or, $ = kW X T X $/kWh. While this is absurdly simple, the challenge of accurately filling in the blanks can drive you crazy. However, if you are serious about saving the universe, putting a halt to global climate change and saving your hard earned cash, you have to bite the bullet and learn this. New appliances and equipment usually have a label near the power cord that lists watts and amps or Kilowatts (KW) and amps. If you know kilowatts (KW) all you have to do is figure out Time, or how many hours a month it runs. Multiply KW times Time to get kWh. Then all you have to do is multiple by the rate. The national average must be up to $0.09 per kWh by now, but rates range from $0.08 to $0.14. That little difference makes a big difference on your bill, so find one of your old bills and get your kWh rate. If you know watts, divide by 1000 to get KW and then multiply by the rate.
For example, my television is so old (1988) that I can’t find anything on it to tell me how much power it uses, but I know it uses 74 watts when its on. I used my handy dandy Kill-O-Watt meter to get the number. If I watch two hours of television per day, in thirty days I use 4,440 watt hours of electricity. Dividing by 1,000 I come up with 4.44 kWh. Multiple that by the average rate of $0.09 and I can expect to pay 40 cents per month to watch television.
Larger appliances like baseboard electric heaters use more power. The watts of power for baseboard heaters is usually labeled on the front on a shiny silver tag. For a 1,000 watt heater that’s on six hours a day, the calculation looks like this:
1,000/1,000 X 6 X $0.09 X 30 days = $16.20 per month.
OK all you watt busters, mount up and ride. It doesn’t matter if you like Nuclear Power or Pulverized Coal or Integrated Combined Cycle Gasification, or Concentrated Solar Power, or Hydro-power or Wind power. New construction of any kind in this day and age will drive up your rates and your bill. Finding "Negawatts" could scare off some of these new power plant plans and keep your energy dollars in your wallet at the same time.
© Mark Daily
Many Western and Southern home owners could and are harnessing the sun. Plains and coastal states are harnessing the wind. Agricultural states could expand bio-fuels. Any place with garbage could do a better job making bio-gas. In many cases these technologies could be employed by home owners to power their homes, today; no waiting; no government action; no utility action. Yet, these solutions will take a big bite out of your wallet and require you to be the "utility company". The main problem is everyone wants to make sure that they have a wall street style payback and they want juice at the flip of the switch; without learning about battery storage levels or wind speeds. The other problem is that our homes and lifestyles are not built to conserve energy. The housing industry continues to confuse size and space with imagination. And, no one seems to be able to find south until after the house is built. So what’s a Boy Scout to do? It is still possible to conserve energy no matter what your house is like. The key is to learn what uses energy at your place and resolve to take action.
Enough free or low cost actions could be taken, that, when combined across the nation would have a real impact on our national energy appetite. The web has a plethora of sites devoted to energy audits and check lists for saving energy in the typical American home. If you haven’t visited them, this cold winter might be the time to start looking for ways you can save on your energy bill. If you are too lazy to do that, at least read this.
There really is no such thing as a typical American home. Size matters and so does construction, number of occupants, number of teenagers and the number and kind of appliances. Having said that, there are "typical" things that we know about homes.
The largest percentage of energy use in the American home goes to space heating. When it comes to space heating expenses, there are variables that you can so something about for a reasonable price and there are variables that you can’t touch unless you burn your house down and start over. This article focuses on simple non-flammable ideas.
The thermostat is a quick and easy way to cut costs. If you don’t have a programmable setback thermostat, you can save energy and pay for the cost of the new thermostat in about three winter months of heating or about four summer months of cooling. You can do this setback ritual by hand, but the only customer that I’ve known to pull this off was a Professor of Mathematics at a four year college. Even he got tired of it after several years. You save one percent off the heating part of your bill for every degree of set back you practice for ten hours or more a day. Other simple things that you can do to save on space heating costs include adding more air tight layers to windows ( plastic, glass, plexiglass) with more than 1/4 inch and less than 11/2 inches of space between each layer. One really simple thing you can do to lower heating costs is to take the screens off your south facing windows. This allows up to ten percent more of the sun’s heat to warm the inside of your house for free. Leaving drapes open during the day and closing them at night also helps. Leaving drapes closed on the south side is a really bad idea unless you just like sending money to your utility company. One other simple thing that you can do to cut heating costs is to caulk cracks and holes. I’ve read that 40 percent of a typical homes heating expense comes from air infiltration. When in, doubt caulk every inside joint where different construction materials meet. Or, better yet get a blower door test and find out exactly where the holes are. Many electric utilities offer a free or reduced cost blower door test service.
Water heating is the next biggest utility expense. Here again the thermostat is the first place to look. Most utilities have been recommending that water heater thermostats be set no higher than 120 degrees for years. On electric water heaters, you must make sure that both thermostats are set at the same temperature. There are almost always two thermostats on an electric water heater so keep looking until you find both. Adding an insulating blanket is the next best thing to do, unless your water heater warranty says, "no". Gas water heaters can also be insulated, but you must make sure that the installation meets all, and I mean all, safety requirements listed in your owners manual.
After that, doing all your laundry with cold water, installing low flow fixtures for showers and faucets and politely asking people to take shorter showers are about your only choices. There are some tips to getting good quality low flow fixtures. The styles that say "aerated" or "jet air" or something like that make the water travel a little faster and make you feel like you are getting more water. This is especially helpful for shower heads. If the box doesn’t brag about some special feature like this it probably means that the low flow is achieve by just choking off the water. This makes for wimpy showers.
Next on the energy evil doers list for the typical home is refrigeration. Unless you have to have rock hard ice cream and milk so cold it makes your teeth hurt, you can save some money here. You will need a thermometer to do this right. Most refrigerators have useless dials that say "colder" or "warmer". Obviously warmer is less expensive to run than colder but the Colorado State Health Department requires commercial coolers to be 40 Fahrenheit degrees plus or minus two degrees and freezing happens at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, so a thermometer works best. Here again you save one percent off the refrigeration part of your bill for every degree of setback you do. Two other easy saving tips for refrigerators include keeping the fridge full but not too full and keeping the back and bottom of the outside clean and dust free. Many homeowners keep a half full freezer in the garage, just incase they bring home some road kill. If its getting close to empty, stick the rest of it in your half empty freezer compartment of your regular fridge and unplug the freezer.
Then next biggest bite on your energy bill are your appliances. Unless you have a welding machine in the garage, this part of your bill is usually small. Lately news media have been fussing over "phanton loads" and blame today’s high tech "always on" appliances for this expense. The cost and the energy use for phantom loads are small. The only real way to find "phantom loads" and determine how much of a chunk they take out of your wallet is to get an appliance meter and check them. I got a Kill-O-Watt meter for Christmas several years ago and I like to experiment. My stereo has a remote control that powers it up and changes features and volume. As far as I can tell, it only uses electricity when the power is on. Somehow it hibernates very efficiently and draws zero power. My television on the other hand uses 8 watts all the time, even when it is turned off. This adds up to a whopping 69 cents per month. Some recent articles claim that you should install a light stick for these appliances and turn them off. You can spend $10.00 for a simple light stick and in fourteen months you will start saving 69 cents per month. You may also have to reprogram equipment when you kill the power. Only you can decide which way to go.
Lighting is one area that deserves attention. Its not that there are big savings to be had here, but its easy and it works. Fluorescent lighting offers more light per watt than regular incandescent or halogen bulbs. New LED lighting can offer even more savings, but the systems are harder to find and more expensive. There are also some fiber optic lights on the market that can save money over incandescent or halogen bulbs, but they are expensive to install.
In your home, compact fluorescent lights can take the place of any incandescent bulb as long as it fits into the fixture - some can’t. Always measure before you buy. A 16 watt compact fluorescent bulb can save you $36 dollars a year if you replace a 60 watt incandescent bulb that’s on 24 hours a day every day. Compact fluorescent bulbs last ten times as long making them ideal replacements for hard to reach places or commercial applications. Some compact fluorescent bulbs have a hard time starting in cold weather so use caution in outdoor applications. Having said that, I’ve used a 60 watt GE capsule compact fluorescent bulb on my front porch north of Gunnison, Colorado for years without problems. It protests a little when its below zero, but it always gets going after a few minutes.
The key to energy and cost savings in your home is self education. Knowing which pieces of equipment to keep an eye on is the best way to save money and avoid surprises. The following formula is the foundation to that education. Your electric bill equals watts divided by 1000, times Time times the rate per kWh. Or, $ = kW X T X $/kWh. While this is absurdly simple, the challenge of accurately filling in the blanks can drive you crazy. However, if you are serious about saving the universe, putting a halt to global climate change and saving your hard earned cash, you have to bite the bullet and learn this. New appliances and equipment usually have a label near the power cord that lists watts and amps or Kilowatts (KW) and amps. If you know kilowatts (KW) all you have to do is figure out Time, or how many hours a month it runs. Multiply KW times Time to get kWh. Then all you have to do is multiple by the rate. The national average must be up to $0.09 per kWh by now, but rates range from $0.08 to $0.14. That little difference makes a big difference on your bill, so find one of your old bills and get your kWh rate. If you know watts, divide by 1000 to get KW and then multiply by the rate.
For example, my television is so old (1988) that I can’t find anything on it to tell me how much power it uses, but I know it uses 74 watts when its on. I used my handy dandy Kill-O-Watt meter to get the number. If I watch two hours of television per day, in thirty days I use 4,440 watt hours of electricity. Dividing by 1,000 I come up with 4.44 kWh. Multiple that by the average rate of $0.09 and I can expect to pay 40 cents per month to watch television.
Larger appliances like baseboard electric heaters use more power. The watts of power for baseboard heaters is usually labeled on the front on a shiny silver tag. For a 1,000 watt heater that’s on six hours a day, the calculation looks like this:
1,000/1,000 X 6 X $0.09 X 30 days = $16.20 per month.
OK all you watt busters, mount up and ride. It doesn’t matter if you like Nuclear Power or Pulverized Coal or Integrated Combined Cycle Gasification, or Concentrated Solar Power, or Hydro-power or Wind power. New construction of any kind in this day and age will drive up your rates and your bill. Finding "Negawatts" could scare off some of these new power plant plans and keep your energy dollars in your wallet at the same time.
© Mark Daily
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