Darn windmills always blocking the road :D

[dave1949]

Scooby - those are all good thoughts.

It doesn't have to be, nor should it, a one size fits all solution. There are areas with abundant sunshine, others with wind, a few with hydro, tidal, etc.

I looked at off-grid solar electric when we were planning our house. I decided it just cost way too much if you are reasonably close to the grid money-wise.

Grid-tied seems to be gaining in popularity - as it should IMO. I didn't go that route either, but a backfit to that technology is nothing like getting 100% off the grid.

I feel like I don't really understand what is being talked about as smart-grid technology. Converting AC to DC transmission I understand. From where we are today, to the utility 'borrowing' some power from your idle electric (plugged in) auto - seems a long way off.

Dave.

 

[Scooby074]

DC transmission is a method to reduce heating losses on long runs of transmission lines. However i just dont see this happening. I honestly think that the next improvement will be Ultra High Voltage transmission.. and far in the future superconducting transmission lines.

However when local generation becomes more realistic, the needs for long distance transmission will diminish. There is a company (Hyperion) thats going to produce a self contained, nuclear reactor, that requires minimal maintenance intended for local generation.http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/561553

http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/


The thought of using hybrids as generators is an interesting one.

There are other options like Hondas freewatt, basically using the heat from a generator to heat the house and the electricity to power it shaving 50% off your power bill. An interesting concept that we'll see more of no doubt.
Honda Power Equipment - Honda Home Energy: Micro Combined Heat and Power

 

[dave1949]

Jason,

Wow, that is all very cool stuff! Didn't know about either the Honda MCHP or the Hyperion reactor.

I could see the Honda unit being used all over the place around here. Folks have camps in the boonies with no power available. That unit would provide a modest amount of power and hot water all in one package.

It seems like we would need a fairly massive interface standardization effort to make an effective smart-grid work at the residential/light commercial levels. It would certainly need to 'talk' to all the big resistive loads. There would have to be devices that never loose power except in catastrophic failues, like medical support equipment. And some centralized control unit that oversees the use and allocation versus the power availability and demand forecast. (It will be doomed if it gets tagged as 'socialized power' Death Panel for your toaster - anyone? Okay, I'll quit.) That all adds up to a big, big project in my mind.

I don't doubt big changes are on the horizon. It will be interesting to witness.

Dave.

 

[Scooby074]

Dave, I think one of the main problems with the honda system right now is cost. I seem to remember seeing $20000 somewheres, but i could be wrong. However like most things the price will eventually drop.

Smart grid will be amazing if it ever comes to be. It really needs to happen as our current grid system is acient and slow to adapt to rapidly changing conditions.

Socialized power and appliance death panels lol shhhhh... dont tell anyone about california's recent proposal to eliminate the sale of large (40"+ ) inefficient (mostly plasma) tv's Or the phase out of incandescent bulbs.

On the lighting topic, I already bought my first LED outdoor lightbulb (Phillips from HD). So far im really happy. One neat benefit besides extremely low operating cost, is that it is almost invisible to flying insects, so no annoying moths by the door. Price is a bit high (around $25 CDN) though. LED lighting is the answer, more so than Compact Florescent. Cheaper running costs, longer life, and no mercury.

LED is already making inroads into the tough commercial environment. Crouse Hinds has several industrial models. No idea on price yet, but id love to see them in use, it would cut those annoying light service calls down to nothing.
http://www.crouse-hinds.com/smart/videos/cch_evled_R0.swf

http://www.crouse-hinds.com/crousehinds/newproducts/newproducts.cfm?id=276&action=view&CompanyID=1

 

[dave1949]

LED lights are almost invisible to insects? Who knew.

I think a really smart grid - the object of which would be to minimize over-capacity in both generation and transmission thereby lowering costs, would be network driven. The devices of interest on the network would be power sources (distributed micro generation) and significant power users (dryers, water heaters, elec. heat elements, etc.) Every control device would meet or exceed typical commercial level uptime - 99.5%

If you followed a computer network strategy each of these sources and sinks would have something like a MAC address. There would a veritable Disney Land of algorithms and heuristics. The individual devices would have memories and 'learn' how they are operated - feeding that to a central system that keeps track of it all, and knows how to priortize allocation.

You could add or remove devices seamlessly, no data entry clerks Pricing would tiered - the more flexible you are willing to be on when you get large amounts of power, the cheaper the rates. This would drive the manufactures to provide appliances compliant with this.

If I were the SmartGrid King For A Day
Dave.

 

[tommu56]

DC transmission is a method to reduce heating losses on long runs of transmission lines. However i just dont see this happening. I honestly think that the next improvement will be Ultra High Voltage transmission.. and far in the future superconducting transmission lines.

I don't see DC as an option because of the losses it is far easier to increase voltage and reduce the current send it along and drop it back down to get a usable voltage and higher current.

The pervable Edison / Westinghouse,Tesla debate

One issue of the nukes if TMI was a BWR in stead of a PWR it probability wouldn't have had as much of a problem if any in my opinion.

tom

 

[woodchuckcanuck]

On the lighting topic, I already bought my first LED outdoor lightbulb (Phillips from HD).

Scoob,
Where did you pick up the LED?

 

[dmccarty]

<snip>

Dan: the problems with the turbine blades were on a few models from a specific manufacturer. They were a low cost supplier, who manufactured blades in India. The companies name was Sulzon.

An Indian company, I don't remember its name, also bought out a well known German blade manufacturer. Seems like they both were having problems with their blades.

The Wall Street Journal had a long story on this a year or so back. They also just had a report on the number of protected birds killed by wind mills vs Exxon storage tanks. Exxon is fined for killing a few birds. Wind Farms in some area kill far more protected birds but get no fines.

Later,
Dan

 

[dave1949]

The Wall Street Journal had a long story on this a year or so back. They also just had a report on the number of protected birds killed by wind mills vs Exxon storage tanks. Exxon is fined for killing a few birds. Wind Farms in some area kill far more protected birds but get no fines.

Later,
Dan

I think that is why env. orgs. are trying to get wind farms sited in areas not on known flight paths.

I worked on a project at the Portsmouth, NH Naval shipyard, which happens to be loaded with over-populated sea gulls. They were allowed to collect eggs out of nests, but not allowed to kill the gulls. A few lobster boats moored nearby, they are a constant source of rotting bait, which suits the gulls fine.

Those gulls would pick one car out of hundreds in the parking lot. They would roost and poop on that same car all day long. Of course, you never knew until your shift ended if you'd 'won' the lottery that day. Got me once, it was about bad enough I considered walking home. You could hardly tell if it was really your car or not.

The prevailing wisdom was red cars were targeted more than other colors, but I could never confirm that theory.

Dave.

 

[Scooby074]

Dave: The LED's must emit less uv or something so that they attract the insects less? I dont know why it works just seems to in my case.

Good ideas on the smart grid. Large consumers of electricity already are on a short notice disconnect, where the utility can basically call and tell them to shut down in say 30 mins. This gives the user a lower rate if they subscribe to this system.

Were already moving to a peak power system here. If you want, you can get a demand meter for your house. Youll pay a lower rate by using power at night or during off peak hours. You can set your washer/dryer or dishwasher to run after hours for savings.

Another interesting device are the storage heaters like the Steffes ETS. They have a mass of "bricks" inside, which you heat during off peak. This heat is then returned to your house during peak hours. Theyre becoming incredibly popular around here in new construction. ETS - Residential & Commercial Off-peak heating - Manufacturing - Engineering | Steffes Corporat

I think in order to get to a Advanced smart grid like you suggest, its going to require a massive government manufacturer and hydro effort. To get tall these guys to agree on a common standard will be quite a task.. Maybe we need a "Grid Czar"

Tom: I agree. This is the age old Tesla/Edison debate. Remembering that a transformer is almost the perfect machine (very high efficency), and everything we own is on a AC system, the inefficiencies thrown into the equation by the conversion of AC to DC and back again will negate any of the I2R losses in transmission. Plus there will be added equipment costs, and the transmission lines themselves will be much more expensive in a DC system. I think AC is here to stay.

woodchuckcanuck: The LED im using now is a Phillips Cool white from Home Depot. This is the 2nd generation one. The first one was aweful, and produced no light.

Home Hardware has quite a selection of LED's now as well. Theyre priced less than the HD ones, but im not sure of their quality. The HD ones have a large cast aluminum body, which acts as a heat sink, The HH ones didnt appear to have the same "mass". Removal of heat from high wattage LED's is very important to their lifespan.

Dan: The Indian company, Sulzon was the one with the defective blades. They purchased a majority in RePower, a german firm , basically too improve the quality of their blades. They (sulzon) also purchased a belgian firm that made gearboxes, for their technology.

Funny think is recently Sulzon's blades were rejected by RePower for a project in China. Im sure that made for some interesting conversation in the boardroom. Its obvious that Sulzon still hasnt perfected blade manufacture.

If i was shopping for a large turbine, id avoid the low cost sulzon turbines like the plague. Their like the Harbour Freight of wind turbines. Vestas, GE or Enercon for me.

 

[dave1949]

Another interesting device are the storage heaters like the Steffes ETS. They have a mass of "bricks" inside, which you heat during off peak. This heat is then returned to your house during peak hours. Theyre becoming incredibly popular around here in new construction. [

I am already doing a different form of this - our house is direct gain passive solar. Which amounts to a lot of south windows heating a lot of concrete. It works for us.

There is a lot of proven network technology and skilled network engr's already in existence. I just think it makes sense to build a fairly straight forward network on top of the grid if you need to communicate between nodes - and you would for it to be very smart. At least that part of the wheel doesn't need inventing.

The standards would hopefully be defined faster than a Blu-ray dvd It would take some arm twisting no doubt.

Dave.

 

[Lloyd_E]

Scoob.

Ever hear of a candle? And post #12... don't know what you use for fertilizer but you grow them big(second photo) in your neck of the woods! :0

Like many have said - the cost of production and after use consideration is crucial. - whether it is health or social/economic concern.

One thing we can all do in monitor our usage and cut back. In our house we are implementing a lights out and power down night a couple of times a month. We live in a 200 year old house and my interest in old ways always filters down through the family whether they like it or not. The kids enjoy it but the other half has issues! Essentially we use a a couple of evenings to light the house and use the house as it would have been used a couple of hundred years ago. It's fun for the kids and I enjoy it and to think this all came about from a certain white juan* years ago with no power for 5 days.

*we experienced a hurricane in fall 2004 that created major problems for us... in winter we got blasted with 2-3' of snow that created major problems as well. So we nick-named the winter storm white juan... or at least the journalists did.

I also think we should be going back to small independent (private)power producers utilizing any reasonable means to provide to the grid... whether it is small scale solar, wind, geo-thermal, water stream turbine etc.


lloyd

 

[dave1949]

Scoob.

One thing we can all do in monitor our usage and cut back.

lloyd

That's absolutely the quickest and least expensive solution. We use 95% CFL bulbs now. Always a lamp or two around that CFL's don't fit in, or the shade won't fit the CFL bulb.

Scooby is moving on to LED's, but I'll have to get more usage out my current CFL costs before switching to LED.

My biggest energy guilt is leaving the computer, cable modem and wireless network box running all the time. We use cable digital phone so turning off the cable modem turns off the phone too - not that it ever rings late at night.

As I recall, they total around 25W when the PC is in sleep mode.

It is a good lesson you are giving your kids by powering down. Maybe it gives them a perspective of how valuable power is to have, we tend not to waste valuable things - right?

Dave.

 

[Scooby074]

We got hit pretty bad during white juan up here too.

Im quite familiar with candles In our camp and trailer it was either candles or the coleman.....Untill i upgraded to LED. Now i can run my lights for a week on a deep cycle 12v battery that costs pennies? to recharge. No sense living in the dark ages, literally. Im all for adopting to new, more efficient technologies.

Dave: Good points. CFL's and turning off standby appliances can make a huge difference. If your curious about what supposed "turned off" appliances continue to draw, you should invest in a Kill_A_Watt meter that plugs between the device and the wall.

Also ditching the old CRT monitor and TV and replacing with LCD will make a difference too.

 

[dave1949]

Scooby - No old crt's here. But I have heard the lcd TV's are energy hogs.

I have a KillAWatt, haven't had it out in a while. I should plug it into the TV circuit and see what it uses. We have a Sharp 40" lcd, so we can watch the Red Sox lose better The larger lcd TV's are nice, no doubt.

Wouldn't have bought one yet if I hadn't knocked the old 19" crt off the table while doing some floor tiling

Another great energy sleuthing tool are those infra-red thermometers. They can help find and put a value on hot and cold surfaces. I know you can use your hand sometimes, but that's sort of subjective. Plus you can measure things like the temp on your woodstove where you wouldn't put your hand.

I think Juan only caused very minor damage in S. Maine where we lived at the time. We also were about 30 miles south of the serious damage in the '98 Ice Storm. I'll never forget the pics of those transmission towers in Quebec Prov. slumped to the ground. Looked like Godzilla went through.

Dave.

 

[Scooby074]

Dave: LCD's can be energy hogs. Like alot of things their quality and performance can vary widely. Sharps are some of the most efficient Tv's The basics of TV power - CNET Reviews The chart: 150 HDTVs' power consumption compared - CNET ReviewsBut careful selection can yield a tv with much better energy usage than CRT. Of course, i wasnt advocating tossing a working CRT, because that would waste more energy creating the LCD than continuing to use the CRT. (something i think Cash for Clunkers failed to grasp)

IR is great. We've had guys with thermal imagers come into work looking for electrical hotspots. Sooo cool. (but it caused me grief in the added workload, fixing up all the found problems) A house inspection with thermal can show everything from water leaks to damaged insulation, showing you the exact areas that need attention. No more beating unnecessary holes in walls