Posted on 08/08/2005 8:49:57 AM PDT by Quick1
Nicholas and Loan Gatai used to cringe when they received power bills that routinely topped $200. Last September the Sacramento, Calif., couple moved into a new, 1,500-square-foot home in Premier Gardens, a subdivision of 95 "zero-energy homes" just outside town. Now they're actually eager to see their electric bills. The grand total over the 10 months they've lived in the three-bedroom, stucco-and-stone house: $75. For the past two months they haven't paid a cent. Story continues below ↓ advertisement
Almost unknown outside California, ZEH communities are the leading edge of technologies that might someday create houses that produce as much energy as they consume. Premier Gardens, which opened last summer, is one of a half-dozen subdivisions in California where every home cuts power consumption by at least 50 percent, mostly by using low-power appliances and solar panels. Several more are under construction this year, including the first ZEH community for seniors.
Aside from the bright patch of solar modules on the roof, Premier Gardens looks like a community of conventional homes. But inside, it's clear why they save energy. "Spectrally selective" windows cut power bills by blocking solar heat in the summer and retaining indoor warmth in cold weather. Fluorescent bulbs throughout use two thirds the juice of incandescents. A suitcase-size tankless hot-water heater in the garage, powered by gas, saves energy by warming water only when the tap is turned on.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Yep. Just wait until some of that golfball size hail comes down. There's a hidden enviromental cost also, envolving the waste products that come out of the maufacturing process. Also the useful life of the cells is not very long. It all boils down to $$$$$.
Those compact fluorescent bulbs are great. If you go to lowes or homedepot you can find them cheaper in big packs. They really do cut down your energy bills. Congress should have included some kind of write off for these bulbs in the energy bill. But that would have been too logical for them.
It doesn't quite work that way.
Generally, the power company energizes several conductors with different phase power, AC, then transforms 1 to 3 phases down to a lower voltage for the residential use. The power leaves the transformer and into a panelboard, where it is then fed to numerous circuits for use at the receptacles and a couple of hard wired motors.
Photovoltaics naturally generate DC power, need to be inverted for AC use and if fed back onto a grid, require another transformer and phasing circuitry so it doesn't interfere with the power from elsewhere. An electrical generator as a rotating piece of equipment, naturally generates 3 phases from 3 different tap points. Additional safety circuitry/switching/control would also be required so that where ever a system is de-energized, the lineman repairing the distribution system doesn't get electrocuted/energized from an unknown power source backfeeding his system.
Same reason you don't hook up generator power to a receptacle in the wall to energize your panelboard.
Most metering, (what the power company now uses to measure your KW-hr power consumption) is now digital and not necessarily able to 'roll back'.
IMHO, the most efficient use of PV is on DC or motor loads or to switch to solar heat vice electric heat. Solar for DC loads such as computers might be intelligent. It would be far 'greener' to allow a separate PV DC power source to the PC, than a switching power supply, converting AC to DC.
I haven't run the particular numbers, but generally the industry is tooled up for single and three phase transformers, one per 1 (maybe a handful depending on distance of secondary runs) panelboard, and then simple switching devices. Economies of scale for both installation and maintenance favor that metric. Moving to other system designs might provide some marginal efficiencies, but are likely to be dwarfed by a factor of 2 to orders of magnitude when more sophisticated phasing requirements at different voltages are encountered.
I suspect if they get a check back, it's due to a subsidized effort or policy to promote a more smooth distribution of power demand over the daily demand cycle.
At the individual level, the PV might greatly increase the individual user's ability to remain within the Base Rate power cost, thereby only paying .13-.18 cents /kWhr vice .25 or greater for the whole bill if he happens to exceed a total kWhr use at one point in the month.
What do y'all think of this system??
We will be putting in a tankless water heater soon, due to a $500 rebate offered by our gas company.
I don't know anything about the "geoexchange" system referenced in your link, but I have used Japanese tankless water heaters that were heated by natural gas and I think they are superior to tank-based systems.
"Time again for your annual Lobster Cookoff!", are we invited?
There are some equally innovative ideas regarding cooling. I worked on a office building in LA with cooling reservoir, where blocks of coolant in a polystyrene container would float in a pool/tank. They would be frozen at night and then absorb heat during the day.
Fluorescent bulbs use about a QUARTER of the energy, per unit of light produced, compared to incondescent lights. Some 90% of the energy consumed by incandescents is radiated away as heat, and halogen bulbs are even more intensively hot.
LED arrays are better yet, and are already getting application in lights that are used for long periods in inaccessible places.
The Holy Grail of lighting is some kind of "cold light", similar to the bioluminescence in a firefly's tail.
LEDs are the way of the future.
Residential homes are extremely polluting even without the solar cells - chemicals routinely used for cleaning bathrooms, kitchens, clothing, silverware and windows are all being dumped back in to the soil, water table and drainage outlets like lakes, rivers, bays, and cesspools. The same chemicals used in solar cells are also used in computer maunfacture and electronics so we better get rid of those too. In fact hemoglobin breaks down into formaldehyde so you better get rid of your blood.
P.S. - Windmills are dangerous to birds.
Passive solar heating has a lot more immediate potential.
Haven't seen any of those LED bulbs. Might have to check them out.
"Windmills are dangerous to birds."
its ok it can double as a blender
pureed sparrow mmmm mmmm thats good eatin
"pureed sparrow mmmm mmmm thats good eatin"
As long as there is mashed potatoes...
"Time again for your annual Lobster Cookoff!", are we invited?
C'mon down! If you fly into Fresno on the way pick up JR and bring him along! :) We've got pool-boiled lobster thermometeradore, and sidewalk fries! Have to wait until it heats up again though, today it's only 106!
88 isn't too bad, but 91 seemed so much hotter. Sort of like jumping into dish water.
I'm off to Puerto Nuevo for 2 weeks.
You pay (only by way of example; not real numbers) .10/KWH; you get .025/KWH back.
They make it sound like a 'meter runs backwards' situation.
"... if you can afford it."
Key line.
Solar is expensive. For rich people only. Who else can afford to pay cash up front for a big-ticket item that will take 20 years to pay for itself?
I looked long and hard at solar (I'm in LA). There's no way it makes economic sense.
NASA is one of the few government programs that have provided countless returns on investment. NASA's funding is a fart in a windstorm of federal programs, and the empassioned pleas to cut that funding is a direct consequence of the gargantuan level of visibility and impact that NASA has.
Use those and motion detectors for outside porch lights. I use two motion detectors that only come on when someone approaches. I'd bet I save 175 bucks a year not running outside lights 8 hours a night, 365 nights a year.
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