Dear Reader,
Just recently, I had a look at a light bulb that would save as much power as those compact fluorescent light bulbs, without the peculiar attribute of projecting light that made people look dead.
You see, at my age, you become quite concerned when you see yourself in the mirror; and even more so when you're lit up by fluorescent lighting!
Anyway, they work along the same lines as Cathode-ray tubes (have a look at my newsletters, where I go into a bit more depth about that), but without all the nasty x-rated-rays; apparently they also shine in all directions (as opposed to in beams), the light's a bit warmer, they don't contain mercury, and they reach peak brightness a lot faster than the compact fluorescent light bulbs.
They're also said to be better than LED light bulbs because they don't have a sharp peak in the blue section of the light spectrum - this is good because blue light might be damaging to the eyes. But, I'll go into that more a bit later on.
So there we have it: a new competitor that gives light that makes things look like they're illuminated by incandescent bulbs, with the lifespan of fluorescent bulbs. Be one to look out for, I reckon.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Greaves
Monday, August 15, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
3 News Pieces Tenuously Related to Power
Dear Reader,
As the title suggests, I found a few nuggets of interest; and yes, they are related to power (sort of):
First, BP has brought its petrol prices down a sliver to $2 (or thereabouts); marvelous, I said!
At least, I thought so until I remembered that a few years ago they were closer to $1; I suppose it's a little like being happy about tax rebates until you realise that the money was yours to begin with.
Anyway, how are the petrol prices related to power? In a few ways, actually: petrol prices might mean lower power bills, i.e., doesn't definitely mean lower power bills. This is because it has the potential to cost a tiny bit less to run the various machines (possibly through lessened oil and diesel costs).
Don't hold your breath though: I'd say that this is more like one of those things where the change only happens in one direction, i.e., when petrol prices go up, power becomes more expensive, but not the other way around.
Still, that's a bit of extra money in the pocket.
Secondly, Wellington homes seem to have benefited from a bit of extra insulation, thanks to, in part, EECA grants. Having had my own home retrofitted with insulation in the roof and under the floors, I can say it makes one huge difference: now there's actually a point using heaters, because the warmth doesn't escape the instant it comes into contact with the ceiling!
Since I'm a bit of a figures man, though, I'll give you a few percentages to consider:
Installing insulation in just the floor and ceiling keeps up to 50% of the heat in; so, assuming that 50% less heat-loss translates to 50% less heater usage, you'll be saving about 14.5% on the overall bill - if we go on the EECA's figures.
To get more details on how to make the most out of heating, though, sign up to get my free newsletter.
Thirdly, an author over at Scientific American has taken it upon himself to review 20 applications for the iPhone; and what do they do? Determine the amount of tilt your solar panels need to get the maximum amount of sun for power generation!
Well, I think it's quite impressive. It also means you can really interfere with the work of the guy trying to adjust the solar panels.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Greaves
As the title suggests, I found a few nuggets of interest; and yes, they are related to power (sort of):
First, BP has brought its petrol prices down a sliver to $2 (or thereabouts); marvelous, I said!
At least, I thought so until I remembered that a few years ago they were closer to $1; I suppose it's a little like being happy about tax rebates until you realise that the money was yours to begin with.
Anyway, how are the petrol prices related to power? In a few ways, actually: petrol prices might mean lower power bills, i.e., doesn't definitely mean lower power bills. This is because it has the potential to cost a tiny bit less to run the various machines (possibly through lessened oil and diesel costs).
Don't hold your breath though: I'd say that this is more like one of those things where the change only happens in one direction, i.e., when petrol prices go up, power becomes more expensive, but not the other way around.
Still, that's a bit of extra money in the pocket.
Secondly, Wellington homes seem to have benefited from a bit of extra insulation, thanks to, in part, EECA grants. Having had my own home retrofitted with insulation in the roof and under the floors, I can say it makes one huge difference: now there's actually a point using heaters, because the warmth doesn't escape the instant it comes into contact with the ceiling!
Since I'm a bit of a figures man, though, I'll give you a few percentages to consider:
Installing insulation in just the floor and ceiling keeps up to 50% of the heat in; so, assuming that 50% less heat-loss translates to 50% less heater usage, you'll be saving about 14.5% on the overall bill - if we go on the EECA's figures.
To get more details on how to make the most out of heating, though, sign up to get my free newsletter.
Thirdly, an author over at Scientific American has taken it upon himself to review 20 applications for the iPhone; and what do they do? Determine the amount of tilt your solar panels need to get the maximum amount of sun for power generation!
Well, I think it's quite impressive. It also means you can really interfere with the work of the guy trying to adjust the solar panels.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Greaves
Monday, August 8, 2011
9 Reasons for Climate Unchange in New Zealand
Dear Reader,
Just yesterday, the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition released an article giving 9 reasons why a paper published by the climate research arm of the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research Ltd (NIWA) is defective:
- It runs counter to all the historical records regarding “NZ average temperatures,”, including those compiled in 1867, 1920, and 1964. The archive shows that current temperatures are slightly cooler than those of 150 years ago.
- Its trend outcome is heavily influenced by data from Auckland and Wellington stations which are declared in the peer-reviewed literature to be contaminated and to show false warming; and it fails to adjust for UHI at any of the six non-rural stations.
- It uses adjustments derived from comparisons between “isolated stations” in direct defiance of the scientific authorities.
- It radically departs from the statistical techniques laid down by its chosen precedent, Rhoades & Salinger. Correctly applied, those techniques demonstrate that New Zealand has experienced no material warming trend during the past century.
- It does not disclose the uncertainties (margins of error) associated with any of its adjustments; and statistically insignificant changes are applied.
- Its high warming trend is created by implausible accumulating adjustments, which lack the random spread and self-balancing effects described in the literature.
- Its sole corroboration, the 11SS, is driven by missing data and is demonstrably flawed ; it serves no purpose other than to damage NIWA’s credibility.
- Recommendations from station reports by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) were apparently ignored. The pervasive secrecy surrounding all of the BoM review documents casts doubt on the process.
- Most of the warming in NIWA’s graphs occur during the first half of the twentieth century. This pattern is at odds with NIWA’s official advice that warming was driven by global CO2 emissions – which are concentrated in the last 40 years.
Well, have a look at the last point about CO2 emissions: "This pattern is at odds with NIWA's official advice that warming was driven by global CO2 emissions". If there's no CO2 emissions-driven warming, there's probably no justification for the Emissions Trading Scheme. Although, this was alleged yesterday too.
I'll keep my eyes peeled for any updates. If it's true, I should hope we don't see a significant rise in power prices either; that'd be nice.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Greaves.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Meridian's Solar Promise
Dear Reader,
Meridian has jumped on the 'Solar Promise' bandwagon. 'Bandwagon' may carry a few negative connotations, so let's just call it a wagon.
What does the Solar Promise wagon promise, then? It promises to allow individuals and companies to promise to get their friends, family, and customers to promise to take a serious glance at installing solar heating.
Jokes aside, it's actually an initiative begun by the Nelson City Council, et al, to make solar energy more affordable; and they've done this by introducing a rates-based financing scheme (that should give one cause for further investigation), and waiving solar resource consents; well, I certainly like the last one!
Being the calculating type - don't frown like that: I meant the type that likes to do calculations - I liked that they included a few figures on the website, that is:
1. that power bills have risen by 78% in the last 8 years; and,
2. that solar water heating can reduce the costs of hot water heating by 75%.
Now, for the calculations: from 2, then, you would end up saving about 21% on the overall bill (assuming 29% of the bill goes to hot water heating costs). So, if you've got a power bill of $200 per month, you'll be saving $42 per month.
Seeing that a hot water heating system costs between $4,000 - $8,000, it'll take between 8 - 16 years to recoup the cost on a money-saved-because-we-don't-have-to-heat-so-much-water basis alone - provided the power bill stays the same.
If, however, the power bill goes up another 78% in 8 years, at a rate of 9.75% a year, the cost'll be recouped within 7 - 10 years.
So, is it worth it? Well, I'm not your accountant. But, if I was, I'd say that it depended on what your goals were, and what kind of term for fulfillment you'd be happy with. Aside from that though, a solar hot water heating system would add a bit of resell value to the house.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Greaves
Meridian has jumped on the 'Solar Promise' bandwagon. 'Bandwagon' may carry a few negative connotations, so let's just call it a wagon.
What does the Solar Promise wagon promise, then? It promises to allow individuals and companies to promise to get their friends, family, and customers to promise to take a serious glance at installing solar heating.
Jokes aside, it's actually an initiative begun by the Nelson City Council, et al, to make solar energy more affordable; and they've done this by introducing a rates-based financing scheme (that should give one cause for further investigation), and waiving solar resource consents; well, I certainly like the last one!
Being the calculating type - don't frown like that: I meant the type that likes to do calculations - I liked that they included a few figures on the website, that is:
1. that power bills have risen by 78% in the last 8 years; and,
2. that solar water heating can reduce the costs of hot water heating by 75%.
Now, for the calculations: from 2, then, you would end up saving about 21% on the overall bill (assuming 29% of the bill goes to hot water heating costs). So, if you've got a power bill of $200 per month, you'll be saving $42 per month.
Seeing that a hot water heating system costs between $4,000 - $8,000, it'll take between 8 - 16 years to recoup the cost on a money-saved-because-we-don't-have-to-heat-so-much-water basis alone - provided the power bill stays the same.
If, however, the power bill goes up another 78% in 8 years, at a rate of 9.75% a year, the cost'll be recouped within 7 - 10 years.
So, is it worth it? Well, I'm not your accountant. But, if I was, I'd say that it depended on what your goals were, and what kind of term for fulfillment you'd be happy with. Aside from that though, a solar hot water heating system would add a bit of resell value to the house.
Yours sincerely,
Andrew Greaves
Monday, July 25, 2011
Mercury's 62 things that use power
Dear Reader,
Yes, Mercury has issued a - possibly - quite helpful list of 62 things in the home, and how much power you'd expect them to use per hour. Well, how much they'd cost to run per hour.
A couple of assumptions that you need to be wary of, though, is that they assume you've got a rate of 20.14 cents per kWh, and that you're running your appliances constantly.
I find it strange, however, that they haven't included the cost of running the hot water cylinder, since they've pretty much got everything else (even what's in the kitchen sink!).
So I'll show you how you can work out what your hot water cylinder should be using. First of all, we need the 'water heating calculation', which is:
(3.966 x (number of litres of water that needs heating) x (difference between start and end temperatures)) / 3.41
This will give us the number of watts we'll need to be able to heat the specified amount of water in one hour.
To find out how many hours it will take if we have a limited number of watts available, we divide the number of watts we'll need by the limited number of watts.
O.K., let's get into the examples:
Let's say you need to heat 135 litres to 65 degrees from 10 degrees, and that you have a 3,000 watt element to do it with. By the way, this is pretty much the standard set-up of residential hot water cylinders.
Anyway, let's plug these figures into our equation:
(3.966 x 135 x 55) / 3.41 = 8,635.645 watts needed to heat that amount of water in one hour.
But since we only have 3,000 watts, it'll take 2.879 hours, since:
8,635.645 / 3,000 = 2.879 hours
So, how much will it cost? Taking the amount Mercury gives us, we'll turn it into a dollar amount, and multiply it with the number of hours taken:
2.879 x 0.2014 = 58 cents every day - assuming the hot water cylinder only needs to be heated once (and it might just need to be heated once, depending on how much hot water gets used).
To find out what you should be paying to run your hot water cylinder, find out what size the element is, how many litres it holds, and what the temperature is at the cold water tap (if you're having a bit of trouble, contact us on 0800 72 83 44). Then multiply it with the rate you're getting for the hot water cylinder (which is probably on a controlled rate, i.e., you're paying less for it); you'll probably quite surprised.
Yes, Mercury has issued a - possibly - quite helpful list of 62 things in the home, and how much power you'd expect them to use per hour. Well, how much they'd cost to run per hour.
A couple of assumptions that you need to be wary of, though, is that they assume you've got a rate of 20.14 cents per kWh, and that you're running your appliances constantly.
I find it strange, however, that they haven't included the cost of running the hot water cylinder, since they've pretty much got everything else (even what's in the kitchen sink!).
So I'll show you how you can work out what your hot water cylinder should be using. First of all, we need the 'water heating calculation', which is:
(3.966 x (number of litres of water that needs heating) x (difference between start and end temperatures)) / 3.41
This will give us the number of watts we'll need to be able to heat the specified amount of water in one hour.
To find out how many hours it will take if we have a limited number of watts available, we divide the number of watts we'll need by the limited number of watts.
O.K., let's get into the examples:
Let's say you need to heat 135 litres to 65 degrees from 10 degrees, and that you have a 3,000 watt element to do it with. By the way, this is pretty much the standard set-up of residential hot water cylinders.
Anyway, let's plug these figures into our equation:
(3.966 x 135 x 55) / 3.41 = 8,635.645 watts needed to heat that amount of water in one hour.
But since we only have 3,000 watts, it'll take 2.879 hours, since:
8,635.645 / 3,000 = 2.879 hours
So, how much will it cost? Taking the amount Mercury gives us, we'll turn it into a dollar amount, and multiply it with the number of hours taken:
2.879 x 0.2014 = 58 cents every day - assuming the hot water cylinder only needs to be heated once (and it might just need to be heated once, depending on how much hot water gets used).
To find out what you should be paying to run your hot water cylinder, find out what size the element is, how many litres it holds, and what the temperature is at the cold water tap (if you're having a bit of trouble, contact us on 0800 72 83 44). Then multiply it with the rate you're getting for the hot water cylinder (which is probably on a controlled rate, i.e., you're paying less for it); you'll probably quite surprised.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Geothermal Heatpumps
My dear reader,
You've read right: if you live on the edge of a thermal vent - or a volcano - you can now get heat-pumps that shift that warm, warm geothermic air straight to the inside of your house (absent offensive gasses)!
No, not really: 'geothermal' is a bit of a misnomer; what the 'geothermal' heat-pump does is move heat from below the ground to the inside of your house.
So, how's this different to the average heat-pump? Well, not by much, really: heat-pumps 'shift' heat from the outside to the inside of the house (or from the inside to the outside), which allows them to be really efficient since they have the effect of generating more energy than what they use up.
This, of course, relies on it not becoming too cold (since the absence of outside heat would make it harder to shift it inside).
The good thing about shifting heat from the ground is that the ground tends to stay a pretty even temperature (15 degrees, according to the link at the end of the paragraph), so the 'geothermal' heat-pump wouldn't be affected by sudden shifts in air temperature. You can find out about it here.
Question: how much will it cost?
Answer: around $42,000 (excluding GST), based on their estimates. However, they reckon that the running cost is about $400 per year, which amounts to an average of $33 per month. So, if the Energywise website is anything to go by, we would spend an average of $58 per month, if we had a power bill of $200 per month.
This would amount to savings of $25 per month; so, if we were going on the amount saved alone, it would take 140 years to pay for itself.
140 years! Better to go on other factors, like what heats the best, and what has a longer lifetime, methinks.
Any words of caution? Yes: this stuff could be seriously damaged in an earthquake; but, then again, what wouldn't? Make sure you talk to your insurers to see what they're offering in regards to that.
You've read right: if you live on the edge of a thermal vent - or a volcano - you can now get heat-pumps that shift that warm, warm geothermic air straight to the inside of your house (absent offensive gasses)!
No, not really: 'geothermal' is a bit of a misnomer; what the 'geothermal' heat-pump does is move heat from below the ground to the inside of your house.
So, how's this different to the average heat-pump? Well, not by much, really: heat-pumps 'shift' heat from the outside to the inside of the house (or from the inside to the outside), which allows them to be really efficient since they have the effect of generating more energy than what they use up.
This, of course, relies on it not becoming too cold (since the absence of outside heat would make it harder to shift it inside).
The good thing about shifting heat from the ground is that the ground tends to stay a pretty even temperature (15 degrees, according to the link at the end of the paragraph), so the 'geothermal' heat-pump wouldn't be affected by sudden shifts in air temperature. You can find out about it here.
Question: how much will it cost?
Answer: around $42,000 (excluding GST), based on their estimates. However, they reckon that the running cost is about $400 per year, which amounts to an average of $33 per month. So, if the Energywise website is anything to go by, we would spend an average of $58 per month, if we had a power bill of $200 per month.
This would amount to savings of $25 per month; so, if we were going on the amount saved alone, it would take 140 years to pay for itself.
140 years! Better to go on other factors, like what heats the best, and what has a longer lifetime, methinks.
Any words of caution? Yes: this stuff could be seriously damaged in an earthquake; but, then again, what wouldn't? Make sure you talk to your insurers to see what they're offering in regards to that.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Return of the Power Pand blog
Dear All,
Sincerest apologies for the distinct lack of updates, but that'll change from today onward.
Now, for the news:
The latest campaign to find out 'your number' may well be worth checking out. A word of caution though: make sure you take all the factors into consideration!
For instance, would you get cheaper power all year round? Do they factor line charges into the rates? Do they factor GST into the rates?
You see, it may seem as if they give you cheaper rates, but there may be things like line charges and GST that just get added on top; and this may result in a larger overall bill. Buyer beware!
The Connector blog over at Stuff.co.nz gives a bit of information on a couple that built a wind turbine to power their home, and are returning power to the grid. Now it's good to be able to generate your own electricity, but charging the transmission people for it is even better!
So how much do they get paid? Around $300 every month.
But before everyone hails this as the next great step in power savings, have a look at how much they spent: about $31,000!
Ignoring the costs of maintenance, it would take about 8-and-a-half years for it to pay for itself, and this doesn't include any interest they might need to pay back if they took a loan. And imagine trying to get consent for a turbine on top of a 10-metre pole!
But, if they're making good savings, all power to them!
Sincerest apologies for the distinct lack of updates, but that'll change from today onward.
Now, for the news:
The latest campaign to find out 'your number' may well be worth checking out. A word of caution though: make sure you take all the factors into consideration!
For instance, would you get cheaper power all year round? Do they factor line charges into the rates? Do they factor GST into the rates?
You see, it may seem as if they give you cheaper rates, but there may be things like line charges and GST that just get added on top; and this may result in a larger overall bill. Buyer beware!
The Connector blog over at Stuff.co.nz gives a bit of information on a couple that built a wind turbine to power their home, and are returning power to the grid. Now it's good to be able to generate your own electricity, but charging the transmission people for it is even better!
So how much do they get paid? Around $300 every month.
But before everyone hails this as the next great step in power savings, have a look at how much they spent: about $31,000!
Ignoring the costs of maintenance, it would take about 8-and-a-half years for it to pay for itself, and this doesn't include any interest they might need to pay back if they took a loan. And imagine trying to get consent for a turbine on top of a 10-metre pole!
But, if they're making good savings, all power to them!
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