By John Ballard
An important little factoid was buried in an NPR story yesterday afternoon and Robert Seigel, the journalist, was quick enough to underscore the point.
100 Peak Hours = 10% of Electricity Costs
Mr. DELUREY: ...trying to reduce costs on the system. Something that most people are surprised to hear is that 10 to 20 percent of the overall electricity costs in the U.S. come from the top 100 hours on the electricity system.
SIEGEL: I want you to repeat that number because it's astonishing. The top 100 hours of the year for demand of electricity account for 10 to 20 percent...
Mr. DELUREY: That's correct.
SIEGEL: ...of the cost of providing electricity.
Mr. DELUREY: That's correct. So, now there are new options.
Think about that for a moment.
There are 8,760 hours in a year. (I had to get a calculator to figure that out.)
And 100 hours equals 1.14% of that time.
And this guy says those 100 hours cost ten to twenty percent of all production costs?
Am I reading that right?
Or is he completely off his nut?!!
I understand the concept. Getting a satellite into earth orbit takes an incredible amount of energy to escape gravity. Once in orbit a satellite can operate almost forever on the energy used in the first few minutes getting it there.
Here's an exercise.
- Your residential electric bill for 31 days is for 744 hours of use. (31x24=744)
- If the bill for that month runs, say $200.00, a fifteen percent savings equals $30.00.
- Thirty dollars is a fifteen percent savings or a dollar a day. Not that much, but real money if you're on a tight budget.
- 1.14% of 744 hours is a little less than nine hours (540 minutes).
- For a 31-day month 540 minutes comes out to about seventeen minutes a day.
Question: Would not using electricity seventeen minutes a day be worth a dollar a day, or a $30 reduction in your power bill?
No? That's too much to ask.
What if those seventeen minutes were split up into smaller increments and you would never notice?
That's the kind of savings that will result from the application of the "smart grid" technology being discussed in Robert Seigel's interview.
A few years ago our electric service came through a membership cooperative. [EMC's (electric membership cooperatives) are to power what credit unions are to banking.] One advantage of membership included optional participation in an energy savings program allowing power to our air conditioner to be turned off a few minutes at a time during peak usage periods. In return for allowing a switch to be attached to our unit we got a lower rate. This was over twelve years ago and I'm sure today's technology is much better.
Take four minutes to listen to the story if you wish, but most readers are already aware of stories like this.
What many people don't realize how smart the new technology really is. I got my hands on one of the new I-Phones a few days ago and was amazed. (I'm easily impressed, understand, because I'm one of the few people in the world still without a cell phone.) It seemed light years ahead of cell phones. Using the touch screen I was able to call up a keypad large enough for my dimming eyes to see and my clumsy old fingers to operate. I quickly found Newshoggers and was able not only to admire my last post but make it bigger on the screen. And as I held it I recalled how expensive it was at first and now it's available for less than a hundred bucks from several service providers. I'm still gonna wait because this old desktop and my land line is all I need, but I'm thrilled to see how technology is racing along. I heard this morning that the US is positioned to product twenty percent of the world's next-generation (lithium-ion?) batteries.
Don't forget, the country is also aiming to have half of all cars and trucks in the country running on electricity in the next two decades. That means a smart grid is more than a science fiction concept. Smart grid and next-generation battery technologies are the next important steps in the distribution and economics of electricity. Incandescent lighting will be as popular as unfiltered cigarettes and a transitional phase of service jobs will be needed to retrofit obsolete homes and businesses (or cars?) to less expensive energy systems.
A budding business has already started converting cars from gas to electric.
Since its first trip as an electric car on August 5, 2009, the battery-powered 1974 VW Beetle has been driven thousands of miles on local roads. The ability to go 1,000 miles on less than $30 worth of electricity is great, says owner Richard van Wyhe, but the Beetle is also extremely fun to drive.
The car was designed and built to market our EV4U Custom Conversion business, so in addition to being photographed for the website, the car makes appearances at shows and events in California and Oregon. Our two closest, and largest markets are, the Bay Area and Portland, Oregon. So far the car has been in shows in Cupertino, Santa Clara, Hayward, Fresno, Sacramento, Chico, Anderson, and Redding.
The Beetle, known as B.O.B. (short for Battery Operated Bug), has been quite popular at shows. From Car Shows to Electric Vehicle events, B.O.B. seems to have a universal appeal... [More at the link.]
A family member who does electrical work professionally estimates about ten percent of residences in the country still have fuses instead of circuit breakers. Years ago I lived in an old house with knob and tube wiring, enough of which are still around to be mentioned in writing by insurance companies.
Currently the United States NEC forbids use of loose, blown-in, or expanding foam insulation over K&T wiring.[4] This is because K&T is designed to let heat dissipate to the surrounding air. As a result, energy efficiency upgrades that involve insulating previously uninsulated walls usually also require replacement of the wiring in affected homes.
California & Washington (possibly other states) have actually reversed the ruling on insulation around K&T. They did not find a single fire that was attributed to K&T, provided that it is inspected by an electrician first and passes the inspection.[5][6]
As existing K&T wiring gets ever older, insurance companies may deny coverage due to increased risk. Several companies will not write new homeowners policies at all unless all K&T wiring is replaced or unless an electrician has certified that the wiring is in good condition. Also, many institutional lenders are unwilling to finance a home with limited ampacity (current carrying capacity) service (which, as noted above, often goes hand-in-hand with K&T wiring), unless the electrical service is upgraded.
He estimates about ten percent of all houses still use fuses, the technology bridging knob and tube wiring and circuit breakers. Although new construction, both residential and commercial, is in the toilet, the demand for service jobs in electrical work remains strong. And the need to keep up with technical improvements has not gone away.
That is why I feel better when I look into the future. There I see better stuff at lower prices. And enough demand for jobs to furnish work for the next generation. My father's career spanned a transitional technology. He began working on automatic transmissions when they were first produced and continued to his retirement when microchips made his work obsolete. My early food service career saw half a decade in fancy foods which now are readily available in any good super market. Following that I worked in the cafeteria business until food bars and AYCE (all you can eat) buffets made old-fashioned cafeterias obsolete. We have all watched the advent and disappearance of free-standing video rental stores as DVD's displaced video cassettes and now we can get DVDs from Red Boxes or Netflix. And has anyone noticed the relocation of photo-services from the front to less conspicuous places in your local pharmacy? Now in retirement I have work as an hourly care-giver to other old people. And I heard a report this morning about a former auto assembly-line worker now working as a nurse.
I've stopped writing and gone to rambling but the reader can catch the drift. Sorry about that. I'll do better next time. Go read now about electricity too cheap to meter. (Without fire, the main costs are in infrastructure, distribution and demand management. That's why wind, solar and hydro are so much better than fossil fuels. )
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