Reducing Electrical Use in the Home-Smart Meters may not be enough. As the following article points out: Real Time Data for Monitoring Electrical use is needed for people to monitor-Home Electrical Use. This will enable the User to Alter their Electrical Usage and Make the Needed Changes to save $money$.ACEEE Study Finds 'Smart Meters' Not Smart Enough to Slash Residential Power Use and Significantly Reduce Consumer Electric BillsWASHINGTON, June 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/
ACEEE based its findings on a review of 57 different residential sector feedback programs between 1974 and 2010. The new report concludes: "Advanced metering initiatives alone are neither necessary nor sufficient for providing households with the feedback that they need to achieve energy saving; however, they do offer important opportunities. To realize potential feedback-induced savings, advanced meters must be used in conjunction with in-home (or on-line) displays and well-designed programs that successfully inform, engage, empower, and motivate people."
ACEEE found that three of the most promising approaches in the short- to medium-term include enhanced billing, daily/weekly feedback, and "off line" and Web-based real-time feedback. However, far-reaching programs that go beyond "smart meters" are few and far between. According to ACEEE, no U.S. utilities are currently providing the full range of needed services.
John A. "Skip" Laitner, director, Economic and Social Analysis, American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, said: "The bottom line here is very simple: Smart meters in and of themselves are just not 'smart' enough to get the job done for consumers and our economy. While advanced metering provides a useful tool, to save energy, cut consumer electric bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, utilities need to use these advanced meters to provide consumers with information on their consumption in ways that grab consumers attention and encourage them to take action."
Lead report author Karen Ehrhardt-Martinez, formerly with ACEEE and now a senior research associate, University of Colorado's Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, Boulder, CO., said: "Rather than simply presenting consumers with information about the amount of energy consumed during the past month, enhanced billing programs in the short-term can provide a context in which consumers can evaluate their consumption levels and give expert recommendations about the best approaches for reducing energy consumption. People may be unhappy to get an electricity bill for $200, but it's even worse to find out that your neighbors' energy bills are half what you're paying even though their homes are the same size. Through enhanced billing consumers can better evaluate their energy consumption practices, determine how energy is being wasted, and take action."
Steven Nadel, executive director, American Council for an Energy- Efficient Economy, said: "We now know promising approaches for using feedback in ways that motivate consumers to reduce energy use, but we also know that the best approaches are not in widespread use. While the benefits of feedback are substantial, few households have yet to benefit. Instead of receiving useful feedback, most of today's households simply receive the standard monthly energy bill. Making the potential energy savings a reality at both the household and national levels will require action on the part of utilities, policymakers, and individual consumers. In short, utilities must be made aware of the importance of sharing this information and sharing it in ways that are meaningful to energy consumers." Beyond a short-term move to enhanced billing programs, households could see even greater levels of savings through the application of more sophisticated programs that integrate utility-based advanced metering initiatives with on-line or in-home energy displays and tailored guidance regarding the highest-impact means of reducing energy waste. Utilities across the country are investing in new electricity meters that provide two-way communications between the meter and the utility, and that monitor and collect household energy use data on an hourly basis (or even more frequently).
When paired with an on-line program, households can increase their knowledge about how they are using energy. When combined with an in-home display, electricity consumers can witness the amount of energy that they are consuming in real-time, calculate the month- end impact of their current consumption patterns, and assess the impact of adopting new practices and more energy-efficient technologies. The average electricity savings associated with online services providing daily/weekly feedback (the Google PowerMeter is one example) is about 8 percent while real-time feedback has witnessed an average savings about 9 percent per participating household. STUDY HIGHLIGHTS
Key findings of the ACEEE report are as follows:
Energy-use feedback can help households gain control over their energy use practices, reduce the amount of wasted energy, and reduce electricity consumption by 4 to 12 percent.
Depending on how feedback programs are implemented by all of the nation's electric utilities, consumers might enjoy a cumulative net savings of $2 to $35 billion or more over the next 20 years.
Advanced (or "smart") metering initiatives alone are neither necessary nor sufficient for providing households with the feedback that they need to achieve energy savings, however they do offer important opportunities. To realize potential feedback-induced savings, advanced meters must be used in conjunction with in-home (or on-line) displays and well-designed programs that successfully inform, engage, empower, and motivate people.
Utilities and policymakers should act now to ensure that U.S. households receive needed feedback by providing all households with: enhanced billing in the short term and real-time feedback (in conjunction with smart meter deployment) in the medium term. Providing households with persistent feedback has resulted in sustained savings over time. Since 1995, feedback-induced savings have been higher in Europe than in the United States suggesting important differences in European policies and culture. For the full text of the report, go to http://aceee.org/pubs/ e105.htm on the Web. ABOUT ACEEE
The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (http:// www.aceee.org) is an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing energy efficiency as a means of promoting economic prosperity, energy security, and environmental protection. ACEEE was founded in 1980 by leading researchers in the energy field. Since then the organization has grown to a staff of more than 40. Projects are carried out by ACEEE staff and collaborators from government, the private sector, research institutions, and other nonprofit organizations. For information about ACEEE and its programs, publications, and conferences, visit http://www.aceee.org. SOURCE The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), Washington, D.C. Originally published by The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), Washington, D.C.. (c) 2010 PRNewswire. Provided by ProQuest LLC. All rights Reserved. A service of YellowBrix, Inc. |
6.30.2010
Smart Meters+Real Time Data=Money Savings
Energy Use in the US Statts and Figures
How many renewable energy facilities covering how much area are required to meet the electrical energy demand of the United States? The following will identify some critical issues along with a possible solution, while demonstrating that renewable energy resource installations could be available to meet the required demand, should sufficient will be exerted to actually install. One of the major dilemmas facing the widespread implementation of renewable energy resources is resolution of how to distribute the newly installed resources. The existing grid is predicated on the use of very large centralized generation sources, e.g., dams, power plants; while most renewable energy, e.g., photovoltaic, wind, is very conducive for distributed generation.
The existing very large generators are large in the sense of the amount of power they produce per unit area. Renewable sources require much more land area for a comparable power production. A major benefit of this conundrum could be the installation of a large number of small generation sources at existing sites, e.g., houses, businesses, ranches, farms with no requirements to install additional distribution capacity. The downside is how to plan for the transfer of energy from where generated to where needed when the renewable energy generators are not firm, i.e., the amount generated is neither constant nor predictable. This is exacerbated by the financial consideration that nonrenewable generators are generally most efficient and cost effective when operated at full capacity. A model for solving the problem or more accurately, debugging the solution, is to initiate the widespread use of renewable energy generation in rural areas. Although eventually the largest market will be in urban areas, virtually all problems could be resolved on a small scale by implementation in rural areas first. Rural areas have a small fraction of the total population; however, this fraction is highly independent and well skilled in solving problems. Unfortunately, this is also the segment of the population that has the least disposable income to invest in anything, much less energy with a long term payback. Thus, some sort of cash flow assistance will be required, noting tax credits are of little benefit to those whose income is not sufficient to pay much in taxes. In order to understand the magnitude of the task, one must consider how much electrical energy is going to be required to be converted from nonrenewable to renewable sources. The United States consumes ~ 4.1 trillion-kWh per year (4.1x1012 kWh/year), note this does not include fossil fuel energy consumption for transportation, heating, and other uses. Since a significant fraction is required for industrial use, which requires large concentrated sources, e.g., existing power plant dams will still be operational for 100 or more years depending on location, one could then reasonably expect the want to generate ~ 3 trillion-kWh per year with renewable sources. There are 5 primary sources of renewable energy generators in operation today; four sources can be used for large commercial (e.g., utility scale, light industry, or towns) generation and three sources that are primarily for residential use. Depending on size of the installation, two of the sources can be in either category.
For wind, assume that 0.99 trillion-kWh/year are produced by commercial size wind generators and the rest with residential. Assume that each 5 MW wind generator operates 12 hours per day for 300 days per year (allowing time for maintenance and variations in wind velocity and duration). Each wind generator then provides 18 Mega-kWh/year. Thus, approximately commercial 55,000 wind generators are needed. If each wind generator occupies ~ 1 square mile, then ~ 55,000 square miles are needed, noting that almost all the land near a wind generator can be used for ranching or farming purposes. This represents a small fraction of the land under cultivation in the western USA, where much of the wind resources are. Also, wind generators can be place off-shore. For residential wind generators, assume that each 15 kW windmill operates 6 hours per day for 250 days per year (allowing for conversion efficiency, time for maintenance, and variations in wind velocity and duration). Each wind generator then provides 22.5 kilo-kWh/year. Thus, approximately residential 450,000 wind generators are required, which is significantly lower than the total number of small businesses, farms, ranches, and rural residences in the USA. With larger residential windmills, especially for farms and ranches, not so many windmills would be required. A 25 to 50 kW windmill is much more appropriate for farm or ranch use, noting some farms that use well irrigation would need several wind generators or larger, e.g., 150-200 kW wind generators. For residential PV, assume a module conversion efficiency of 15% from the nominal solar radiance of 1000 W/m2. Assume a DC to AC conversion efficiency of 85% and operation for 6 hours per day for 300 days per year (allowing for variations for systems installed at a wide variety of locations). Thus each m2 of solar module area will produce 230 kWh/year. In order to generate, 0.5 trillion-kWh/year, there needs to be ~2,175,000,000 m2 of PV modules. This is about 840 square miles of solar PV modules, smaller than most Western state counties. Assuming that the majority, say 1,500,000,000 m2, are directly used on single family dwellings, with the availability of 75 m2 per dwelling (still allowing room for solar hot water heating collectors on the south facing roof), then ~20,000,000 homes are necessary. The remaining PV generation (~ 0.16 trillion-kWh/year) would come from commercial PV facilities. Assuming a capacity of 200 kW operating 8 hours per day (use of at least ground mount single-axis trackers) for 320 days per year (allowing for variations for systems installed at a wide variety of locations) each location would generate 512,000 kWh/year. There would need to be at least 312,500 such installations, with each installation having about 1,570 m2 of PV modules and assuming an area efficiency of 10% (for trackers and mounting) so occupying ~ 4 acres. For solar thermal generation, assume each 100 MW of power capacity requires 1000 acres, including all support structures. Since solar thermal requires significant water usage for cooling (up to 1000 acre-feet/year per 100 MW), not all locations are suitable. Assuming a 500 MW plant produces 8 hours per day for 300 days per year, each location produces 1.2 billion-kWh/year. For the 1 trillion-kWh/year, then ~850 plants, occupying 4.25 million acres or 6,640 square miles (the size of larger Western state counties) All of these estimations are just that, estimations; however, the numbers clearly show that renewable energy resources can provide the majority of the electrical energy needs of the USA. As renewable energy resources are installed, no new fossil fuel power plants need be built. Eventually, all fossil fuel plants can be allowed to retire, starting with the least efficient first. The transition cannot be smooth, since both nonrenewable and renewable energy sources are only available in discrete units; however, by starting with implementation in rural areas the methods and techniques can be fully developed, which will ease large scale implementation in urban areas. Reference | ||||||||||||||
6.29.2010
New System, Algae Cleans Water & Fertilizes
act as slow-release fertilizer
seedlings could thrive on an organic fertilizer
management of the cycle of nitrogen and phosphorus
capture costs of around $5 to $6 per pound of nitrogen and $25 per pound of phosphorus
The system is practicable now
Testing: could clean up runoff that has already made it into the water system
Tags
- Science, Jeremy Hsu, agriculture, algae, environment, farming, fertilizer, water, water purification
In New System, Algae Cleans Water, Then Transforms into Organic Fertilizer
- The algae systems can capture most of the phosphorus and nitrogen in runoff
- By Jeremy Hsu Posted 05.07.2010 at 3:57 pm 7 Comments
Nature's Green Cleaner Air-dried algae (shown above) from an algal turf scrubber captured most of the nitrogen and phosphorus in the manure. USDA/Edwin Remsburg
Algal blooms that feed on nutrient-rich manure and fertilizer runoff can deplete oxygen in the water when they die, creating inhospitable dead zones -- but the same green scum might also serve as a preventive solution upstream. A microbiologist with the U.S. Agricultural Research Service used algae to recover almost 100 percent of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients from manure, and suggested that the dried-out algae can then act as slow-release fertilizer for farms.
The solution offers better management of the cycle of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients which plants depend on. Experiments have shown that algae can capture 60 to 90 percent of nitrogen and 70 to 100 percent of phosphorus from a mixture of manure and fresh water, as proved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on four dairy farms.
The system is practicable now. Farmers would have to set up algal turf scrubber (ATS) raceways covered with nylon netting to serve as a platform for algae to grow upon. The capture costs of around $5 to $6 per pound of nitrogen and $25 per pound of phosphorus is about the same as other manure-management practices.
But Walter Mulbry, the USDA microbiologist, also showed that corn and cucumber seedlings could thrive on an organic fertilizer made from the dried-out algae. That might allow farmers to recoup even more of the costs from the ATS system, or perhaps turn a profit if the price is right.
Mulbry has already begun another study to see whether fertilizer made from chicken and poultry litter can also benefit from the algae cleanup system. And he has also begun studying whether the ATS systems can remove nitrogen and phosphorus from estuaries that flow into the Chesapeake Bay, so that they could clean up runoff that has already made it into the water system.
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Algae's versatility has already won over scientists who see it as the biofuel of the future, and the tiny plant organisms have also been proving their worth in scrubbing carbon dioxide and nitrous gas from industrial smokestacks. A company called Algenol has even looked to using algae-derived plastic as a replacement for petroleum-derived plastic.
Even the U.S. Department of Energy and various branches of the U.S. military have begun seriously exploring algae-derived solutions. If that doesn't entirely ensure a clean future, it at least suggests a future with a scummy color palette ranging from pale to bright green.
[USDA]
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