Smart Grid – Challenges and Opportunities

Smart Grid, with all of its features and potential to redefine the electricity market, can easily become disconnected from the wants and needs of the customers it is designed to serve. The challenge is clear yet not easy: Electric utilities must position themselves to listen to what their customers want and are willing to pay for, yet Recognize that their customers are not always able to...

Operation and Repair of Fluorescent Lamps

There are a number of reasons why homeowners might consider voluntarily replacing incandescent fixtures with fluorescent lamps. Fluorescent lamps offer: More even and “shadow-free” illumination, and Improved energy efficiency as a significant amount of the electricity in an incandescent bulb is discharged as heat rather than light, where as a fluorescent bulb remains cool. Operation of...

Thermographic Inspections – An Energy Auditor’s Tool

Thermal Imaging Camera Infrared scanning, commonly referred to as “thermographic inspections,” detects thermal defects and air leakage in buildings. Through the use of infrared video and still cameras and their images (referred to as “thermograms”), this process: Measures surface temperatures, Detects light from the heat spectrum images on the video / film, and Records variations in...

Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs – Are they Helpful or Harmful?

Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (CFL) are the likely replacement for the traditional incandescent bulbs that have been the standard since the early 20th century. CFL’s have joined home thermostats and fish as potential contributors to mercury exposure. Since mercury is a neurotoxin, it can cause damage to nerve cells, and can be harmful even in small doses. The effects of mercury exposure can...

Energy Efficient Top-Loaded Washers

Top-Loaded Washer Conventional wisdom over the past 5 years has pointed to front-loading washers as more energy efficient. They use much less water than traditional top-loaded washers, meaning less water to heat and they have higher capacity tubs, meaning fewer loads to cycle. Therefore, less energy is presumed to be required. Though the initial price is considerably higher, ranging between $500...

A Coming Bear Market for U.S. Electricity Sales?

Economic forecasters and business professionals alike are increasingly alarmed by the broad weakness of the U.S. economic recovery.  Forecasters in many sectors frequently highlight the “lost decade” of the Japanese economy following that nation’s stock market and real estate crash of the early 1990’s, and they openly wonder about parallel patterns in the U.S. and about the implications...

Energy Storage – Essential to Renewable Energy

Electric energy storage has becoming a more dominant topic of the overall energy management discussion primarily because of the: Increased production of electric vehicles being plugged into outlets for recharging every evening, Advent of net-zero homes, and Expansion of intermittent solar and wind generation into the mainstream of energy supply options. As these factors begin to take on greater...

Gasoline Consumption in the U.S.

Gas Consumption Begins at the Pump Petroleum is used in everything from medications to lubricants, partially explaining its high usage in the U.S.’s heavily driven consumer economy. According to the EIA, the U.S. consumes approximately 21 million barrels of oil daily, the majority of which is refined into gasoline. To put this in perspective the U.S. consumes more gasoline than South America,...

Energy Efficiency – Home Appliances

Though often taken for granted, home appliances exist to allow us to operate more efficiently on a day-to-day basis. And, though not critical to our well-being, they definitely save us time and labor, but questionable as to whether they save us money. Even those refrigerators, microwaves and dishwashers that come with energy and money-saving features need to be operated properly if one is to...

Introduction to Micro Grids

Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle With the increased importance of electricity in our day-to-day lives and overall economic prosperity, the notion of depending on outdated, centralized power grids that inefficiently deliver power and occasionally fails to meet basic needs for power may be insufficient, if not outdated. This has brought about the application of localized power grids, as part of an...