The Answer to Total Grid Dependence?

So where does the DC negative voltage UPS come in at? Did I miss somthing in your rant?

That is "Native" voltage. By that I mean in a close to it's original form as is practice.

I have laid out a concept in detail. Do you have any input

Thanx

Presently I have 7 15 watt solar panels a good charge controller and 1 80AH AGM battery. w/ Fuses on each side. I get about 7 amps in peak hours on the charge side.

I have multiple LED lights and a half dozen DC fans.

There are lots of ways to harvest power available ..

Please take a moment to read what I have written in detail.

Thanx

Everything you say is spot on. But once more I have no intention to use home grown power to run appliance motors, (or make fire) other a than personal cooling fan like the one I am enjoying right now. We have two in the bedroom and one in each office that bring in the cool of the eve and cut down on Air Conditioning thermostat quite nicely..

My contention if we need to move away from Edison's lamps to LED. The next Gen of TV is power sipping LED that blows away LCD or plasma at a fraction of the power . Your Home theater in the box has 6 Class T or Class D amps. Great Multi room sound has been Cat 5 DC line powered like ZON audio. Cordless phones, modem you name it.

Looks like you made my point on the PC power. All that switching is heating up my office which then needs to be cooled by my HVAC system.

Laptops are battery powered, a smaller PC doesn't hurt my feelings, I'm done with towers like the monster that is cooking my leg right now.

The best and most important thing about a finite system as described is that it will educate the next gen to conserve. There is no answer without conservation save more nukes and lots more transmission lines, at least that we know of.

Besides when the power goes out I get real popular with my neighbors, they say they want one but are they willing to change behavior is the question.

All that is missing is the will, Leadership and standardization is the key.

Sorry, could you briefly re-state your question? Are you just talking about the merits of off-grid generation compared to using the existing grid for powering say a home?

Have you looked at previous threads on the subject on CR4 where myself and others have discussed this?

Please excuse my newbyness. There is so much out there that directly relates to this subject . Would you kindly point me in the right direction with a link? Thank you.

Your answering my question with another question, the thing is I cannot answer your question unless you answer mine.

Your discussions and statements are VERY broad and numerous (and quite vague), exactly what are you asking about (can you please be more specific)?

Are you actually talking about the merits of switching to DC instead of AC supply? Increased product energy efficiency? I would like to answer but I am still not sure what you are asking about. Do you have a specific question you would like an answer or link to? Jack - Confused Power Engineer

Jack ,

I have been hearing a lot about grid operators having to juggle base loads and scramble to meet peak demand. I own some property near lake Oconee which is a hydro facility that pumps water back up in non peak and lets water out to aid in surprise peaks! There have been many suggestions of how to shift loads to non peak hours to increase over all grid reliability. .

I've been around the consumer electronic business a very long time. having engineered and installed complete low voltage systems in hundreds of homes. I have some insights on just how wasteful my clients are and the entire industry is as it presently set up. Have been there let me assure you "Smart Homes" suck up more power!

I am a student of Edison having been raised in the shadow of his museum.

To Answer your questions:

• No, replacing A/C in our current domiciles is clearly not feasible.
• Yes, I am calling for help in the design of a new generation of digital devices

I will believe until proven wrong that each family can have "the power to choose" by taking personal responsibility to generate some power for the every day personal use in their ever expanding array of 21st century digital devices . The emphasis in on Safeguarding Security, communications and everyday ambient lighting while teaching their children to conserve a LIMITED resource. Lets have two systems DC simple Low Voltage Buss and a control/monitor on your wall to tell you about the two big C's, Cost and Carbon. We can develop dual fuel devices, Yep, they will cost more but that my friend has been what my industry has always been about.

I have many clients that budget $8000 -$12,000 for power back up they use a few hours a year at best. I know when they have been tripped because I get the service calls to go out and Cold Boot then re sync their A/V systems so their remote controls work right. That being said I've been installing more and more UPS to avoid these problems.

Bingo!The thought occurred to me why not just run the stuff on DC in the first place?

Who needs a Kilo Watt Surround Sound receiver anyway?

By installing a Low Voltage DC buss (V tbd) by need one can easily remove a significant part of our over all demand, especially at peak when the grid is least efficient. Even if the starter system needs to be recharged a bit at night.

This would encourage people to buy electric cars which would double as a storage device in case of extreme emergency, imagine how may Jules of energy would be available on that snowbound week! Remember we are not trying to make fire here just keep some lights on and contact with the outside world.

This coupled with a plethora of new devices of ever increasing efficiency are vital to maintaining our standard of living as we will always live in a disposable society.

Did you know a Motorola Cable DVR sucks up 1/2 kWh 24/7?

Sorry Jack the engineering field is all about numbers. I am talking vision and concept here. A concept that I am putting to work as we speak at very little expense so far.

Thanx for your time,

Rocky

"Did you know a Motorola Cable DVR sucks up 1/2 kWh 24/7?"

Over what period of time does it use 1/2 kWh of energy? If it is a year, or even a day, that would not be a significant amount to most people. But if it uses 1/2 kWh in an hour (i. e., 500 Watt power input), that is grossly wasteful for what it does.

I have always paid attention to the amount of power my circuit designs used. Usually, it doesn't take that much extra work to shave off a few microwatts here and a milliwatt there, and over time it adds up. This should be a point of special concern to those who design stand-by circuits. It is ridiculous to require 5 Watts or more for something that just sits there waiting for an ON signal from a remote control. We as consumers should demand to know the stand-by power needs of equipment before we buy, as well as the maximum power spec currently mandated by law. When the designers hear from Marketing that customers are concerned about this, they'll respond to stay competitive.

I have not put a "Kill a Watt" meeter on it but it says 500 watts next to the plug and sure heats up a rack! There has got to be a better way .. The cable monopoly doesn't have to pay for the power so they give you no choice.

Wow! I think my 15 W DSL modem is a power hog, but compared to yours, it's just a piglet. You could threaten your cable company with a switch to a different ISP if they can't find you a more efficient box. (For example, the Linksys BEFCMU10 runs on 12 V 1A.) I would bet your cable company unloaded one of the first-generation modems on you.

My numbers indicate the grid is only 8% efficent and the average house only 3% efficient.

Yes DC is actually inside the box in most appliances and A/V equipment and the power hogs can be cut by public opinion only.

To date the "free market" like your cable monopoly has given us two choices , Use their 500watt power hog or no HD DVR at all.

We can change this... But how?

digital TV receiver not only receives Over-the-Air (ATSC)/Unencrypted ClearQAM (Digital Cable) signals but supports HD sound and image quality up to 1080i resolution, with variable aspect ratios of 4:3 and 16:9. Thanks to the high bandwidth of the PCIex1 interface you can watch flicker free HDTV on your Windows Media Center PC. Advanced PVR functionality lets you pause and rewind live TV, schedule recordings ahead of time and fast forward through the show to watch it at your own pace.

Hi Boogieman145, I like your ideas, and I have been wondering about the same things. I formerly worked as A/V technician, but I am also an electrician with 25 years of experience, and have always had electronics as a hobby.

To start thinking "green", one has to start with minimizing consumption. The biggest gain starts with low-tech engineering, such as insulation, and the fact, that a powerswitch can be set in the position "OFF".

Your ideas takes this a bit further, adding complexity and expensive technology. But hey, thats what I (we?) feel is fun, to challenge ones ability to overcome difficulties and save some money. When a kwh is put back in the grid by renewable, the price is a joke, but when you use your own energy, the price is the same. What is saved, is earned. And as the other thread started by elnav questioned, the powersaving technology has to be on the local level, and on the DC side of the grid. Otherwise the price runs wild.

On most routers and ethernet-switches the power in is 12 V DC, mostly 1 A or about, so some simple distribution with scrap automotive fuses and switches should do the trick. And when the battery is empty, a simple relay turns on the 12 V PSU, which of course should be the switchedmode type to gain some efficiency. Old PC PSU's could be made to do just that. In all, not much cost, just fun. And the save, well, I can save 200$/year on the electrical bill, if these devices ran on renewable, being wind or PV. So thats what my aim is. The difficulty is a steady 12 DC supply from a battery. When charged, the voltage is higher, and I'm not sure, my devices can take 14,5 V or higher. So I'm looking for a DIY DC-DC converter, 5-10 A, 8-20 V in, 12 V out. And efficiency around 95 % or more.

I have been experimenting with a solar heater, 2,2 m2 and 100 l watertank and with the ability to track the sun. My plan is to make an outdoor shower, so in the summer my wife and I can save on the hot water otherwise supplied from the coalfired plant, which, by the way, is the cleanest and most efficient plant in northern europe. But it takes a lot of time to make, and remake such a device to the point where it actually works...

But I'm enthusiastic about your ideas, so keep it up

Regards, moe

Well Thanks Moe .. The whole object of my experiment it the change behavior we need to stop and think before we hit that incandescent light switch.

Here is an micro urban hydro idea.

My house has a 3/4 water feed with 100 LBS ! Wow of pressure before the regulator.

We use 11,000 gallons per month... I wonder how much power free power I could get while flushing the toilet?! LOL per month I mean.. Hell the heat in my attic can make electricity ..

Rather than two grids- one AC and one DC- how about this:

Wire each house for 120v AC 60 hz and 12v DC. Use AC to power the big electricity users- air conditioning, water heating, refrigeration, etc.

Use one high-efficency AC-DC inverter for the whole house, to power the miscellaneous electronics. If you have your own power (solar, wind, whatever) feed that into the 12v system with a big UPS backup, so that the grid only suppliments and backs up your 12v home grid.

For me, it comes down to price. Until the total cost of home small-scale power per KWH comes down to less than the price per KWH at the electric meter, I'm not going there.

Sure, I care about the environment. We have an all-electric house, with a time of use meter, so you can be darn sure we restrict our power use as much as we can. Nuclear and hydro are part of the power mix we buy. And I pay taxes on 50 acres of woods, so our carbon footprint is seriously negative.

So why should I spend my scarce capital resources on a project that will increase my total cost per KW? That's financial suicide. Also, I am currently starting up a business (very green, BTW.) If myself and my partners had spent our capital resources on home solar panels and wind turbines, there would have been no money to start the business- and we intend our business to eliminate more fossil fuel and CO2 in the first couple years than the three of us will emit in a lifetime. That's an opportunity cost, which has to be figured in to the equation also.

Now, when we build our manuracturing plant, we will need a high pressure steam boiler as part of the plant equipment. So that is capital we already have to spend. And we need to supply heat, so that is also capital we have to spend. The extra cost to fuel the boiler with biomass will be more than offset by fuel cost savings, so that's a plus. And if we build our own turbine and get a surplus generator, the capital cost of the power part of the project will be less per KWH than the grid power. So we expect to have our factory pretty much off the grid, since we can do the CHP thing on the cheap.

As to the bullet points on the supposed evils of coal power, I will agree that anyone who agrees with you should not buy one single KW of coal-generated electricity, or any product produced with coal-generated electricity. Here in upstate NY we pay for power and delivery (transmission) separately, so we can choose whether to buy "green" power (at a higher cost) or the cheapest supply. Since my wife (who has the science degree) and I don't accept the science behind the "climate change" hysteria, we have no problem buying the cheapest power, and providing jobs for coal miners, railroaders and power pland workers.

Selling power back through a grid tied system is a fixed game. Let me explain why my friends.

As I see it there are plenty of ways to harvest energy to supplement grid dependence .

I also grow a small vegetable garden. I use and enjoy what I grow without first having to sell it back to the supermarket packaged the way they want it then by it back!

Using 21st century technology to push power back into 19th Century legacy infrastructure is futile.

I am harvesting a small amount of solar energy, storing it in a deep cycle battery and using it to run this PC. modem, some of my house sound system, my security system and ambient lighting 24/7. I will see how a change in my family's behavior effects my power bill. Right now, at the summer solstice, I'm harvesting as much as I can use free for these devices. In the winter or with a string of multiple cloudy days I have a back up charger that kicks on at night. I have not plugged it in yet tough.