Conservation before Generation

I browsed the discussions on Renewable Energy here in the Green Home Huddle and felt I had to add a "conservation first and foremost" thread to the mix.

 

It's pretty simple:  the best thing that utility companies can currently do regarding energy production is to lower the demand with optimal practices and technology before increasing the supply.

 

People tend to put a great deal of emphasis inside and outside the green world on solar power technology, debates about nuclear power, optimal wind turbine shapes,etc. without acknowledging the clear benefits of reducing power demand first.  There are a lot of sexy devices being created that are elegant and efficient, but that tends to get much more press than the great new tools we have to monitor and subsequently reduce our power demands.

 

It's also a matter of putting way too much faith in future technology and its required  mass-consumption, with the localized goal of reducing very easy to fix energy losses being overshadowed.  The truth is, the new power grid and new solar advances are still going to mean small potatoes if we keep making more humans and we humans keep wasting energy left and right.

 

My question is, will we simply stop talking about energy conservation if sometime in the next 10 years we find a way to capture 90% of the sun's energy in every solar panel?  What if we all actually did have a magic 8KW paint-on solar roof?  Would we think it's okay to waste power uneccesarily?  I hope not.  A kilowatt saved is worth more than a kilowatt generated no matter how you slice it or how cheap solar energy might become.

 

Aaron Campbell Energy

I agree conservation is the one thing we can all do immediately and without cost. I have heard so many times it costs too much to go green. I like to tell people to consider energy conservation as a first step that is not only free, but will likely save you money. You can start by adjusting your thermostat by just 1 or 2 degrees, turning off lights, unplugging appliances that use standby energy. You can then use the savings to by products that will make it easier to do these tasks, dimmers, timers, light sensors, power strips with switches etc.

 

When I finally talked my husband into investing in solar panels, he became invested in energy conservation. I think it was I want to make the most of our investment mentallity. We were able to cut our electric usage by almost 1/3 before we got our panels and most items cost nothing. The biggest savings was due to the way we use our climate control. I keep the house warmer, I open windows in the morning and use the ceiling fans I've always had, but rarely used. I find it easier to go outside on hot days without overheating and our utility bills were much lower. My first full month with my solar panels my bill went from over $200 to less than $20, much less than estimated by the installer.

 

Wow - that's fantastic.

 

@Aaron Campbell - I totally agree with you. That has been one of the tricky things about explaining the value of this community to people. We get "dark green" people saying, "You can't buy your way to sustainability!!", to which we respond, "we're not selling anything."

 

First and foremost we want to be a fun community that brings passionate people together and can act as a resource for those who may not know as much. I think one place where there truly is a dearth of knowledge is in what sustainable options are for everyday products and why they matter...I hope we're contributing in that way as well.

 

As far as some great resources we have in place already:

 

How To Save Energy Around The House
How To Save Water Around The House

How To Reduce Vampire Power

Introduction To Energy Efficient Lighting

 

All of the wikis are worth browsing and the "H's" have lots of how to content: http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/alpha/h

 

If you have any idea on how to better feature this content, let us know! Thanks!

@Deej , It's a good phrase to investigate "buying sustainability".  It needs to be unpacked from multiple viewpoints.  I offer a service at my company, energy efficiency audits.  They cost money, but they return more than they cost nearly every time.  People who take the plunge and buy solar panels do a similar thing on a larger scale. 

 

Some folks argue that @whsgreenmom's purchase of PV panels was hasty and indulgent, but upon reflection others would say it was the triggerpoint to their family's further conservation and sustainability investments.  I see the discussion as a system issue, and I simply try to  improve the system where I can while watching and learning from others doing the same.  We're all doing what we think is best given the information we have access to and levels of passion/awareness.

 

For some, they absolutely are doing the right thing by buying into sustainability!  They are simply shifting their funds from less green things to more. I feel no shame at all for instance, in donating money to the Obama campaign or buying a relatively more expensive TDI Jetta to run biodiesel.   Perhaps some are purging their eco-guilt with eco-shopping.  I can't judge either way, I can only do my part to inform and discuss.  That's what the Green Home Huddle means to me.  A place to vote with my dollars, do a better thing, and yes, purge some guilt.  As long as you're continually striving to be more aware of yourself and the reality around you, there are many paths up the deep green mountain.

 

 

 

whsgreenmom has basically touched on a point that is often not mentioned:  You can't "solar power" your way out if inefficiency...   Conserving is where you start - once you get your home/business where you think it should be consumption wise with efficient practices, then incorporating solar is something to consider...

 

Conservation is probably the biggest piece of the energy puzzle out there!

I whole heartedly agree with the 'energy conservation first' approach.

 

What disappointed me during the elections was that both presidential candidates kept talking about they will drill for more oil or build more nuclear power plants or ..... i.e. their approach was to finance the supply side of the energy supply / demand equation.

 

We've been collecting energy conservation tips on our home web site for the past year or so and came up with around 100. We then ran this contest for folks to submit one energy conservation tips with each entry for some gift cards to an international building supply retailer (sorry, contest over now). 

 

Here is what surprised us. We thought at 100 tips we were doing pretty good. Not by a long shot. We had over another 100+ energy conservation tips that were not yet on our home web site's tips list.

 

And further more, the vast majority of these new / addtional tips were cheap and simple to do....somewhere in the neighbourhood of around 90% of the new tips received thru the contest.

 

While that made us think about things and decide to focus on energy conservation in the home during January on our home web site to cover all / most of the now over 200 home energy conservation tips we have, it just goes to show that before folks spend much money on this or that energy conservation appliances / products there are literally hundreds of cheap and easy ways to conserve energy in the home, which will help the environment and which will save them money ...... perhaps to then pay for the energy conservation products to take them to the next level .... or perhaps just to pay for the next month's mortage payment, what with the current state of the economy and all.

 

Dan

Conservation is only a sacrifice to most people because their homes are way too big for their needs. Downsize by 50% and your bills will automatically reduce by nearly as much, and you won't even feel the pinch.

 

Gina

www.my-green-home-project.com

Great points all.  And especially @Cactus,  for your point about downsizing your home.  My favorite eco-tip of all is a very simple but difficult solution that has many long-term and short term energy savings:

 

Live within walking distance to work. 

 

However long that walk means to you, just be able to walk there.  Almost no other "upgrade" can do as much for energy savings, or more importantly, life satisfaction levels.

 

  It might mean quitting a job, changing careers, or just asking for more flex-time, but the closer you are to your work, the less carbon you're putting up in the atmosphere.  Whether it's the big carbon creators like the car you use to get to work, or the slightly smaller carbon creators like going out to lunch at a restaurant versus coming home to a bowl of soup and a homemade sandwich, the value of working near your home cannot be overstated.

 

When I do my home and small business energy audits, I tell people all about CFLs, low-flow showerheads and duct leakage, but my biggest impact can often come when they take my advice about working near home.  I put it into perspective for them, and often engage in a conversation about job and career satisfaction as well.  You'd be surprised at how much energy you save just being a bit happier on the job, no matter where it is.  And if it happens to be in your own living room, so much the better!

 

Aaron

Campbell

Energy

 

www.campbell-energy.com

 

Great to see everybody encouraging conservation.

 

One of the biggest savers of energy in both large and small homes is a solid insulation strategy for the roof system. Solar is a great solution in some cases, and fun to show neighbors - but the ROI numbers don't always pencil.

 

There are many insulation products on the market. Reflective insulation is very effective in acting as a radiant heat barrier for your home (Low-E blocks 97%). Some reflective insulation products can be used with existing fiberglass/cellulose insulation to gain higher R-values in the roof system. In the summer, the lower you can get the temperature in your attic space, the less the cooling load on your a/c system. The opposite is true during winter.

 

Take a look at insulation for your home. A watt saved is the same as a watt generated only cleaner.

 

Brian Townsend

TierraPath.com

Great to see everybody encouraging conservation.

 

One of the biggest savers of energy in both large and small homes is a solid insulation strategy for the roof system. Solar is a great solution in some cases, and fun to show neighbors - but the ROI numbers don't always pencil.

 

There are many insulation products on the market. Reflective insulation is very effective in acting as a radiant heat barrier for your home (Low-E blocks 97%). Some reflective insulation products can be used with existing fiberglass/cellulose insulation to gain higher R-values in the roof system. In the summer, the lower you can get the temperature in your attic space, the less the cooling load on your a/c system. The opposite is true during winter.

 

Take a look at insulation for your home. A watt saved is the same as a watt generated only cleaner.

 

Brian Townsend

TierraPath.com

We now have that list I referred to above of over 240 home energy conservation tips up on our home site if anyone is interested.

 

Yes, it is quite lengthy so next month we will write different articles focusing on different groupings of energy conservation ideas for the home.

 

The list can be found here on the Energy Conservation page of our home blog.

 

Dan

You're apparently focusing on commercial production but for your own home, do either one first, than the other. Just be sure to do both.

May 2008 we installed a 5.25 KW solar system on our roof. We just passed 5 MW in production. We didn't take a serious look at conserving until we spent so much money on our system. In other words, we have a substantial investment that we want to pay-off ASAP! I think we may have only 3 incandesents left in our house. The rest are flourescent. I split lighting circuits in my garage and basement so I can use only half the light when possible. And my Whole House fan is probably one of the biggest improvements, which allows several days with just the fan and no AC.

I can't wait to get a pure electric car to plug in to my solar!

We're a family of 4 living on one income and can't afford to do things like buy solar panels.  However, once I'm back to work we will be building a house and intend to inest in a wind turbine.  Here in central IL, there are some people, though few and far between, who have them and the rumor is that they actually sell electricity back to the electric company a couple of months of the year.  I don't know how accurate that is, but anything to stop high electric bills is great by me. 

 

If you're like me and can't afford to invest in wind or solar energy just yet, you can always conserve within your home by controlling how much you use.  Not leaving lights on that aren't in use, not leaving appliances plugged in all the time, and turning the thermostat down.  A few months back I happened to look at the electric meter when the dryer was running.  It was a sunny day so the only thing going besides the dryer was the TV in the living room...and the meter was spinning so fast it almost made my eyes hurt!  I told my husband when he got home from work that day that I want a clothesline this spring!

 Instead of selling your power back, you want to look into buying a battery system.  If you planned right with your battery setup, you can run on battery power for couple of days without sunlight or wind (This is all variable based on your energy consumption and the amount of batteries you buy).  It will second as emergency power during blackouts.  I experienced two 1 week blackouts in my life in the middle of winter (20s and low 30s degrees weather).  If you have natural gas, propane, or bio fuel heater you will still need electricity to run the electrical components.  You usually get ripped off from selling your power back to the grid.  Check your power company's payout or credit rate.

Edited by seattlite - Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:18:22 GMT

Yes, the system we are having installed will have two day's potential back up power.  What a piece of mind!  I live fairly rural.  A good snowstorm or flood leaves me with potential problems.  It will be good to know that when I am away from home and it floods...my sump pump will still be kicking in. 

I think it's time for the word "conservation" to be dropped from our environmental vocabulary. As far as mainstream America is concerned, this is another four-letter word like "tax" and it brings back flashbacks of Jimmy Carter and his thermostat.

 

Worldwide demand for energy is climbing so fast (recession aside) that conservation isn't going to buy us all that much. So I think it's time we revamp our message into something sexier and more mainstream.

 

More than a week after the big icestorm in Kentucky, the capital of cheap coal, 500,000 people are STILL WITHOUT POWER, waiting for their utility companies to repair their delapitated power grid. Now if that doesn't call for net-zero energy homes with their own solar panels and batteries, then I don't know what does.

 

But please let's not call it "conservation". It sounds un-American, wimpy and defeatist. Let's call it energy "independence" instead. That's a term that all Americans (even the conservatives in Kentucky) can get behind.

 

Edited by petera650 - Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:35:01 GMT

 

 

Our company has closed lots of offices (mostly to save cash) but the side effect is that loads of us work from home now.  We are an IT company so it's easy to work from anywhere there is a decent internet connection.  The upshot is that I save 50 Pounds ($71) per week on petrol not driving to work and I used the saved money to buy solar panels to run my work laptop and the house lights on solar power.

 

When you generate your own electricity you soon learn to economise as it costs so much per Watt to generate that it's cheaper just to not use it in the first place.

 

We use CFL and LED lights around the house, I use a little 12" LCD TV most of the time unless there is a programme I really want to enjoy.  The 28" LCD TV uses so much juice that I have to check the weather forecast for the next two days before using it :D

 

Running the laptop with a free intel power utility to force it to stay in it's lowest SpeedStep CPU mode saves about 17% of the power it uses when on the default AC power profile where it switches between half CPU speed and full speed a lot of the time.  Most of the time, the reason why a PC seems slow is because it's waiting for disk access and the CPU is burning up power doing nothing.  You can just force it into "max. battery saving" mode and it will work almost as fast but use less power.

 

You can also improve efficiency of light fittings too.  We used to use a 20W CFL in the kitchen that had a glass dome light fitting but only a white painted inside.  By lining the inside with baking foil as a mirror reflector, I was able to reduce the bulb to a 15W type with no loss of brightness in the room.

 

I put switches on all appliances that have standby power as it wastes so much solar juice just doing nothing.

 

Contrary to popular thought, I switched from using gas heating for the house and water to part time grid electric.  Even though gas is three times cheaper per kWh than grid electricity, I measured the consumption to heat the 100L tank of water and it cost 30 kWh to use gas and only 5 kWh to use the electric immersion heater.  We only heat one tank per day on a timer - the rest of the day luke warm left-over water is good enough.  We also have a instant heating electric shower.

 

I upgraded our mechanical central heating thermostat to a digital one with a hi-lo memory.  When we go out or at night I can press the button on it and it toggles between 19C and 14C.  We don't need to heat the whole house at night so I have a 1kW electric radiator in the bedroom that just keeps that room at 19C.  That saved another 20kWh in total daily combined gas and electric consumption.  If it gets very cold outside, we turn the thermostat down to 17C from the usual 19C, as the power used is much higher when it's sub-zero outside than if it's +5C outside.  We just have to wear more clothes in the day.

 

The Japanese are good at keeping warm in their wood and paper houses. They don't insulate the houses so much because the winter is usually short but the summers are long and hot so the houses are designed to stay cool. It gets very cold in my in-laws house but if you wear a hanten (a sort of duvet jacket) it's very warm and they have a thing called a kotatsu which is a thick table cloth that goes right down to the floor and then everyone sits around the table with their legs under the table.  The underside of the table has an electric heater so that a pocket of warm air is trapped under the table and it heats your legs - makes you whole body warm as the worst thing about a cold room is getting cold feet, which shuts down your circulation and so you get cold hands and so on.  Keep you legs warm and you stay warm.  So the Japanese don't waste energy heating a whole room.  I haven't got a kotatsu but my in-laws sent us hantens for Christmas :D 

 

 

Good to hear about Japanese heating, which I grew up with.

 

Central heating system is slowly becoming popular in Japan, but most of private houses use individual small heater (often cases kerosene) in each room. Having nealy no energy natural resouces with half the population if the USA, energy is extremely expensive in Japan; nearly more than 90% of fossil energy and 60% of food are all imported.

 

Energy and food conservation were traditionally a MUST in Japan, because we did not have enough to waste. So, a number of energy efficient products were invented in Japan; tankless gas water heater is one of them. Most of Japanese bathroom has independent tankless heater right by the tub, and small tankless heater is installed right at kitchen faucet.

 

Yet, one of the hardest situation to deal with is temperature difference between rooms in Japanese houses in winter time. Can you imagine getting out of comfotable KOTATSU heater and walk into  0 degreeC (32 degreeF) bathroom, and sit on a freezing pot seat. Actually it is unhealthy, because it shuts down capillary vessels.

 

So, someone in Japan invented heated pot seat combined with tankless water heater washer!!! This is  one of the most comfortable things in the world - I think, haha.....  I don't know what I am talking about.

 

One of the smartest traditional energy saving heating system is Korean fire place. The hot air with smoke goes under the floor before going out from chimney. It keeps entire floor very warm.

 

One more good thing is rather small carpet, perhaps 3'x6' or 4'x8"", with electric heater in it. You may be able to loweer room temperature easier with this carpet. (This is Japanese invention.)

Edited by Mota - 3/5/2009 at 11:21 pm

Ha haha... Yeah, I first discovered Japanese heated toilet seats in a capsule hotel in Hiroshima :D  I thought, "Why doesn't everyone have these!"

 

My Japanese sister-in-law has installed a 3kW Sharp grid tied solar system and my father-in-law installed a 5kW Sanyo grid tied system with hybrid monocrystalline / thin film panels. 

 

He also installed a Sanyo Eco-Cute.  This is another new Japanese product moving into home use.  It's a air-water heat pump. The "Cute" name is a play on the Japanese word for hot water. They've had them for a while in industrial sizes but it's only in the last couple of years that they've been able to make the very high pressure compressors small enough and cheaply enough to use in a house.  It's a sort of reverse air conditioner.  The thing extracts heat from the outside air and pumps it into an insulated tank of water.  It uses 60-70% less electricity than a resistive element and as he's got 5kW of PV on tap, he doesn't use any net grid power for most of the year now.  Saves on using gas for water heating and they had their bathroom refitted so the Eco-Cute provides the perfect hot bath - very important for Japanese, who love baths.  It constantly circulates the water to keep it at the set temperature - you can sit in it all night if you want :D  The control panel even announces by cheery Japanese lady's voice that your bath is ready!

 

They also upgraded their kitchen to switch from gas cooking to energy saving magnetic induction hobs.

 

 

Edited by AccordGuy - 3/18/2009 at 07:27 pm

 

 

I guess I became obsolete while I am away from Japan for more than a decade. I know nearly nothing about new products.

 

I am surprised to find your relatives changed cooking stove from gas to magnetic induction. I would call it as downgrade, because nothing can do better than gas as far as cooking is concerned.... it may be just a personal taste or preferance.

 

 

 

 

Psst... Don't tell anyone... my mother-in-law's cooking is best described as "an experience" and the flat hob was easier to keep clean.  My father-in-law doesn't know what a cooker is :D

 

We've got a halogen hob at home and we find it ok for most things but we've got a portable gas hob for making oden and shabushabu....mmmmmm oden.....getting.....hungry.......

 

I love to hear you like ODEN. My wife loves most of Japanese food, but NATTO, ODEN, live fish, and few others are exceptions.

 

Actually, I think electric or gas, or something else is not a matter for most of Japanese cooking. What makes difference is Chinese cooking. It really requires strong heat.

 

I don't know about halogen hob. What is it?

It's a sort of black semi-transparent glass / ceramic hob with basically a big light-bulb inside.  When you turn it on it pretty quickly (like in a few seconds) starts to glow red-hot.  The good thing is it heats up very quickly (for an electric hob) and cools down pretty quickly too (helps when things are about to boil over).  And being flat, it's easy to clean.  It's cooking by infrared light.  I guess it saves a bit of energy compared to a solid plate electric hob as you don't have to wait for it to heat up.  The IR either heats the base of the pan directly (if it's a dark colour) or if it's a new shiny aluminium pan then the dark ceramic also absorbs the IR and gets hot (but more slowly) to heat the pan by conduction.

Thankw AccordGuy. I know IR hob, but not halogen.

 

Normally, the problem with electric heater is its low efficiency. I believe IR and halogen heater must have much higher efficienry than conventional electric heater.

 

By the way, I often cook shabu-shabu (you must repeat this word, otherwise it means very different - drug) at home. I ended up buying an inexpensive manual meat slicer. All my friends loves it.

 

Regards / Mota

This may have already been posted, but I could not find if it was. Appliance lights. Found that both the fridge and freezer have 40 watt bulbs, popped 2 -25 watt bulbs in the instead and noone in the family is the wiser. I know cfls would be a bad choice for many reasons, but I may pick up a couple of cheap lcds and try them. Also, when I went to change out the old lights in my small pantry to cfls, I was shocked to find the  fixture had 2 60 watt bulbs, way over kill. Stuck in one 60 watt equivalent and once again, noone noticed

You have to be careful with fridge-freezer bulbs.  Sometimes they have to be a specific rating to heat the thermostat.  Sounds weird but yes, most fridge-freezers have only one thermostat in the chiller side and if it gets too cold outside the fridge-freezer (because you kept it in an out-house rather than the kitchen) the chiller will get too cold and the freezer will get too warm and your frozen food can spoil.

 

The solution used to be that the instruction book said you just had to keep the fridge somewhere where the ambient temperature never falls below 16C. Because some people complained about this, another solution was devised by some manufacturers to recognise that you will keep the fridge-freezer in a cold conservatory or out-house. They fitted a switch that you set to "on" if you are going to keep the fridge-freezer somewhere cold.  What this does is put a dimmer on the bulb inside so that when you open the door it comes on full brightness but when you close the door, it doesn't turn off but goes dim.  The heat from the bulb glowing dimly is enough warm the chiller compartment up a bit to trick the thermostat into staying on for longer so that the freezer compartment stays cold enough to keep stuff frozen properly without ice forming in your milk in the chiller.

 

So... by changing the bulb to a lower rated one you may stop the fridge-freezer from working properly (but only if you keep the thing somewhere too cold).

 

Fridges with built-in fridge heaters... what ever next?

thanks, i will watch close!

I mentioned about the list we were maintaining on home energy conservation ideas.

Some time has passed and the list has now grown to more than 500 home energy and now clean water conservation, including:

- 400+ which are simple and easy to do
- 275+ cost nothing to do
- 115+ cost just a little to do
- 115+ are specific to electricity conservation
- 115+ are specific to clean water conservation

The ideas are from hundreds of people across North America.

Dan

I live in Santa Fe, New Mexico and the other day, a group of people stopped by and told us about a new program offered by the State. For free, they will do an energy consumption analysis of your home and install certain things like low-flow shower heads and CFLs--for free.

I've also found that conservation plays an important part in raising our kids. We talk about why we need to turn off all the lights, why we need to turn the water off while we brush our teeth, and so on. This, in turn, makes us more aware of our actions. We do, after all, have to practice what we preach.