Archive for On Grid
November 29, 2011 at 8:34 am · Filed under Green Tech, Off Grid, On Grid, Solar
There are so many different industry buzzwords that have come about lately that it is very difficult to ignore them. Whether you’re talking about “cloud computing” or “grid computing” or even “smart grid technology” there are literally hundreds of company cropping up trying to market their wares to the various enterprises who may be in need of such products. Some of these technologies may take a while for rapid adoption, while others will make it to the masses rather rapidly. In the case of smart grid adoption, I suggest that the former will be more indicative than the latter. Read the rest of this entry »
October 11, 2011 at 6:02 am · Filed under Bio Fuel, DIY Projects, Off Grid, On Grid
With winter’s chill soon upon us we should do all we can around our homes, offices and properties to take steps to reduce our carbon footprint and fossil fuel use. After all a watt of power saved now – is energy down the line that is not used and saved for future generations and others in less fortunate areas of the globe.
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October 2, 2011 at 2:32 am · Filed under DIY Projects, Green Tech, On Grid
When it comes to saving energy and power units in home settings you would think that with all the light and lighting emanating from our homes that electrical fossil fuel driven, nuclear and hydroelectric power would be a great energy waste and cost in our homes. Yet it’s a case of the squeaky wheel (or well lit one) getting the attention.
Fully 95 % of energy from old light bulbs is wasted as heat - heat your tea
photo source : http://nexgadget.com/images/Use-the-of-Your-Incandescent-Light-Bulbs-Waste-Energy-to-Heat-Your-Tea-Concept_ELetd_0.jpg
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August 18, 2011 at 12:26 am · Filed under Green Tech, On Grid
Businesses, especially start-ups, are looking for practical and sometimes extreme ways to save money in whatever ways they can. Electricity is no exception. I have a friend whose wife works at Amazon. Back in the earlier years at the company, they were actually quite extreme when it came to saving money. And, being the analytically anal company they are, they assessed the costs of electricity being consumed by the vending machines throughout the office. After some simple math, they discovered they could save $XX each month by simply pulling out all the light bulbs from the vending machines. This may sound extreme, but if you are in the business of making money, it only makes sense.
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July 18, 2011 at 9:09 pm · Filed under Activism, Green Tech, On Grid
If you are unaware of the massive quantities of energy required to power data centers and server farms, you may want to start looking into the numbers. They can be quite alarming. One data center can consume as much energy as a small town, including about 5,000 homes. Some of the numbers tell us that data centers are hugely wasteful as well, drawing about 60% of their power during idle times when they are doing nothing. Energy efficiency can oftentimes be ignored, especially when high growth industries are chasing after dollars instead of efficiency. But the learning curve will be kind to these folks as further advances in technology will not only increase the efficiency of such centers, but also make the energy they are consuming cheaper and greener.
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June 30, 2011 at 9:12 pm · Filed under DIY Projects, On Grid
Our home guzzles up a lot of energy and though you may be living a greener lifestyle taking public transportation or carrying re-usable bags at the shops, there are still a lot to be done at the domestic department. Many studies now prove the devastating results of carbon emission on global warming and as carers of this planet, we must do our bit to guarantee the safe conditions we’ve had for the future generation. Read the rest of this entry »
June 19, 2007 at 4:39 pm · Filed under Bio Fuel, Green Tech, hybrids, On Grid, Video, Wind Power
Google.org – the philanthropic arm of Google – yesterday lauched an exciting project that offers a glimpse of a smarter energy future: cars that plug into an electric grid powered by solar energy. Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles can quadruple the fuel economy of the average car on the road today. As Google.org demonstrated at yesterday’s event, plug-in hybrids can sell power back to the electric grid when it’s needed most through vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology
Google.org’s core missions is to address climate change. In the U.S., transportation contributes about one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions –- with more than 60 percent of those emissions coming from personal vehicles. By accelerating the adoption of plug-in hybrids and vehicle-to-grid (“V2G”) technologies, this new project, RechargeIT.org, aims to reduce emissions and dependence on oil while promoting clean energy technologies and increasing consumer choice. Linking the U.S. transportation system to the electricity grid maximizes the efficiency of our energy system. From these efforts, we believe the environment will benefit – and consumers will have more choices to fuel their cars.
We’ve been working with Google engineers and Hymotion/A123Systems to build a small fleet of plug-in hybrids, adding an external plug and additional batteries to a regular hybrid car so that it runs on electricity with gasoline (or even better, biofuels) to extend the driving range for longer trips. Here’s what it looks like:
[youtube]oDjSbWTJbdo[/youtube]
February 11, 2007 at 5:46 pm · Filed under DIY Projects, Green Tech, On Grid, Solar
I promised to tell you more about our use of solar energy. After having re-build our house last year we now make us of solar energy in 3 ways:
* Solar cells for 220 Volt on-grid electricity
* Solar panels for heating water combined with floor heating
* Passive heating through a huge thermo glass area facing south.
First we got the photo-voltaic cells. Our roof is perfect for this, facing south in an angel of 45. The disadvantage of this system is the price, but in 2003 we got selected for a project called “Sun 2000″ in which different organizations and state subsidies paid 60 pct. of the total price. Our price was about 6.000 euro, but what really made this project interesting from a financial perspective was the agreement with the local power company: The system is build to produce 220 V and it is connected to the grid. Normally if you produce electricity for the grid you will only get paid the basic price pr. kW. But when you buy you will have to pay the basic price plus taxes. Since the taxes make about 3/4 of the power bill this would not be interesting for at all. Instead we now can sell power at the same price as we buy as longs as we produce less than we use pr. year. This is great because the system produces about 1/3 of our total power consumption. The system is build of 6 BP panels at 170 WP each which will produces about 800 – 1000 kWh/year. To generate 220 V for the grid and our own use we have 1 Fronius micro inverter. This is no in longer in production, but has been replaced by a new series of Fronius inverters, the IG series. Read the rest of this entry »
January 10, 2007 at 4:20 pm · Filed under Green Tech, On Grid
I am having a meeting with the Danish company EC-Power in a couple of days. They had seen some of my articles in Berlingske Tidende about renewable energy and thought I might be able to help doing some PR for their products. This post is not to promote EC-Power, but I find their products and approach very promising.
EC-Power has developed a gas/oil generator that produces electricity. This is a known technology, but the machine, XRGI, is also used for heating water. This heat is normally wasted. In general, the production of 1 kilowatt of power creates 2 kilowatts of usable heat energy.
From the EC-Power website:
“The extremely high efficiency of EC Power Micro CHP systems is dramatically superseeding ordinary energy technology.
By comparison, traditional electricity production has an efficiency of only 30 – 40%. Thus, the EC Power Combined Heat and Power solution can reduce energy bills by 40 – 60%, or increase efficiency by more than 100% – a considerable improvement. Furthermore, the EC Power solution will reduce future investments in the energy infrastructure. By decentralising energy production, the need for new, regional transmission systems for heating and power will be diminished and transmission losses, a substantial cost factor in any centralised energy supply system, will be greatly reduced or become non-existent.”
The system is in use several places in Denmark and other European markets. One of the great future prospects of the technology is that it very easy can be convertet to operate with fuel cells. EC-Power was bought by Norwegian Statoil some years ago.
Link to video.
