Ever wonder what the energy flow through a net meter looks like when you have solar on your house? No? Well, if you did, take a gander at the graphs above (click for a bigger version). Continue reading
Category Archives: Energy
What are individual actions worth?
I read an article over at Green Building Advisor.com, with the title/subtitle “Is the Green Movement Just Spinning Its Wheels? Can individuals make a real dent in climate change, or does our future hinge on government intervention?”
It was a fairly gloomy take on things. Continue reading
Hyperlinking my Solar Array
I’ve had enough people ask, while randomly meeting me as they walk down the alley, “hey, how do those solar panels work?” that I figured maybe a little object hyperlinking was in order. Continue reading
Hanlon’s Razor and Online Comments
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. – Hanlon’s Razor
Boy, but sometimes it is hard. There was a recent article in the local paper about a solar manufacturing plant going up on Minnesota’s Iron range. And you can bet that any article about alternative energy will bring out the interesting comments in droves. (Maybe this is true about any article about anything?) Warning: If you don’t want a boring rehash of anti-solar comments and my attempts to bring a few factual nuggets to the conversation, you should stop reading this post now. You have been warned… Continue reading
How to build an 18W, 4 terabyte, commodity x86 Linux server
Can you build a Linux server for web, email, printing, and 4 terabytes of media serving purposes from commodity x86 parts, and come in under 20W? Absolutely! Continue reading
First Year of Solar
We’re at the 1-year anniversary of throwing the big red switch (yes, there really is a red switch!) on the 2.53kW solar PV installation on our home. Continue reading
Google PowerMeter flatlines
Well, they did it. Google killed PowerMeter.
This is lame. I mean – really, really lame. After signing up hardware partners and gathering a good number of users, google.org, “the philanthropical wing of Google” has killed PowerMeter, because, well, I guess because it wasn’t satisfying their philanthropical urges anymore?
Surely this doesn’t cost them more than a tiny fraction of their total pot of more-money-than-God. Development already stopped months (years?) ago. Why not just let it run for those who found it useful? I actually really appreciated being able to see details of my power use. It helped me make better decisions.
At least they have an exit plan to let users extract their data before they throw the big red switch. If only there were somewhere else to send it.
Powermeter wasn’t great, but it was much better than nothing. I hope something will come up to replace it. Anyone know of a good alternative?
3MWh and counting …
We hit 3MWh (that’s megawatt-hours) of solar PV production yesterday, a few weeks ahead of the 1-year anniversary of the install. In that time, we:
- Generated 3000 kWh
- Pushed 1877 kWh onto the grid
- Pulled 3278 kWh off the grid
So, that means we used (3000 – 1877 + 3278) = 4401 kWh in that time (for about 360kWh/month average), and we generated 3000 / 4401 = 68% of the electricity we used in our home. A bit shy of the 75% I’d hoped for but not too bad!
The monetary value of those 3000MWh is about $300 here in MN, at about $0.10/kWh (my baseline for comparison is the cost for electricity with Windsource, since we have subscribed to that program for many years now. It’s only slightly higher in cost, about $0.009/kWh, since the fuel charge gets removed for Windsource customers).
JetWay JNC9C-550-LF and PicoPSU-90 problems
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I got a Jetway JNC9C-550-LF mini-ITX mobile Atom board from Newegg to run sandeen.net, and the plan was to run it off a Pico-PSU 90W [amzn] power supply for maximum efficiency. But I could not get the darned thing to boot on that power supply. It worked ok on a 250W ATX ps, though. I had originally gotten an 80W picoPSU, and that failed to boot, so I RMA’d it. The folks at mini-box were very nice and helpful, but the 90W behaved exactly the same way. I was stumped. As a long shot, I asked Jetway tech support about it, and was rather astounded to get this reply:
Where are the Hyper-Watters?
A while ago – maybe around when the Prius first appeared? – there was a lot of talk about the hypermilers. You know, the folks who would coast down the hill to their garage and draft 6″ off 18-wheelers in an effort to eke out the very best possible mpg in their car? I know it is a cultural phenomenon, because it has a Wikipedia entry! There are also YouTube videos, Wired articles, and Instructables. Clearly, this has caught people’s fancy – probably because paying for gas sucks, especially now. Saving energy and money – in your car – has become just a little bit cool.
So where are the hyperwatters, the folks who eke every bit of utility out of every watt-hour? Where are the forums, the Wired articles, the … words of the year for the electrical efficiency freaks?
Even if the word isn’t in our language yet, I’m pretty sure you may be a hyperwatter if you:
(Note: some Amazon product links follow)
- Read your electric bill each month – and look forward to it!
- Know how much energy your doorbell uses
- Replaced your electric coffee grinder with a hand grinder? [amzn]
- Replaced your CFLs (which were in every socket) with LEDs
- Own a Kill A Watt[amzn]
- Know that turning the gigabit ethernet card in your computer down to 100 megabits can save up to 2 watts, or up to 20kWh/year
- Delay laundry until the sun is shining
- ???
So – are you out there? Are you with me? Have you gone to any extremes to shave that last kWh off your bill? Will it take electricity at $1/kWh for “hyperwatter” to become the 2014 word of the year?