gar
Senior Member
- Location
- Ann Arbor, Michigan
- Occupation
- EE
130615-1207 EDT
This forum has a major problem and times out my login while I am composing a post. There are also other major problems that have occurred over several years as the software was changed.
Back to what I was posting.
130615-1005 EDT
Last night was our mayor's annual green fair. Three blocks of Main street are blocked off for various exhibits. As an aside this street has LED lights.
One exhibit was by a remodeler that previously presented a seminar I had attended. In that seminar they had mentioned a power conditioner that would increase the life of loads and lower energy consumption. I confronted them on that device. And in talking with them following the seminar I learned they had installed a couple units at about 1500 to 2000 dollars. At this time I informed them that these were a fraud. No energy saving. Whether they are still suggesting such installations I don't know and they weren't saying anything explicit at the fair. I don't believe these are dishonest people, just uninformed.
They are doing remodels that are reducing whole house energy consumption. Mostly by insulation, windows, and ground based heat pumps. However, on their plots the vertical axis is labeled kWh, but the continuous line plot is not a monotonically increasing curve as it would have to be. The label as drawn should probably be kWh/month, and should not be a continuous line plot.
Next to an exhibit that is really strange by an LED company, and the person's card had P.E. attached to his name. This company lists themselves as LED Lighting Experts. The display consisted of some sort of claimed wattmeter, switches to sockets, and one 60 W incandescent, one 13 W CFL (presumably 5 years in use), and a couple small LEDs. Their claim was that the CFL gradual consumed more power over its life while maintaining about the same light output. Their demonstration showed 44 W for this 13 W bulb. I think they were trying say that LEDs were much better. I disputed their claim that CFL consume grossly more power with age. I think they believe this increase in power, but if it exists then there is a major internal failure before the bulb quits emitting light. Further, the CFL can not consume 30 additional watts of power without major damage to the base area. I did not see any browning on their bulb's base where the fluorescent tube comes out of the base.
Afterwards at home I tested three CFLs that have mostly been run continuously for a number of years. All three have considerable browning.
A 14 W started at about 14.2 W, increased to 15.3 W, and has trended down to at least 13.9 W after about 5 minutes.
An 18/19 W started at 19.3 W, increased to 21.9 W, and dropped to 19.2 W after a few minutes. Fluke IR 62 Mini about 200 F on bulb when on, about 180 F just after off, and base is in range of 90 F.
A 27 W started at 24.9 W, increased to 26.5 W, and dropped to 23.7 W after about 20 minutes.
All bulbs were generally in the 0.6 PF range. Measurement was with a Kill-A-Watt EZ. This EZ unit reads 0 PF and 3W on a 5 A capacitive load.
I hope to be able to test the demonstrated CFL with my instrumentation and see what I read. They are not in their office today.
I had an interesting discussion with a PhD student related to his thesis area on distributed wind sources to reduce the grid instability problem from instantaneous variations in wind. Previously I saw a comment on a Danish study that implied that at about 15% of total energy supplied by wind was the maximum that a grid could tolerate without instability. To go higher means some sort of instantaneous load shedding is needed. Thus, diversification of wind source may be a partial solution. Talked with another person suggesting use of our vast underground cavities for energy storage with compressed air. However, compressed air is much less efficient than pumped water storage. But environmentalists are preventing any more Ludington type pumped water facilities. The time constant of Ludington is probably sufficient for short time wind variation, but certainly can not handle a 1 day period,
.
This forum has a major problem and times out my login while I am composing a post. There are also other major problems that have occurred over several years as the software was changed.
Back to what I was posting.
130615-1005 EDT
Last night was our mayor's annual green fair. Three blocks of Main street are blocked off for various exhibits. As an aside this street has LED lights.
One exhibit was by a remodeler that previously presented a seminar I had attended. In that seminar they had mentioned a power conditioner that would increase the life of loads and lower energy consumption. I confronted them on that device. And in talking with them following the seminar I learned they had installed a couple units at about 1500 to 2000 dollars. At this time I informed them that these were a fraud. No energy saving. Whether they are still suggesting such installations I don't know and they weren't saying anything explicit at the fair. I don't believe these are dishonest people, just uninformed.
They are doing remodels that are reducing whole house energy consumption. Mostly by insulation, windows, and ground based heat pumps. However, on their plots the vertical axis is labeled kWh, but the continuous line plot is not a monotonically increasing curve as it would have to be. The label as drawn should probably be kWh/month, and should not be a continuous line plot.
Next to an exhibit that is really strange by an LED company, and the person's card had P.E. attached to his name. This company lists themselves as LED Lighting Experts. The display consisted of some sort of claimed wattmeter, switches to sockets, and one 60 W incandescent, one 13 W CFL (presumably 5 years in use), and a couple small LEDs. Their claim was that the CFL gradual consumed more power over its life while maintaining about the same light output. Their demonstration showed 44 W for this 13 W bulb. I think they were trying say that LEDs were much better. I disputed their claim that CFL consume grossly more power with age. I think they believe this increase in power, but if it exists then there is a major internal failure before the bulb quits emitting light. Further, the CFL can not consume 30 additional watts of power without major damage to the base area. I did not see any browning on their bulb's base where the fluorescent tube comes out of the base.
Afterwards at home I tested three CFLs that have mostly been run continuously for a number of years. All three have considerable browning.
A 14 W started at about 14.2 W, increased to 15.3 W, and has trended down to at least 13.9 W after about 5 minutes.
An 18/19 W started at 19.3 W, increased to 21.9 W, and dropped to 19.2 W after a few minutes. Fluke IR 62 Mini about 200 F on bulb when on, about 180 F just after off, and base is in range of 90 F.
A 27 W started at 24.9 W, increased to 26.5 W, and dropped to 23.7 W after about 20 minutes.
All bulbs were generally in the 0.6 PF range. Measurement was with a Kill-A-Watt EZ. This EZ unit reads 0 PF and 3W on a 5 A capacitive load.
I hope to be able to test the demonstrated CFL with my instrumentation and see what I read. They are not in their office today.
I had an interesting discussion with a PhD student related to his thesis area on distributed wind sources to reduce the grid instability problem from instantaneous variations in wind. Previously I saw a comment on a Danish study that implied that at about 15% of total energy supplied by wind was the maximum that a grid could tolerate without instability. To go higher means some sort of instantaneous load shedding is needed. Thus, diversification of wind source may be a partial solution. Talked with another person suggesting use of our vast underground cavities for energy storage with compressed air. However, compressed air is much less efficient than pumped water storage. But environmentalists are preventing any more Ludington type pumped water facilities. The time constant of Ludington is probably sufficient for short time wind variation, but certainly can not handle a 1 day period,
.
