The Energy Novice

Just a quick post about things I’m finding about appliances I use around the home that are surprising me a bit..

Vizio 42″ LCD TV… wattage on the TV says it consumes about 700 Watts (maximum)… actual usage? 220 Watts!  That kindof surprised me (in a good way) since I thought normal usage would be way higher.  I guess the labels on some appliances really show maximum usage and not average usage.

In a similar way, my Mini Sony SRX-33 Laptop rated at 60 watts… is only showing about 20 watts on average use (i.e. typing on keyboard, surfing the web).  Pretty good results too.

On the other hand… my Dish Network DVR 622 used up 29 watts every single hour of every single day.. even if power was shut off through the remote! This is kind of misleading since I have always though the power button to at least shut down part of the system to save energy… doesn’t look like it though!  I know it needs to be on to be able to record shows but couldn’t they have designed the device to work on a timer to wake up on recording time or something so that energy use could be much lower?

This kill-a-watt meter is really coming in handy… how about you? What have you found out about your appliances?…

Here’s a list of websites that sell solar panels (and other supporting accessories like inverters, batteries and charge controllers) at retail for home end-users.  With the high costs of solar panels, it’s really a good idea to shop around or get what options are available to you before buying.

Note: These sites are not in any order and I am not endorsing any of them.  It is simply a list that I found useful for my use when shopping for solar panels.  I hope they are useful for you too!

Selling New Solar Panels:

• SolarHome - (solarhome.org) - Lots of solar panels for sale as well as accessories and supporting parts for setting up your system. Can search by watts, brand or type of solar panel. Lots of reading information too.
• Wholesale Solar - (wholesalesolar.com) - Can find good bargains for multiple solar panels. Lots of accessories too.
• Affordable Solar - (affordable-solar.com) - Good site for research on solar panels, accessories (charge controllers, inverters and more).  They also sell by the pallet and have some good priced panels.
• Mr. Solar - (mrsolar.com) - Nice informative site. Also has pre-built kits and systems. Has information for RV and other off-site uses too.
• Sun Electrictric - (sunelec.com) - Nice site for various solar panel brands that actually shows their inventory online. They also have lots of accessories and interesting things like solar friendly fridges and freezers.
• Solatron Technologies - (partsonsale.com) - Interesting site to find solar panels and other gadgets that you probably never heard of.  Seems they also run a lot of special deals from time to time.  Solar panel kits also available.
• EcoBusinessLinks - (ecobusinesslinks.com) - Compare prices of different brands of solar panels on one page… using $/watt.  Price ranges from $3/watt to $5/watt.
• Solar Buzz - (solarbuzz.com) - similar to EcoBusinessLinks and shows the average prices of solar modules of about 70 companies that make them as well as the trends in prices over the months.

Selling Used Solar Panels:

• EBay - (www.ebay.com). Lots of types of solar panels, used and new in this site.  This is usually the first place I look for cheap, used solar panels.  A lot of interesting listings are found here but as usual, be careful of sellers who may be out for a quick buck.
• CraigsList - (www.craigslist.com).  Some good deals for solar panels can be found here but items may only be found locally in certain cities.  You’ll have to contact the seller if they are willing to ship them to another city or state.

Other Interesting ideas:

• Free Solar Panels (?) - (Cleantechnica) - see this article to see how to get almost free panels from those solar powered road signs and lights used in the highways.
• Make your own panels - (TreeHugger) - an article that discusses how to create a complete solar panel from scraps and broken smaller panels that you can buy on ebay.  If you’re the DIY type of person, then this may be the cheapest way of obtaining solar panels for your home.

Have fun shopping around!

p.s. If you own a website selling solar panels and related items, please add a comment or email me to add you to the list.  Thanks!

I just came across this interesting set-up for lowering electricity bills - hook up solar panels to a device (an inverter it seems) that generates 110V AC which you then plug into your standard plug outlet in your home. This has the potential of also running your electricity meter backwards if you are using very little power (i.e. when out for work during the day).

What’s interesting here is that it’s so simple with no (I would believe) problems with battery systems, charge controllers, connections to your home’s mains… just point the panels to the sun and plug the device and you should be saving energy every day… what’s simpler than that?

Some things I noticed though that kindof disturbed me (although this may not really a big issue for others):

1. It specifically stated that it isn’t UL-certified.  Not sure if it’s certified for other electrical codes as it doesn’t say.  This may or may not be a big issue depending on your needs.
2. The device handles only up to 250 watts - or about 1Kwh per day on average.  When I last looked at my electricity bill, we used up about 300Kwh for that last month! That translates to an average of about 10Kwh used per day. Seems like at this rate, I would only “save” about 10% of my electricity bill with this set-up.  Seems like it would a long time to recoup the initial investment…

What do you think about this system?  Is it worth trying?

Actually, the solar panels can be easily reused in another setup with batteries and chargers so it’s really only the inverter device that makes this investment a bit questionable.  It may be worth it just to give it a go .. or maybe if you already have solar panels, maybe just getting the device itself would be a good idea?…

Would be great if anyone had any comments on this or if anyone has purchased or can recommend a similar setup for saving electricity.  See you next time!

Hi everyone… seems like a bit of basics is in order. Since my previous post about the kill-a-watt device was becoming too long, I’d like to continue discussing about the Power equation in this article… to recap:

Power (Watts) = Voltage (Volts) x Current (Amps)

This is the essential equation you’ll need to know in order to figure out energy (electricity) usage in your home.  The main thing to figure out is the total number of watts or power you will need for your home - and you can do this by going through each of the devices/appliances you use and recording the number of watts it uses.

Again, you can use a Kill-A-Watt or an ammeter or any other similar device to measure wattage and current to come to the same values but if you don’t have these gadgets handy, then there’s an easy way to estimate the maximum power each device needs.. by just using the equation above!

The trick is to look at each device and look either at the back of the device, or under it, or on its plug adapter for a sticker or piece of paper with some technical information about it (like the model number, date manufactured, manufacturer, etc).  This is required to be there for all electrical appliances and devices so it should be there somewhere. (If you really can’t find it anywhere, then you can just look in that device’s user’s manual - usually in the technical specifications page for this same information)

Usually, in that sticker comes the electrical information in Volts, Amps or Watts or a combination of each. Just ignore everything else written in there since most of them are not for us normal people.  Some of them may have the watts written on it (look for a Watts or W), or may only have Volts (V) and Amps (A), or maybe just even Amps (A).  Here’s how to figure out the number of maximum watts the device could use:

• If you find Volts (V) and Amps(A), just multiply them together to get Watts. (i.e. 110 Volts x 2 Amps = 220 Watts).
• If you find only Amps(A), then just multiply it by 110 V (standard on most U.S. homes) or 220 V depending on your home’s voltage. (i.e. If the rating is 5A, then multiply that by 110V to get 550 watts).

Of course, if the number of watts is already written in there, then there’s no need to calculate anything!

Here are some samples that I got from around the house:

Laptop sticker showing Voltage & Amps

This one is from my Toshiba laptop found under the laptop near the power supply. It’s clearly shown here the volts (DC 15V) and amps (5A). So, in effect, the total wattage my laptop can use is 75 watts.

Fridge Sticker sample

This is an example of my “Energy Star” fridge. I found it inside the refrigerator on the left hand side (yours may be different but its usually somewhere inside the fridge). You can easily see the “Amps-4.50″ and “Volts-115″ values in there. Pretty easy… so the total watts needed is about 518 watts (115 times 4.5).

Rice Cooker sticker sample

This is a sample of a rice cooker appliance. In this case, there’s no need to calculate anything.. it says it right there.. “850W” or 850 watts!

In addition, if you want to get the current (Amps) for this appliance, just use the sample equation and just divide the Watts by Volts (120V in this sticker)… to get 7 Amps!

I certainly hope this has given you a much clearer understanding of finding out power usage for your devices. If you keep a good record of this, it will come in pretty handy later on when you want to add generators or inverters to power your home in the future.

Finally, It’s also a good thing to know how much power your appliances use to be more conscious of power usage and to take steps to save on your electricity bill the next time it comes around!

I’ve been seeing a lot of this electricity measuring gadget on the Internet and decided to buy it to see how it really works. in essence, it’s a great tool for do-it-yourselfers or anyone who just wants to find out how much electricity usage each device in their home uses up.  It’s a great gadget but with a caveat i’ll mention a bit later…

Kill-A-Watt in action

Why this device?

Anyone who wants to save on electricity should really know how much electricity they use in the first place. Of course, you can always take a peek at your electricity meter from the power company and compute the total number of kilowatts hours  (that’s another way of saying 1 thousand watts in an hour) you’ve used up… but which appliances are those that really use up the bulk of that electricity?

In comes the Kill-A-Watt device.. it’s really a measuring device that measures voltage (i.e. 110 volts or 220 volts) and current (Amps) and power (Watts).  Since most houses come with 110 volts, what’s really important is to figure out the number of watts each item in your house uses.   The bigger the number of watts it uses, the more power and the larger your monthly bill would be if it was used all the time.

How to use it?

To use the Kill-A-Watt, all you have to do is plug it in your outlet and then plug in your appliance/item into the kill-a-watt socket.  Once that’s done, turn on your appliance and press the “Watt” button.  It’s going to show you the total # of watts your appliance is using at any given time.  Pretty easy!

Some examples:

1. This computer I am using to write this is has an AMD Athlon 64 processor with 2 Gb and a hard drive & DVD drive… with normal usage, I get about 45 watts.  If I am running a video or doing some CPU-intensive things, then it goes up to about 65 or 70 watts.  The 19″ LCD monitor attached to it uses about 16 watts of power… so a total of about 60-70 watts.

2. I also have a Toshiba Laptop (older model) that uses up about 40 watts normally. If the LCD display is off, then it goes down to 35 watts.  If it’s fully charged, then it goes even lower.. only using up about 17 watts in normal usage… pretty neat.

3. Canon Laser Printer. For this, I have it on standby most of the time and it uses up about 2-3 watts… pretty good because some devices use up a lot more power on standby than you think!

You can go all around your house and do the same thing until you get a list of which appliances use up the most power.  This gives you a great idea on how to save on electricity costs by just changing the way you do things everyday.

For example, I used to leave my PC on the whole day and night since I don’t like having to wait for my computer to boot up when I want to use it… seeing how it uses up power though.. it makes sense to just turn it off especially at night.  (60 watts of power x 24 hours X 30 days = 43,200 watts or 48 killowatt/hours). At about 10 cents per KWH, then that’s already $4.80.. most of it wasted power since the PC is not being used most of the time.

Another example… if you have a widescreen LCD TV that uses up, say 700watts… using it for 4 hours a day uses up 84 kwh (700 w x 4 hrs * 30 days = 84,000 watt-hours).. or $8.40 addition to your bill.  If you don’t turn it off for the whole day (i.e. 12 hours on), then it comes out to about  252kwh or $25.20!  Makes sense to turn that off when you’re not watching TV…

I guess the good thing about gadgets like these is that it gives us a concrete idea of how much electricity a device uses.  Without it, we don’t really know which ones use the most power and we can’t really make a plan to save if we don’t know what to save on.

‘The Caveat(s)’

I guess it’s time for the caveat/warning… the main thing I didn’t appreciate with this device is that it’s a bit bulky and doesn’t do well if plugged into the wall socket since it really has to be on the top socket to be readable. It’s especially hard if you have to plug it into a thin extension cord.. you basically lose about 3 - 4 outlets since this thing covers almost everything.  I wish it was either thinner or it had a kind of built-in extension cable so this would be less of a problem! (See my picture above to see how it looks in a normal wall socket).

There’s also another warning that needs to be said… since this is a plug-in device.. you can’t really use this to figure out usage for some household things like, say, your furnace or pumps or other “built-in” devices.  In some cases, it’s also a bit hard to reach into the back of your large fridge (or other large appliances) just to plug it into the wall socket - especially if you have recessed or customized fitting panels all around the appliance. (i.e. stoves, diswashers, etc).

A way to remedy this is maybe think of other devices like an Ammeter (measures current) that comes with a loop.  This kind of device is more for the professional and is more expensive but it allows you to measure current without needing to unplug the appliance.. just slip in the loop on the wire and you get a reading right away.

Another way, is simply to calculate estimated wattage by using the Power formula:

Power (Watts) = Voltage (Volts) x Current (Amps)

… but that’s best kept for another article… see you then and happy measuring! …

Well, something good came out of that Bailout bill… hopefully a lot of Americans were paying attention when they extended the ITC/PTC (Tax credits) for 1 and 8 years.

This means that solar production is really going to ramp up very soon (as it was about to expire at the end of this year, solar energy companies seemed to be slowing down and even laying off workers in anticipation of the worst if the bill wasn’t passed) and we are going to get a lot more investments and money pouring into solar and clean energy initiatives.

Here’s the summary of the bill HR 1424 . I think for most of us homeowners, the relevant portion is the extension of the Residential Solar Investment Tax Credit which extends a 30% tax credit for 8 years as well as removes the cap of $2,000… so it really becomes a full 30% credit on your returns on whatever you spend including materials and labor!  Pretty nice! 

This really makes me optimistic for the future of America as this makes small steps into making America less dependent on foreign sources of energy.  I sincerely hope more Americans make use of this credit and we see more solar panels being installed in homes in all states - not just in California.

Btw, If you want to see the full bill, see this link.  It’s a bit boring to read unless you’re used to these types of documents but you’ll get all the details you need to see if you qualify for the credit and see which items are included for the credit.

Seriously think of availing of this tax credit… it saves you money upfront (from the tax credit) and in the long run (from monthly electricity bill savings) AND it allows you to live more independently from the grid and not worry too much about blackouts and such…

The EnergyNovice was born.. I guess out of necessity.  Hurricane Ike ripped through Texas with all its fury but nobody expected its effects to reach Dayton, Ohio… way up here in the midwest! With wind gusts up to 70 mph - pretty uncommon for these parts - trees were broken, rooftops and sidings broken off and flying off into the air.. even unsecured trampolines rolling and jumping over fences.  Nobody really expected it to be that bad, not the weathermen, not the emergency services, not the electric company, and certainly not us.

Of course, with the destruction came the eventual loss of electricity and power. Huge swaths of neighborhoods were in darkness that first night.. 2.5 million households were without power and to make it worse, most of the power line technicians and engineers were not in town - they were in Texas helping out the affected homes there! In our case, we were out of power for 3 days.. but a lot of homes were out of power for 7 and, I believe, the worst was about 13 days!  Some homes were without heat, some without food (food doesn’t last long in a fridge without any power) and fast food stores were filled with people (the first time I’ve seen them that full). Generators, Inverters, propane stoves, kerosene lamps, and other emergency items - normally in stock in stores - were completely gone by the time we got around to thinking that this blackout would take much longer than we thought!

Basically, this got me thinking…  this shouldn’t really happen to those who are prepared and ready for any disaster that should strike.  We have a lot of resources all around us in “normal” times but when disasters happen… things that we take for granted are usually gone pretty fast - electricity, heat, food, water… pretty much gone in the first few days.  It could be worse.. what if it lasted more than that without any relief?  What if gasoline trucks couldn’t deliver gas to the stations?  What would happen to those generators which needed this? 7 days without relief is going to be a nightmare for most people.  What if it happened in the middle of winter?!

Although I have always been interested in alternative energies, it never really hit home until this happened.  It got me thinking of ways we could have done better in the crisis… we should have a back up plan if electricity went out… fridge & furnace seems to be the best items to power for our home.  What could we do in the future to have this running?  Solar panels & batteries could have helped… a large inverter on hand would have been pretty useful to power lights and other essentials.  A generator would have been a blessing too.

Thus, this blog was born… I’m a pretty good researcher on the Internet and I have a basic grasp of power and energy from college days. What I plan to do is share my findings and ideas on this blog… to see what people think and see what we all could do to increase our self-reliance and lower our dependence on others.

There are a LOT of energy resources out there… which are feasible and which are not though are a different thing… I do hope though to have fun finding out new ideas - as well as looking into tried & true ways to be energy independent.  I hope you will too… !