The Contribution of Solar Thermal Energy to the Overall heat Demand in Europe

March 9th, 2010

This is an interesting excerpt from the book  Solar heating systems for houses: a design handbook for solar combisystems By Werner W. Weiss, International Energy Agency. Solar Heating and Cooling Programme.  I’ve placed this book in the Residential Energy Kit Store. Click Here. The depth is amazing but maybe to much if you are not an engineer or architect.

SolarThermalEnergyEU

SolarThermalEnergyEU

This diagram clearly shows the potential of each energy system impact on the overall domestic energy consumption. I believe the EU data will apply to North America as well. Australia and New Zealand would be different.

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DIY home solar heating may have the largest impact on cost depending on your areas heating requirements. Home solar space heating then solar  hot water heating will give the biggest bang for the buck. The good news is both projects are low cost (about $100) and easy to implement. Storing the heat may be a problem. Adding an extra hot water storage tank to the system will allow for overnight heating but requires an active system instead of a passive system.

Both projects are detailed on the Residential Energy Kit site home page:  Solar Hot Water Guide and Solar Heater Guides

Posted in Free Energy, Home Power Management, Solar Heat, Solar Hot Water | No Comments »

Green loans Q&A: how does Pay As You Save finance work?

March 4th, 2010

We asked the Department of Energy and Climate Change to explain how the loans for homeowners will work. 

 

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 March 2010 16.56 GMT Article history


The Department for Energy and Climate Change has said that it will seek consultation on standard insulation measures, such as cavity wall insulation, for rented properties

When can I apply for a loan to improve the energy efficiency of my home?

Pay As You Save green finance, with repayments linked to the property, will require primary legislation and we’d expect them to be in available by 2012. 

What is the most I can borrow?

Our current measures are tackling the easy-to-achieve measures, like loft insulation, so the point of making green finance available in the future is to remove the upfront costs of relatively expensive improvements. The cost to each household will be different depending on which measures they install, which will in turn depend on the type of property but the average upgrade would be about £8,000-£10,000. 

What measures are eligible for funding?

By an eco-upgrade we mean the installation of a set of measures that goes significantly beyond basic insulation to include more expensive improvements such as solid wall insulation or a form of renewable energy generation. 

Small-scale renewable electricity and heat technologies will also be eligible for the additional incentive provided by the feed-in tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive from April this year and April next year respectively. 

You say my combined payments for the loan and my energy bills, will be lower than my old energy bills? Can you give me an example?

If you spent £4,200 installing a solar hot water system on the roof of a 3-bed semi, you would expect to get over £500 a year from savings on your energy bill and income from the renewable heat incentive.

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If you chose a Pay-As-You-Save (Pays) loan over 25 years to cover the installation costs, you would repay about £330 a year. So even after making your PAYS repayment you would be about £170 a year better off. 

What happens when I move home?

On average people move house every 12 years, which may not be long enough a period for the bill reductions to cover the upfront costs. So the point of attaching Pays finance to the property is that householders would only be responsible for the repayments while benefiting from the measures. When you move house, responsibility for repayments would pass to the new owner. 

Won’t that mean my house is less desirable to potential buyers?

No – anyone buying a property with repayments attached to it would benefit themselves from the moment they move in from lower energy bills than they otherwise would have been. Sellers would be able to make a virtue of improvements through the advice contained in their Energy Performance Certificate. 

I rent my home. How can you make my landlord increase the energy efficiency of my home?

Energy suppliers have obligations now to improve the energy efficiency of all homes, and today we’ve said we’ll extend that obligation beyond 2012. For the private rented sector, we’ve said for the first time today that we’ll be consulting on regulation to require standard insulation measures (loft and cavity insulation) to be a condition of renting out a property. 

How can I find trustworthy advice on how best to green my home?

High-quality advice services and accredited installers and products are vital in giving householders confidence in making improvements to their properties. The Energy Saving Trust is the best source of advice, and we propose in the long term to develop a national web and telephone-based service building on its work, as well as new minimum standards and consumer protection for installation and products.

Posted in Home Improvement Loans, Solar Heat, Solar Hot Water | No Comments »

Surprising Home-Energy Hogs

February 25th, 2010

Oliver J. Chiang, 02.23.10, 06:00 PM EST

It’s the small appliances that can waste the most electricity.


Appliance Energy HogsBURLINGAME, Calif. — Digital picture frames are small, so it’s hard to think of them as energy hogs. But if each U.S. household had one of these frames running around the clock, it would take five power plants to run them all, says the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), an electricity-focused research and development nonprofit.

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Large home appliances like refrigerators and dryers are typical examples of energy-hungry devices, but energy hogs don’t necessarily need to be large in size. Small devices are also collectively sucking a lot of energy from the power grid, and as these devices become commonplace their energy consumption rises exponentially. “It’s the subtlety of the effect of large numbers of very small consuming devices,” says Tom Reddoch, the executive director of energy utilization at EPRI.

Other small energy hogs include mobile phone chargers and laptop power adapters that are always plugged in to electric outlets. These chargers continue to draw energy even when the devices they charge have been disconnected. And “always-on” appliances like printers or speakers are called “energy vampires” because they also suck up power even when they’re turned off or in an idle state.

In Pictures: Surprising Home-Energy Hogs

Worse yet, the number of always-on devices is on the rise. Reddoch estimates that the typical U.S. home 30 years ago had about three always-on devices; today that number has climbed to more than 30.

Slaying energy vampires, however, is worthwhile in the long run. While a refrigerator typically accounts for about 8% of the typical household’s total annual energy consumption, Reddoch says, vampire devices account for about 4%.

What’s the best way to rein in energy hogs and vampires? The simplest answer is to turn off and unplug devices when they’re not in use. If unplugging isn’t practical or convenient, use a smart power strip to help stop the flow of electricity to an idle current. For instance, some smart strips allow you to set up a lead device like a computer so that when it is turned off, other supporting devices, like printers and speakers, are also turned off.

We don’t often bother to change a device’s default settings, but we can save energy here too. For example, you can manually lower the default brightness and intensity settings on a TV.

Knowing how much energy we waste keeping devices on all the time should also motivate us to change our habits. Kyle Tanger, chief executive of green consultancy ClearCarbon, recommends using an electricity monitor like the Kill A Watt, a product that measures the energy efficiency of household appliances, to give you a better sense of their usage cost

We can also buy energy-efficient products, and this year happens to be a great time to do that. Consumers are eligible for a rebate from the government when they buy an Energy Star appliance. Check out the U.S. Department of Energy site for more information the rebate program.

“There isn’t a secret to what’s hogging the energy,” says Tanger. “If people pay attention to the little lights or fans in equipment, there is a lot in energy-efficiency gain that isn’t just low-hanging fruit–it’s on the ground.”

In Pictures: Surprising Home-Energy Hogs

Follow Oliver J. Chiang on Twitter @ojchiang or e-mail him at ochiang@forbes.com.

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Digi Introduces An Industry First Smart Energy Gateway

February 11th, 2010

-ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy is first gateway to seamlessly connect ZigBee Smart Energy certified devices before or with Smart Meter deployments-

MINNETONKA, Minn., Feb 09, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Digi International /quotes/comstock/15*!dgii/quotes/nls/dgii (DGII 9.23, -0.19, -2.02%) today introduced the ConnectPort(R) X2 for Smart Energy gateway. It is a ZigBee Smart Energy certified gateway that easily connects certified ZigBee Smart Energy devices from a Home Area Network (HAN) to an energy service provider via broadband. It is the industry’s first gateway that connects, controls, or gathers data from ZigBee Smart Energy devices equally well before or with Smart Meter deployments. When a Smart Meter is present the gateway can make meter information immediately available to any energy management application. As part of iDigi(TM) Energy, energy service providers can use the ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy and iDigi platform to easily integrate thermostats, smart meters, in-home displays, load controllers and other ZigBee Smart Energy devices into complete energy management systems.

“The ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy provides a sub-$100 integration point for thermostats, smart meters, in-home displays, load controllers and other ZigBee Smart Energy devices in energy management systems,” said Larry Kraft, senior vice president of global sales and marketing, Digi International. “It provides a standards-based method to connect ZigBee Smart Energy devices and iDigi provides a standards-based application interface. Utilities can deploy energy management systems based on the ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy and iDigi knowing they have maximum future flexibility.”

“Utilities will deploy millions of ZigBee Smart Energy metering devices over the next several years,” said Charles Porter, Chief Strategy Officer, ista North America. “Our ista|net EMS platform uses Digi’s ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy gateway to engage consumers in real-time energy decisions, allowing them to save money and improve the environment.”

The ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy can be deployed as a stand-alone ZigBee Smart Energy HAN for areas without Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)/Smart Meter deployments or participate in an AMI network providing broadband connectivity for enhanced energy management services. Gateways deployed in advance of AMI can join a Smart Meter based network once it is installed, using iDigi to remotely make all software changes required for an easy upgrade, and always preserving the simplicity of a single Energy Services Portal (ESP) Smart Energy architecture. The ConnectPort X2 also separates consumers’ energy management data from the utility’s “cash register” meter network, adding to the security and integrity of the AMI system.

Built on the XBee-PRO(R) ZB ZigBee module, the ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy gateway features ZigBee Smart Energy certified firmware enabling compatibility with all devices defined in the ZigBee Smart Energy public application profile. These include energy service portals (ESPs), metering devices, in-premise display devices, programmable communicating thermostats (PCTs), load controllers, range extenders, smart appliances and prepayment terminals.

“ZigBee Smart Energy offers consumers secure, easy-to-use wireless home area networks for managing energy,” said Benno Ritter, vice president of marketing and business development at the ZigBee Alliance. “Digi is a leader in the Smart Energy space by making it easier for utilities and their customers to communicate with thermostats and other Smart Energy devices.”

The flexible ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy offers Ethernet and ZigBee connectivity. It also features easy-to-use local customizable open scripting standards via Python. This allows customers to leverage the in-home processing capability of the gateway to optimize their energy service offerings. Professional services are also available through Spectrum Design Solutions, Digi’s wireless consulting group, to speed development. All Digi gateways can be remotely configured and upgraded using iDigi Energy allowing new services to be offered after the system is installed.

The ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy is available now starting at $99. ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy Starter Kits that include iDigi login and a ZigBee Smart Energy XStick(R) USB adapter for demo and development environments are available now for $149. For information regarding the Smart Grid, download a free white paper at www.digi.com/pdf/wp_smartgrid.pdf. For more information about the ConnectPort X2 for Smart Energy, visit www.digi.com/products/wirelessdropinnetworking/gateways/connectportx2.jsp#overview

ZigBee: Control your world

ZigBee is the global wireless language connecting dramatically different devices to work together and enhance everyday life. The ZigBee Alliance is a non-profit association of more than 330 members driving development of ZigBee wireless technology. The Alliance promotes world-wide adoption of ZigBee as the leading wirelessly networked, sensing and control standard for use in consumer electronic, energy, home, commercial and industrial areas. For more information, visit: www.ZigBee.org.

About Digi International

Digi International is making wireless M2M easy by developing reliable products and solutions to connect and securely manage local or remote electronic devices over the network or via the Web. Digi offers the highest levels of performance, flexibility and quality, and markets its products through a global network of distributors and resellers, systems integrators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For more information, visit Digi’s Web site at www.digi.com, or call 877-912-3444.

About ista North America

ista is the world’s leading company in the metering, billing and management of energy, water and ancillary costs. ista North America serves multifamily, manufactured housing, commercial and utility clients throughout the entire process chain, from delivery and installation of equipment to meter-reading, billing and management of utility and ancillary costs. Learn more: www.ista-na.com.

All brand names and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

SOURCE: Digi International

Press Contacts:
Jan McBride
Digi International
(952) 912-3473
jan_mcbride@digi.com
or
Matt Serra
Mulberry Marketing Communications
(312) 664-1532
mserra@mulberrymc.com

Copyright Business Wire 2010

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Apple Reveals Smart-Home Energy Management Dashboard System

January 21st, 2010

Every once in a while we’re given powerful insights into systems that could be game changers - and while not apparently sexy at the moment, Apple surprises us with a peek at their coming Smart Home Energy Management Dashboard System that packs a punch. Apple’s patent reviews technology related to this system that many simply know as HomePlug Powerline Networking.  HomePlug Powerline Networking turns every power outlet in your home or office into a conduit for audio, video and data. Wireless technologies could be prone to dead-spots and fading – but with HomePlug certified adapters you just plug them in and within minutes you have high speed internet coming out of every plug in the house. You could do the same thing for HDTV and iTunes. Get ready folks, because this looks like Apple is ramping this up for sometime in the near future. And, let it be said, could be yet another tablet application.

The Device: Basics more…

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