Green Home Building by Miki Cook

Author:Miki Cook [Cook, Miki; Garrett, Doug]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781550925739
Publisher: New Society Publishers

Electrical systems are one of the most inefficient systems in a home. Usually not much thought goes in to planning how the electricity might be used, managed or protected from disruption. As the main energy-using systems (HVAC and water heating) become more efficient through advances in product technology, design and installation, the remaining “LAMEL” (lighting, appliances and miscellaneous electrical loads) represent a larger percentage of the total home load.

Only recently have product manufacturers started thinking about wasted power consumption — the power used by appliances, electronics and other equipment when not in use. Some electronic component manufacturers now include sleep modes on their systems, but only a few of those actually have built-in sensors that reduce their consumption after some period of inactivity. Other products still rely on the user to switch them to sleep mode at the end of a session, in lieu of turning the system completely off. Many home appliances still have time clocks, and many audio components never turn off, some just switching to standby mode, drawing power 24/7 and producing electromagnetic fields (see Chapter 7: Health and Environment) even after the user has supposedly turned the system off.

Peak Demand Management

There are a number of systems available in today’s market that can help us to manage utilities in our homes. Many electric utility companies around the country are in the process of or have recently upgraded their electric metering equipment to gadgets called smart meters. For those of you not familiar with this technology, one of the features of smart meters is that they will allow the “utility service provider of the future” (and in many cases, “the future is now”) to manage peak electrical loads by cycling off unnecessary power usage. Peak loads typically occur when everyone runs their air conditioners full blast in the heat of the summer while simultaneously doing their laundry and running the dishwasher with all the lights on. This describes the periods at which we are cumulatively demanding as much or more energy than is available at that point in time on the grid.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.