Re: Politicians and energy policy

Ok Mike, although I have spent significant time in Florida, I don't
want to argue this point endlessly. Besides, you seem to be rather
sleep deprived and I am sure you have better things to do. So I will
grant you that what I am saying does not apply to people living alone
in Florida. Ok?

However, I stand by my statements for the rest of us. I have spent
some significant time living without AC and I have a pretty good feel
for how a house responds to external weather. Humidity simply does
not enter the house easily unless the wind is blowing hard and even in
Florida, the wind does not blow hard all the time.

Regardless, my point about the lack of usefulness of controlling the
AC is valid. Someone else mentioned that they control the water
heaters. That is useful because a water heater can go without power
for hours and still provide usefully warm water. But the utility is
limited. Unless you are drawing hot water, the water heater cycles on
very infrequently. So by cutting off *all* water heaters during peak
loads saves only a *very* small amount of peak power.

The real power sink is the AC. An AC that is off for more than a half
an hour on a hot day will let the house get much warmer. Peak loads
are a lot longer than a half an hour. The result is that you have
simply made the AC draw no power for a little while and then draw a
lot more power for the rest of the time. On the average, this
provides *NO* reduction in peak power. Actually that is not correct;
there is a small savings in power because the house is warmer and less
heat enters a warmer house.

Maybe the fridge can be cut off during peak loads, like the water
heater. But if it is turned back on during the peak period, like the
AC, it is going to run continuously and consume the same amount of
energy on the average while letting your food get warmer. It may only
be a couple of degrees, but the milk will not keep as long at 40C as
it does at 35C and that is sort of the point of a fridge, keeping
things cold, no?

What other appliances can be cycled during peak loads, in a useful way
that won't impact their operation?

I understand the concept. I am saying that other than the water
heater, there is no point in this sort of control to reduce the peak
loads seen during the summer, and the water heater is not a
significant load during peak hours. So the entire idea is much ado
about nothing.

Rather than trying to be superior and cute with your little digs, why
don't you come up with something useful to say? I am happy to discuss
this, but you just seem to want to express an attitude.


Michael A. Terrell wrote:
rickman wrote:

On May 24, 12:04 pm, "Tim Williams" <tmoran...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:_IGdnWTL4tjngKXVnZ2dnUVZ_u2dnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Someone said you have to "dehumidify" during the day... maybe you do
to some degree, but if you aren't in the house, there is very little
moisture entering it.

Then you've never lived in FLorida.

Or an old house. This house was built in 1898 and leaks like a sieve!

I live in an old house (ca 1962 with plenty of unintended ventilation)
near Washington, DC with summer humidity of nearly 100 % and temps
above 90F. Unless you are in the middle of the Everglades, you got
nothing on us.


Yawn. Like I said, you have never lived in Florida. There are
insects that make holes in concrete, chew vinyl or aluminum siding, and
critters like aligators and bears comining into hevily populated areas
damaging homes, and attacking people.


The bottom line is that even leaky houses don't leak
unless something is pushing the air.


Hot, wet winds are enough. Unless you want to calk every door and
window shut, there WILL be ingresion of humid air. If you seal it up
that tight, the humidity will rise from human breath, and sweat. If you
think 90 is bad, smpend some time down here after ahurricane when it's
over 100 degrees, with no electricity.


Humid weather seldom has
significant winds and if you aren't home, no one is opening the
doors.


Once again you don't live in Floria. It is a penensula with lots of
water on both sides, and a lot of humid wind that you won't get in DC.


I have left my house closed up and the AC off for hours during
the day. Other than the first hour that it takes to get the temp down
to anything remotely reasonable, it is then fine.

That is the point. If the house is allowed to heat up during the day,
it then takes less work to cool it down than it would to keep it cool
all day. But no one wants to come home to a house that is 90F inside
and wait for it to cool down. But if the AC is smart enough to
actually "know" when you will be home, then it can cool it down to
match your needs.


Yawn. I had my AC in a timer to come on one hour before I normally
got home from work. It usually took two more hours to bring it down to
78 degrees. It trned off the AC an hour before the alarm went off in the
morning.


The idea of using a "smart" electric meter to achieve the same power
reducing effect as rolling blackouts is bogus.


Only if you don't understand how it works. I live alone right now.
The water heater comes on after midnight for about 1.5 hours, and gives
me usable hot water for the full 24 hour day. That takes that load off
any likely peak demand point in the 24 hour cycle. Actually, the
heaviest usage around here is when people first get home from work and
turn on the TV, fire up their electric stoves, along with their A/C.
For two years you could almost set your watch to 5:00 PM on Fridays
during the summer, because the demand would blow a fuse in the 7200 volt
line powering this subdivision. Peak shaving that would turn your A/C
off for five minutes, then the one next door, etc would lower the
average, and reduce the chances of multiple compressors kicking in at
the same time.


AC, the primary power
consumption, is duty cycle driven. The thermostat in your house is
actually a duty cycle modulator to maintain a temperature. If the
power company has control over it to cut it out for periods at peak
usage, all that does is to make the AC run at a *higher* duty cycle
the rest of the time. The only way they can actually save power is to
reduce the periods that your AC is enabled to the point where the duty
cycle is below where it can maintain the set temperature. Then the
temperature inside will rise, because the power company is now
regulating it, not your thermostat.


The whole idea is to average out the uysage to eliminate or delay the
need for new power plants and upgrades to the distribution system.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: OT: Me and Hurricane Katrina
    ... You can't imagine the damage this little storm caused. ... >neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. ... Power poles were either broken in half like ... >water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature over our dining ...
    (rec.music.makers.percussion)
  • Re: Me and Hurricane Katrina
    ... You can't imagine the damage this little storm caused. ... Her neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. ... Power poles were either broken in half ... The water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature ...
    (rec.music.makers.percussion)
  • Re: OT: Me and Hurricane Katrina
    ... You can't imagine the damage this little storm caused. ... >neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. ... Power poles were either broken in half like ... >water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature over our dining ...
    (rec.music.makers.percussion)
  • Re: OT: Me and Hurricane Katrina
    ... Not all of us degenerated into madness like New Orleans, but we suffered similar levels of damage. ... Her neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. ... Power poles were either broken in half like toothpicks or pulled out of the ground like Goliath picked them up and set them down. ... The water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature over our dining room table soaking the carpet underneath, ...
    (rec.music.makers.percussion)
  • OT: Me and Hurricane Katrina
    ... You can't imagine the damage this little storm caused. ... neighbor had a pine tree cut the back end of their house off. ... Power poles were either broken in half like ... water poured in as if we had installed a waterfall feature over our dining ...
    (rec.music.makers.percussion)