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Green Collar Careers - Management
Summary
You don't have to be an electrical engineer to understand the basic
concepts of how electricity is measured and sold. Just like a
butcher sells meat, there is a price per unit multiplied by the number
of units to get the total price.
Electricity is sold by the Kilo Watt Hour, or kWh unit. Burn
1000 watts for an hour and that equals 1 kWh. Sounds simple, but
lets examine what really is a watt of electricity?
- 1 Watt = 1 Volt * 1 Ampere
- Volts are the measurement of electrical pressure like the water
pressure in a pipe. The more pressure, the more water will be
forced to flow, the thicker the pipe or insulation walls need to be
to contain that pressure.
- Amperes (or Amps) are the volume of flow. On a water pipe
we could measure this as gallons per minute - more pressure could
increase or decrease that flow just as the size of the pipe
(resistance) could change the flow rate.
- Watts are the total of the Voltage Pressure and Amperage Current
Flow.
- While water may be sold by the volume (gallons or cubic feet),
electricity is sold by the total energy unit of Watts x Hours.
The total energy of 1 Watt Hour is pretty small, like selling water
by the ounce so its multiplied by a 1000 to get Kilo Watt Hours or
kWh.
- To give a relative idea of how much a power a watt has, it takes
746 watts to generate 1 Horsepower. On a car that would relate
to miles per gallon, but to get the amount of gasoline consumed we
need to know how many miles were traveled. Likewise with
electricity we need to know how many hours we consumed electricity
at the rate per hour to get our monthly power bill.
Driving down the road we feel the acceleration. We are
cognizant of the speed we travel. Despite seeing the light come
on, opening a refrigerator no one thinks about the power it takes to
run, in fact about the only thing 99% of the consumers pay any
attention to are the lights - because they see them. Lights
account for less then 10% of the average power bill, so if the average
homeowner can reduce the usage of lights by 10% they get a net
improvement of less then 1% of their power bill. Hardly a point
to focus on, but yes, every little bit adds up.
The Demand Management module identifies both the visible and
invisible savings found in any residence. We will focus on
residential construction, new and old, and explore commercial and
industrial applications.
Residential Energy Profiles provide an overall average of
consumption broken down into simple subgroups.
There are an almost endless number of energy conservation methods
and devices on the market. Focusing on the top ten methods will
achieve 80-90% of the possible reduction for the existing home power
bill without requiring a sizable investment.
Included in the module are the five major appliance groups where
power reductions can be attained with a loss of comfort. Each
has a predictable reduction rate that can be totaled up for the
potential monthly/annual savings to the customer by selecting the
applied actions. This includes a downloadable spreadsheet
developed just for this purpose.
By keeping a Home Energy Audit simple and effective it becomes a
valuable service that nearly every homeowner needs. Included are
factors for selecting the market of customers with the largest
potential value.
A typical 2 hour inspection and 1/2 hour consultation applied to 10%
of the average American homes can easily result in an energy savings
of over $850 a year! Typical prices for a Home Energy Audit are
about $150-$200. |