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Saving Energy in Small Office Buildings
Roland Piquepaille writes "Precooling a structure in the morning before temperatures rise has been done before. It later saves energy during times of peak demand and you might even have done it intuitively at home. But now, engineers from Purdue University have developed a control algorithm which promises to reduce energy consumption -- and electricity bills -- by as much as 30 percent for small office buildings which represent the majority of commercial structures. So far, this method has only been tested in California, but the researchers say that their control software could be used anywhere after minor adaptations."
PV=nRT
While not as tech, I've got a timer connected to my airconditioner in the office - I live in lovely subtropical Brisbane, Australia where a regular day in summer it can get to 35C (95F) and around 70 - 90% relative humidity. IT GETS REALLY HOT - so if I start to cool the office before I get up / get to work it's pretty cold by the time I get it, but really comfortable during the day and I can generally turn it off earlier in the afternoon (read: 4 / 5PM) and the coolness of the room is enough to take me into the night!
"damnit, trolley I want in your signature." - Elburrito
One thing that would work for a more comfortable environment I have seen mentioned on a book about "nearly free energy" (free as in beer, not free as in perpetual motion).
The idea is to build the building entirely out of double-T girders (walls, roof, and ground) so that there is a layer of air around the entire building. (Note that a double-T girder looks like this: TT). The spikes of the T should point outwards. Then, you glass in the walls, cover the roof with aluminum, and drive heat tubes into the ground below the bottom.
The sun will strike the windows on one side, and heat the air there, sending it to the roof where it cools, drops down the far side, and cycle under the building, where the heat tubes have the greatest effect on the overall temperature of the cycling air, keeping it at about 58 degrees. The presence of people and office machines inside raises the ambient temperature to about 68... actually quite comfortable for an office building.
Of course, this energy isn't completely free. The glass costs something, and the girders aren't cheap, though there nearly indestructable. In that sense, the control algorithm beats the passive design hands-down.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
The problem with your reasoning is that you assume everyone sees this article and follows its advice. Given that only a small fraction of people are likely to do that, it will tend to even out demand, which is a good thing.
Yes, in the middle of summer, people in our office have felt a little too chilly under an A/C vent and actually turned the HEATER on - when it's almost 100 outside.
steve
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
Indirect/Direct two stage evaporative AC system coming to market soon:9 8-022-0.html
http://www.oasysairconditioner.com/
background:
http://energy.ca.gov/pier/buildings/projects/500-
Cool features: Runs off 120VAC, pulls between 100 and 500watts while cooling up to 3.5 tons. Automatic variable speed fan motor runs off AC and DC automatically; you can hook up some solar panels and it will blend them without an inverter.
I have been watching this for nearly a year, and it's finally coming to market-- I should be getting my unit in march for $1800. Yes, it is evaporative but it should maintain humidity of around 40-50% indoors, which is actually the recommended levels for people and computers, furniture, etc.
Despite being evaporative technology, it would work fine during monsoon here in AZ, since it can achieve sub-dew point temperatures...
At the company I used to work at, our electrical co-op charged us (numbers from memory, may not be exact, but the proportions are close) a base rate of around $0.08/kwh, in the "yellow zone" (fairly frequently in the summer) we were charged around $0.12/kwh, and in the red, it was at least $0.15, sometimes higher, at which point our generator would kick in.
At the end of the summer cooling season (and again at the end of winter heating), we were sent a bill for about $1000 above our regular bill for the time we spent in yellow. 500-600 a year savings? not bad.
So yes, this could lead to significantly lower energy bills for some users, as long as everyone didn't start cooling their buildings down to 40 every morning, as other posters have pointed out.
Something you can do with new buildings and homes is to put in a "Zoning System"
companies like Trane will charge you a fucking arm and a leg for it, but I read a DIY article somewhere.
Basically, you install various 'dampers' in the ducting that are controlled from a central thermostat. The fun part, is that there are temperature sensors in each zone, so the thermostat can intelligently shunt hot/cold air to the areas that need it.
As I said, the big commercial suppliers will rip you off on the price of the control system & they'll give you a relatively limited solution compared to something you can do yourself.
This works wonders in structures that have uneven temperatures because of solar heating or being underground. Unfortunately, it's prohibitively expensive to try and retrofit this into a prexisting home/building.
P.S. You want the failure mode to default to 'open' and not closed.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!