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CFLs Causing Utility Woes
dacut writes "We've seen compact fluorescent lamps start to take over shelf space at the local hardware store. Replacing a 60 watt incandescent with a 13 watt CFL seems like a great savings, though many consumers are disappointed with the slow warm-up times, lower-than-advertised lifetimes, and hassles of disposing the mercury-containing bulbs. Now EDN reports they may use more energy than claimed due to their poor power factor. Mike Grather, of Lumenaire Testing Laboratory, 'checked the power factor for the CFLs and found they ranged from .45 to .50. Their "real" load was about twice that implied by their wattage.' The good news: you're only billed for the 13 watts of real power used. The bad news: the utilities have to generate the equivalent of 28 watts (that is, 28 VA of apparent power for you EEs out there) to light that bulb. Until they fix these issues, I'll hold on to my incandescents and carbon arc lamps, thanks."
Since I have switched to CFL... none of my light bulbs has ever burned out yet for 9+ months. With incandescents, I was changing 5-6 light-bulbs a month (I live in an older house, the electric grid and the wiring in the place I live is not always ideal for traditional light bulbs)
The headline convinced me that the Canadian Football League was causing woe....
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
it makes it easy on the eyes - allows them to adjust.
Only if you have a conscience.
28 60, so still a good power savings. Plus, all of the CFL's I've bought in the last year don't have the same warmup problems that most of the early models had. They're not quite instant-on, but that's ok with me; I like that my bedside light comes on slowly in the morning, it's less of a shock to my eyes.
I'm an electrical engineer and I've been saying this for years. To bad I always get modded a troll for doing so.
'Impossible' is a word that humans use far too often. -- Seven of Nine
Yes, they may consume more than they advertise, but they still consume half the power of the incandescent bulb they are replacing.
Interesting - this is a pretty serious blow to the CFL concept, and if they're really that bad, I'm surprised why it's taken this long for it to come up. Maybe it's fixable but I doubt it could be done without adding significant cost to the bulbs.
A mechanical analogy to help you understand power factor: say you have a weight on the end of a wooden stick. You lift the stick up and down and the weight moves. You are transferring energy efficiently. Now change the stick to a spring. You can still move the weight up and down but it moves a lot less for a given amplitude. Now it may seem that no energy is lost because the spring is returning the energy to the source on each cycle, but in fact it is being lost because of the resistance in the distribution line. The loss is incurred by the power company even if it doesn't appear on your meter.
Power factor is the reason UPSes are rated in volt-amps instead of watts. Switching power supplies usually have power factors significantly less than 1.0, so it's the VA that matters.
The utility does not have to *generate* the 28W of "real" power. It just
has to *transmit* it (and typically only from the local transformer to the
customer, since phase changes can be handled using capacitors when the voltage
is down-coverted the last time).
The
CFLs wattage is significantly less than half of incadecent wattage. So, while this is an additional plus for LED lighting, this is still the most economical solution available otherwise.
In any case, regular florescent lighting was in use for decades and nobody found it less efficient than any alternative.
It's been a while since I was in electrical theory classes, but doesn't a 13 watt CFL lamp consuming 28VA of power still consume less power than a 60W incandescent bulb?
28W less than 60W ??? I would hope so or I need to start studying new math.
greed@All_Evils:~#
28 Watts of "Apparent Power" (CFL) versus 50-100 Watts of real power. (Incandescent) Help me understand how we are still not getting a net gain, and why I should care about this?
Is it:
A. I'm saving money at the expense of the power grid.
B. I'm still using at least 50% less wattage than I was before.
C. My lights never burn out anymore, and my only major worry is taking care not to break the reasonably tough bulbs since they contain mercury.
So because a 13W light really uses 28W you are going to stick with a lights that uses even more?
Great logic.......
Even with these issues they are still cheaper in the long run....
The lifetime advertising stuff is really a non-issue, 'old-style' bulbs have the same advertising problems.
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The utilities might not like to carry the extra amps on their lines, but that isn't the same as them having to generate more power.
You are absolutely wrong. The additional current increases the resistive losses on the transmission lines. Hence for a lower power factor, more energy must be generated to deliver a given amount of watts.
For some reason, my skin looks, I don't know, pale green under CFLs. I'm sticking with incandescent lights in my bachelor pad. Can't look bad in front of the ladies...
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
I think have a great idea as to how to solve this.
But unfortunately I'm still waiting for the CFL bulb above my head to light up.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Due to energy stored in the load and returned to the source, or due to a non-linear load that distorts the wave shape of the current drawn from the source, the apparent power can be greater than the real power. In an electric power system, a load with low power factor draws more current than a load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power transferred.
FTFS: .45 to .50. Their "real" load was about twice that implied by their wattage.'
the power factor for the CFLs and found they ranged from
But the real power is never greater than the apparent power, so there is something very screwy in the summary. Probably the summary meant the "apparent" load was twice that implied by their wattage. That is, if you actually measured the volts time current flowing, you'd find it to be 28 VA, but for whatever reason, it only "uses" 13 "real watts."
Currently hooked on AMP
Compact Fluorescents are only a temporary solution until we get cost-effective LED light bulbs. They are available now (even at Costco). Which means pretty soon they should actually make sense to use. Right now, they are still a little pricey, despite lasting 30 times longer than incandescents. Plus, those "environmentally friendly" CFLs contain mercury... just what we need more of in our landfills!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
He is wrong; but the summary is also wrong: "The bad news: the utilities have to generate the equivalent of 28 watts" is not correct. As you say, 13 watts consumed + transmission losses on ~28VA means more energy than does 13 watts consumed +transmission losses on ~13VA. TFS, though, seems to be under the impression that apparent power is 100% consumed, rather than just subject to transmission losses.
If the customer is only billed for the 13 "real" watts used per the summary, then this is a non-issue. I paid for a 13 watt bulb advertising $x in saving on my electric bill, and I get $x in saving on my electric bill. I make my purchasing decisions based on the cost to me, not on the cost to the power company.
As someone who teaches physics for a living, the Slashdot summary is making my eyes bleed.
Now EDN reports they may use more energy than claimed
Argh! No, they don't use more energy, but they do have higher "Load".
Here's the analogy. Every day, hundreds of thousands of people travel in to Boston. Does that mean we need to build hundreds of thousands of new apartments every day? No, because every day they all leave again: they're commuters.
Boston needs to design its roads to handle the rush hour traffic, but it doesn't have to build a ton of houses for them to stay.
Energy in a low power factor circuit is like a commuter: it flows into the device, then it flows back out again. The utility company needs to design its power lines to handle the rush hour flow, but you're not "using up" the energy in any sense.
TFA talks about real wasted energy caused by this "rush hour" flow, but transmission losses are a small fraction of total energy use. This isn't going to affect the overall efficiency of CFLs.
TFA talks about requiring "power factor regulation" on CF light bulbs. This is a pointless extra expense. While CF bulbs make life harder for the power company, other common appliances act to counterbalance the effect, so averaged over an entire city, the problem is mitigated. But even when it's not, the *power company* can always install devices (giant capacitor banks, typically) which compensate for the power factor. There's no need to build more power plants.
So what it comes down to is, CF light bulbs don't use more energy than they claim, but they do generate higher peak loads. We can force either the consumer or the power company to install equipment to compensate for this.
I say, "Hey power company. I'm paying you guys to deliver me some kilowatt-hours. Nothing in my contract limits how I suck up those kWh: if I do it in a way you're not expecting, it's your job to install equipment to handle it."
Since a CFL consumes a exactly constant amount of power it shoul dbe trivial to put in an inductor and capacitor in the package to exactly compensate for it.
Moreover if the power factor is really 0.5 then it seems like just having two of these running in quadrature ought to null the power factor back to 1.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Great logic there... "I'll stick to incandescent 60W seeing that CFLs consume 28W and won't last longer than me".
For what it is worth, I switched to neon tubes in most of the house... a single 36W TL totally pwns a 300W setup of incandescent or halogen bulbs, more light and more accurate colours. Those can be bought for a song nowadays and they are almost instant-on. The conversion actually made me money as I was able to sell two of the previous fixtures at a flea market for more cash than all the neon kits I bought.
I also have a couple of 1.2W LEDs for the night lights in the main hall, but the electronics are quite flakey in my experience.
ARGHH!
Those pesky Canadians causing trouble again, next they will try to burn down Washington...again. But I have news for them, the next time they try it, we will help them!
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
While a little more expensive they last even longer (20 years?). They really aren't available much greater than 40 watt replacements but I've been happy with the performance. Not effected by cold and come on instantly.
While I am happy with the savings from using CFLs, I would not hesitate to spend a little more up front to get even more savings and greater longevity from LED lights. Does anyone have solid data on how the three types differ? For example, if to produce the same amount of light incandescent uses 100W, CFL uses 60W (including power losses), how much would LED require? Also, of the above three light sources, if the incandescent lasts 6 months, CFL lasts 10 months, how long would the LED last?
End anonymous moderation and posting on
It is possible the bulbs are just old/damaged and new bulbs would do better but most likley it is the ballast. Old ballasts were mechanical and operated at line frequency. This means that you are going to get flicker at 120Hz since it crosses the null 120 times per second. That is noticeable to some people.
New ballasts, including those in CFLs, are electronic. They cycle at a much higher rate, generally in the realm of 30kHz, because that's more efficient. That also gets rid of visible flicker, of course.
So what you need to do is replace the ballasts. You can get new ones at any home supply store. Alternatively you can just replace the whole fixture, new ones will come with ballasts. Should stop your flicker, reduce your power draw, and last longer to boot.
More likely you simply don't do well with blue/white light. The light from incandescent bulbs is yellow, and can appear more powerful because it is perceived as warmer at an instinctual level for humans who have been using fire for tens of thousands of years. The illuminating power reaching your eyes can be the same without feeling the same.
Using red/yellow fire and living under a yellow sun, that is.
Because you have gas heat but electric AC, and you changed the bulbs in the fall?
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Most people are used to "soft" or "warm" light from incandescents -- low color temperature. Most early CFLs were "cool" or "daylight" -- high kelvin temperature. Now you can get both, but "warm" (low color temperature). are more common because that's what most people prefer. Check the color temperature on the box before you buy!
Also, if you have flicker or a buzz, or a slow startup, you got a low quality bulb. Return it and get a different brand. Or buy several and see which ones you like the best. Good CFLs don't flicker or buzz, and they start up essentially instantly. There is a lot of variety between brands and models. And quality averages way better than it used to, although there still are some bad apples out there.
And I haven't seen any reasonably priced dimmable CFLs to test out (do you need a special dimmer?)
I got several cases of dimmables on Ebay a couple years ago, and they work just great, on my normal dimmers. Don't remember the brand, but I could get it for you at home if you need it.
By the way -- how many Slashdot articles (like this one) are we going to have full of people trying desperately to come up with a way to justify their decision to spend *way* more money in electricity and increase emissions because they're too lazy or stuck in their ways to merely change their lightbulbs? I mean, come on... is power factor really the best they can come up with? Really, if that's your excuse, just buy a freaking high power factor bulb. Yes, they exist, and have power factors in the 0.9 to 0.95 range. But even with low power factor bulbs -- since when is 1/4 (CFL apparent power consumption relative to incandescent) * 2 (power factor=0.5 CFL) greater than 1.0 (incandescent)?
"99 dead duelists of Dios on the wall. 99 dead duelists of Dios! Take one's ring, pass it around..."
Speaking of conscience, why is it that Slashdot is an oft-repeat offender in spreading anti-CFL nonsense? I've seen many pieces like this here.
If your utility has serious trouble with the power-factor of CFLs, they will tune the system with some additional inductance or capacitance. But they don't. Because this isn't a problem. It's the power factor for the sum of everything on the secondary of your local transformer that is a problem, and that probably ends up being close to 1.0 . Smart transformers, by the way, tune this automatically. I see them on more poles lately.
Second, the mercury issue. Which is 1/10 the mercury put out by burning hydrocarbons (especially coal) for powering incandescent lamps. Yes, the mercury from CFLs is mercury in your house, and the other kind of mercury from the generators powering incandescent lighting is just in the air you breathe in your house. And then, they take some time to start. This is a problem for some outdoor use, and tolerable for indoor use unless your home is really cold. And some of them burned out too fast, like any cheap electronics. Learn which brands don't.
It's nice that practical LEDs are coming some day. I'm sure we'll hear lots of propaganda about the arsenic and other toxic things in them, even though it's close to impossible to actually get those chemicals out of the chip, out of the plastic around the chip, etc., and they're in such small amounts that it doesn't matter anyway.
I only have one incandescent lamp left in my home, and that one is going to leave someday soon too. We are a healthy, happy family, and we're spending less and hurting the environment less. That's the reality for CFL users.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Timmy (he prefers to have it spelled properly thanks) would tell you that the amount of mercury put into the air and water by the coal powered power plants needed to power your incandescent bulbs dwarf the amount put into that CF bulb. CF bulbs are still a net mercury reduction. At least until we get more green power online. At which point we'll have to reanalyze.
Funny how no answer is perfect, nor stays the best answer in perpetuity. It's almost as though we're going to make value judgments and reevaluate our choices periodically.
My mother inlaw bought 2 CFL to use in her kitchen. They are still going strong and they are probably the most used lights in her house. She paid a fair bit for them back in 94, but I'd say 15 years of consistent power savings has long since balanced out ;)
I've replaced all of the lights in my house with CFLs over the last 5 years. The only ones that have a slow light time are the super compact ones I got to fit in a specific light fixture. And the only 2 that have "burnt out" were due to excessive vibration (one in the garage) and another that I caught with a chunk of sheet rock while remodeling.
And most of them are from the elcheapo 5-packs that I paid under $15 for.
I've had no issues with flickering, the color quality is quite warm (I actually have to bring in a colder light when I'm painting, but for room lighting they are great). So even if they are sucking up 28 watts instead of 14, that's still 1/2-1/4 what I would be sucking up using 60-100watt bulbs.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Mike Grather, of Lumenaire Testing Laboratory, 'checked the power factor for the CFLs and found they ranged from .45 to .50. Their "real" load was about twice that implied by their wattage.'
Oh, good grief!
It's a LEADING power factor, a load with a large CAPACITIVE component.
The main problem with electric grids is all the INDUCTIVE loads with a LAGGING power factor - like big induction motors. The power company has to hang capacitors (or other power-factor correctors, such as certain synchronous motors) all over the grid to "generate" the VARs that are "consumed" by the inductive loads. So until they're responsible for more reactive power than the motors, transformers, and such the compact fluorescents will be HELPING the power company.
Neglecting harmonics (which are a whole 'nother can of squiggles) the main issues for power transmission are:
- "Real Power" ("watts" = volts times amps) (current is in-phase with voltage).
- "Reactive power" ("VARs" {"volt-amps reactive"} = volts time reactive current) (current is 90 degrees out of phase with voltage, either "leading" or "lagging").
Cycle-by-cycle:
- Real Power generation must match consumption.
- Reactive Power "generation" (current into a load leading voltage) must match "consumption" (current into a load lagging voltage).
Whatever mismatch occurs in the field will be supplied by the generators and transmitted across the grid to the load. The Reactive Power (or "imaginary power" - because it's times sqrt(-1) when you use complex numbers to represent real and reactive at once) represents current thrown back-and-forth between capacitances and inductances. But when it gets transmitted on the lines or generated by a rotating machine it vector-sums with the real current, resulting in a higher current magnitude.
The losses in the lines and the generator and transformer coils are current-squared-times-resistance, and those are REAL energy losses that must be made up by the prime mover applying torque to the generator's shaft, regardless of the relative phases of the current and voltage. Also, the limit on transformer and generator capacity is heating due to current, so it's this vector-sum current that is the limit.
The power company would like to run their generators and lines as close to power factor 1 (all the current is in-phase) as possible, to get the most out of their equipment and to minimize the resistive losses that they have to make up for with fuel.
But most of the "reactive load" on the grid is induction from transformers and motors. So an inductive load is (arbitrarily) defined as "consuming" reactive power - thus defining a capacitive load as "generating" it. The power company buys and installs a lot of expensive capacitors (and switching equipment to turn them on and off as needed) all over the net, to "generate" much of the reactive power needs, making most regions as a whole close to resistive as possible and minimize VAR transmission and the resulting extra line losses.
The compact fluorescents will actually HELP this. Your neighborhood and its nearby business districts no doubt has far more inductive load (from normal fluorescents, arc lights, refrigerators, fans, blowers, compressors, etc.) than capacitive load (from switching power supplies, including those in compact fluorescent and electronic "balasts" for tube fluorescents). This will continue to be true even if ALL the lamps are replaced by CFs and electronic-ballasted fluorescents. So the reactive current from your CF lamps will flow only through a small amount of wiring before canceling out that from some inductor. This means they produce virtually no wiring loss. Indeed, it will likely keep VARs from motors from being sucked across more line resistance from a nearby pole-installation or substation's capacitors or over the long-haul grid from further away, for a net gain.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Old cars got better mileage than new hybrids.
Old toilets used less water than new toilets (since you only ever had to flush once).
CRTs are the best display technology we have by far.
CFLs contain mercury and are absolutely not green.
The production of solar cells is far more detrimental to the environment than any energy source they could replace.
LI-ION batteries are inferior to NI-MH batteries, and are more detrimental to the environment.
Analog phone lines are the most reliable communication method we have, yet in a time when we're told we need to worry about our "infrastructure", especially for emergencies, they're ripping it out of the ground as fast as they can.
Antibacterial everything is breeding more resistant bacteria.
Our economic recovery plan revolves around giving money we don't have to the very companies that lost billions of dollars that they didn't really have in the first place.
Alcohol and cigarettes kill more people and cost more money (health care) than marijuana and cocaine.
What, you expect shit to make sense?
I have fitted my whole house using ULA brand CFL lights. The box says >90% power factor. I have measured the power factor of several of these bulbs, and they have actually measured between 92% and 94%.
And, they are dimmable. (Ok -- they don't dim as much as incandescent lights, and some of them want to flicker. But dimming doesn't destroy them immediately.)
In the bargain, they are cheap. (At least, they are cheap in California, and on ebay from CA sellers, until the PGE subsidy runs out.)
So, you have to pay attention to power factor when you buy anything that is not incandescent. But if you pay attention, you can still get a good deal.
This is really fascinating and has economic impacts on power generators and utilities, because "reactive power" and "real power" are compensated entirely differently at the wholesale level.
We in the bulk electricity industry think of reactive power as a service that is needed to ensure the reliable operation of the bulk power (a.k.a. high voltage transmission lines) system. Because reactive power is generally created for reliability reasons, there's a strong sense that no individual generator of electricity should profit by providing a necessary service. Instead, the existing compensation system for the creation of reactive power is based on a generator's individualized cost of producing that reactive power with a very small markup. In contrast, generators receive compensation for real power based on the prevailing price for power set by the market (either through an organized market or via a bilateral contract. And yes, I know I'm simplifying horribly). In order words -- the profit potential when you generate real power is significantly higher than when you are generating reactive power -- though of course, the risks are also higher. As a general rule, nobody wants to be stuck holding the economic bag for having to generate more then their share of reactive power (with some unit-specific exceptions).
Further, the compensation rules within various utility footprints for reactive power vary -- generally, everyone producing reactive power is eligible to receive payment for their reactive power -- or nobody is. The Feds simply ensure that the local utility isn't discriminating by providing their affiliates with reactive power payments, while denying comparable payments to the competition (something that used to be endemic).
It's critical to remember that reactive power + real power = total output of the facility. When reactive power production goes up, real power production decreases. So the idea that these lightbulbs are eating more than their share of reactive power has significant economic implications.
I don't even want to think of what it means for reactive power reserve margins (i.e., the "cushion" that utilities are required to have on standby at all times) if the lightbulbs become even more ubiquitous. Just goes to show that when electricity is involved, nothing is simple and no good environmental deed goes unpunished.
" many consumers are disappointed with the slow warm-up times, lower-than-advertised lifetimes, and hassles of disposing the mercury-containing bulbs.
I would wager that most consumers just throw them in the trash. Sure, you're supposed to recycle them, etc., but most people don't know that and don't read the instructions. The hassle factor for most consumers is zero.
Advice: on VPS providers
The amount of mercury in an average person's mouth (because of amalgam fillings, still widely used) is far larger than in the lightbulbs in one's house.
The Raven
Mercury is released into the environment every year from volcanos, weathering rocks, the various industrial processes that use mercury, button cell batteries, old style home thermostats, mercury thermometers, burning of fossil fuels, dental fillings and many other sources to the tune of about 5000 tons per year worldwide. In the US about 150 tons per year is released due to man's activities.
The total amount of mercury present in all the CFLs sold in the US in 2007 was 0.13 tons. In comparison the amount of mercury released in the form of amalgam dental fillings was 35 tons per year.
The concern about the mercury in CFLs is totally irrational.
This was "busted" by MythBusters: http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2006/12/episode_69_22000_foot_fall_lig.html And another article from Lawrence Berkeley: http://enduse.lbl.gov/info/LBNL-45862.pdf (scroll down to myth #3).
#1. The truck itself might be more efficient for the weight, but do you really need to burn all of that fuel to carry your ass around? I'm not arguing against having the truck for when you need to carry heavier loads, but for a regular human being you really don't need all of that weight. In gas used per mile, the Prius destroys your truck and it still carries you around. You're saving money by using the Prius unless you're carrying heavier loads that the Prius cannot carry.
#2. My fuel can works fine, though I haven't researched this one so I'll get back to you.
#3. The mercury amount in each of these bulbs is inconsequential. Think about it. For many decades we put thermometers in our mouths that used a SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER amount of mercury. The amount of mercury in any of these bulbs is really nothing to worry about. And while light bulbs do break, the crap spewed out about the mercury content is really pointless. At the end of the day, using them will save you money at pretty much no cost to you--even if they break.
#4. Use less toilet paper and you won't clog these lower flowing toilets. I don't know what to tell you. I've used low flow, regular toilets, and high powered toilets. If you're that backed up that your toilet gets clogged from your shit alone I think you really should see a doctor.
The original submission is written by an idiot. Power factor is the ratio between real power to apparent power - notice anything? Indeed, apparent power does not require any energy to produce, it can be created endlessly from passive compensation devices. Yes, it is an annoyance for the utility providers, because they has to do this compensation, but it is a very minor issue.
So LEDs might be a lot nicer, but it is for other reasons:directed light, better aging, instant brightness, smaller form factor etc. And is it worth 10 times the prices? Maybe for you, but not for me.