Off Grid Living , Renewable Energy
I am an independent contractor building an off grid home in the national forest. This group is for folks interested in knowing more about the project, but also a place to share your own construction related stories. This group is not only for construction professionals, I would love to hear from everyone who has tried to build something naked, from a bird house in the garage and up. Lets have...
- created by MickeyH
Saving Energy- Phantom Loads and Lighting
Return to DiscussionsOne of the biggest things with a Renewable Energy System is not how much you produce but what you do with what you have. Simply being aware of your power consumption will really help you go further with what you have.
A good first step is to eliminate Phantom Loads. A Phantom Load is anything that draws power even when not in use, anything with a little black box at the plug end will produce a Phantom Load such as battery chargers.
If I leave a battery in my Bosch 18v charger it draws 8watts, If I left it plugged in it would draw 5.38KWH/Month. The formula for this is to take the watts of appliance x hours per Day x days of the week x 4 weeks x .001. So for the example above it would look like.
8x24x7x4x.001=5.376
Another big example would be your entertainment center. Mine consists of a DVD player, Satellite receiver/DVR, Stereo receiver and the TV, these all have internal clocks and are never Off. Using a switched power strip will eliminate these extra draws.
Changing out your standard light bulbs is another biggie. A single 60watt bulb used 5 hours a day 7 days a week will consume 8.4 KWH ( Kilowatt Hours) per month. Replacing the bulb with a 13 watt CFL (Compact Florescent Lamp) will only use 1.82KWH this is a savings of 6.58KWH for just one light bulb.
Having multiple Light sources instead of one large one will also help, why light an entire room when a single floor lamp will do to read a book.
Mickey
PS Please add any comments and or questions
I was similarly amazed at the number of phantom loads that existed in our home. Someone bought me one of those devices that you plug the appliance into and then plug both into the wall socket. It measures current, voltage, time and thus shows the watts and kwhour use of the appliance.
The biggest surprise for me was my desktop PC and peripherals (printer, speakers, hub & LCD screen). They are all plugged into one extension lead so I was able to measure the whole system. Even when everything was apparently turned off, no lights at all on the printer or PC, the device showed I was drawing 30Watts!!! I couldn't understand why but I eventually I put it down to the fact that both my Printer and PC can be remotely powered up via a network connection even though I don't use this functionality. I guessed they had to be in some kind of standby power mode in order to do this and that was probably the cause of the draw. Bit naughty of the manufacturers to give no visual indication this was the case. Now, I shut everything down and flick the switch on the extension cable.
I was similarly amazed at the number of phantom loads that existed in our home. Someone bought me one of those devices that you plug the appliance into and then plug both into the wall socket. It measures current, voltage, time and thus shows the watts and kwhour use of the appliance.
There are a few monitors like this. I use a Kill-a-Watt meter. It will not only tell you all consumption in Watts but also what it is costing you as well as other options.
Mick