Global Energy City

Recently the an amendment to the contract to purchase power from AMP-Ohio was extended from 2012 to 2015. While this SHOULD keep prices steady the idea of being locked into a specific supplier is rather scary. In this town we are only able to purchase power from the municipality and this reduces competition which is always bad for business.

Weatherly is one of 15 municipalities that purchase power from AMP-Ohio.

The most recent municipality to approve this amendment is Royalton Borough

In my small town with about 2,600 residents may be going green.  This year our electric rates were raised by 10% and we were upset but what are we to do?  Just pay the new rates and reduce our consumption.  

Then something came up on my radar. 

My town Weatherly, PA has applied for preliminary permits to see if we can put in a hydroelectric plant that would generate 1,000 times the amount of electricity that the town uses.  The excess would be sold to a local utility. 

WOW WOW WOW!  This would be MULTIPLE WINS in my book.  Reduce reliance on outside power sources, reduce electric rates and with the latter stimulate business in town and increase the tax base.  ALL AROUND A WIN. 

Granted this is a 30 year old idea and that it’s only in the preliminary stages but not to bad for an old quiet northeastern PA town!I’m going to try and get ahold of Harold over at the borough for more comments.  

Some info about these changes, and more about the plant, and some more about this green solution.

With all the fans and air conditioners around it’s a good idea to quickly go over some cord safety.  Often we just plug our cords in and don’t give them a second thought but they can be dangerous and a fire is a LOT bigger worry than saving a few bucks on a proper extension cord.

• For any cord (either the one from the appliance or an extension cord) look for cracks or holes in the insulator from one end of the cord to another.  Since some of these cords haven’t been used since last summer a quick inspection can find problems before they turn tragic.
• Make sure that the prongs are straight and in good condition.  Bent, broken or loose prongs can start a fire or cause your breaker to blow.  Also make sure that the third prong isn’t bent or cut off.
• Make sure you have the right sized cords. We all have those two wire cords lying around the house that we usually end up plugging our lamps into.  Which is what they were designed for and not much more.  A small table fan or phone recharger is all that you should really be plugging into these cords.  Overloading them by stringing them together or putting something to heavy on them is a recipe for disaster.
• While they may be MORE expensive the heavy duty appliance cords are worth their price for the safety they bring.  It’s a good rule of thumb for AC units to not use an extension cord greater than 6 feet.  Better yet plug the appliance directly into the wall.   You can usually find these heavy duty appliance cords at your local hardware store.  They will have 3 prongs and have a rating on them in watts.  If you have a doubt ask for some help.
• Finally don’t plug your AC into a power strip.  Not only can you overload the power strip you could destroy the other components on the strip.

While these tips may not save electricity that much they DO make your house a LOT safer in the long run.  So take a few minutes to make sure that your cords are all in good condition.

Ok today is hot here. Not as in HOLY MOLY WE ARE FRYING EGGS HOT… but rather if it’s this hot now LOOK OUT. The subject of air conditioners has come about. I don’t have central air so I’m reduced at the moment to use window mounted air conditioners.

Last year it was NOT FUN! We had to shell out a LOT of dollars to keep our house a little cooler. This year I want to cool more and spend less. So I’ve done my homework and found a few ways to reduce my electric bill and still keep my cool.

• Right size my AC – this is IMPORTANT. Too small and it will run itself ragged and chew up your bill and you’ll STILL be hot. There is a pretty detailed calculator over at Consumer Reports on how to select the right size air conditioner. My guess is that mine are a bit small. Also note that oversizing doesn’t work better either. If you want a quick estimate take a look at the Energy Star Properly Sized Room Air Conditioner Chart which will help you decide on the correct size. It’s not as detailed as the calculator but it gets you in the ballpark.
• Install correctly – Not only keeing the unit from falling out also put it in the shade and if possible north facing. This will let it cool the easiest. Keep branches and leaves away from it as they can reduce the efficiency.
• Clean the Filter – check the manual for your unit and while it’s unplugged clean the air filter and other pieces. This will help airflow AND reduce allergens and other contaminents in your air. I’d recommend cleaning the air filter a couple of times each season and if you really want replace it yearly. This will keep you cool and healthy.
• Clean the condenser coils – these are the metal fins on the outside of the unit. These help expend the heat outside in order to cool your house. You can vacum these out and even hose them out Make sure water does not hit the inside portion of the unit and any electronics or motors.
• Straighten cooling fins – these are the metal pieces that often get bent really easily. They can also cut your fingers really quick also. SO BE CAREFUL. They do have a coil fin comb at many hardware stores that you use to do this job properly. Check to see how many ‘fins per inch’ your unit has as the combs do come in various sizes.
• Power your unit properly – try NOT to use extension cords or overload your circuit. If you HAVE to use an extension cord, look for a grounded(three prong) appliance cord that is rated to handle a bit more than the load your AC will use. Pulling to much power through and extension cord is recipe for disaster.

Well I’m off to clean my AC units before it get too hot. In a bit I’ll tell you how to keep that electric bill a bit smaller with a few cooling techniques.

Ok it’s spring where I’m at and and while the kids are waiting for school to let out and we’re shedding the heavy coats of winter, it’s a GREAT time to start thinking about tuning up your furnace.  Why now?  Well since it’s warm having your heat off for a day won’t freeze you out and many heating engineers are right now beginning to get busy with the summer heat on the way. So getting good inspection and cleaning will not be an emergency later on.

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Ok I’m back from my hiatus.   But I’ve got a few things to update on.  First off, gas prices are now affecting EVERYTHING we do.  Not only with driving, but heating (thank goodness it’s spring), shopping and generally living.  So I’m going to be adding ways to save on fossil fuels.   Especially after seeing prices change from $3.93 to $4.13 in less than a day between gas stations.

Ok I took an unexpected vacation.  Yeah my job lets me do that but while I’m away my empty house (don’t think of anything I’m secure) is using power in my absence.  So what to do to get a little bonus savings on my electric bill?

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Ok before you get into this you may want to look at my other post about what electricity is. 

Now most electronic devices have their power usage info on them. Light bulbs usually have them on the bulb. Computers on the back of the power supply. It’s usually written on the brick that you plug into the wall when you charge your phone.

Lets just jump right in.  Take this 60W, 120V bulb on my desk(I don’t like florescent lights for desk work)  If I wanted to convert to amps I would simply  divide watts by volts.
60W/120V =  .5A

YEAH it uses .5A of power but that’s NOT what you’re getting billed for.  You get billed in Kilowatt hours.  So you have to add some time period.  
60W * 1 Hour = 60 WattHours = .06KWh

Now if we know that our electric company charges $0.10 a KWh
.06KWh * $0.10 = $0.006 an hour (or 1 penny cause you KNOW they’ll round UP) to run this 60W bulb for one hour.

Ok now for the formulas in a bit more organized format;

• Convert Watts and Volts To Amps 
  W / V = A
• Convert Amps and Watts to Volts
  A * W = V 
• Convert Amps and Volts to Watts
  V / A = W
• Convert Watts to WattHours (Wh) (T is time in hours)
  W * T = Wh
• Convert Wh to KWh
  Wh * 1000 = KWh
• Get the cost of our electrical appliance over time (R is your utility Rate)
  (W * T / 1000) * R = Cost

From this we can figure out pretty much the electrical cost of almost anything in our hour from looking at the little numbers on the back or bottom of the device.

Computers are GREAT we can connect with people, get work done, play games and pretty much live our lives on them.  But they do use electricity.  There are a LOT of ways to reduce how much electricity they use by simply following a few steps.   Read the rest of this entry »

Without much thought we plug our stuff into the wall socket and never think twice about what it really is.  Granted we are upset when the power goes out, worried about lightning strikes and annoyed when someone shocks us with static electricity.  While looking into conserving electricity I began to learn a bit more about the terms and concepts about electricity.  

The term electricity can speak about a wide range of things but for the most part when talking about conservation and the power in our house we’re talking about an electric current.  Electric current is when charged particles (most often electrons) move.   In a conventional current electrons move from the most positive to the most negative charge.  

Before I get too much farther it helps to think of electric current as water flowing through a hose.  Technically there’s a bit more to it but for this case we’re pretty much ok.

When electricity travels through something such as a wire it’s call conduction.  A related term is conductor which is the material that the current is passing though.  Different materials have different resistance to letting electricity through.  Most metals and water as you probably know are GREAT conductors while rubber and plastic are not.  Think of the empty place in the middle of the hose where the water goes through as the conductor.  

There are two types of current in peoples houses,  direct current (DC) or alternating current(AC).  DC is what comes from batteries or the black boxes you often see on phone chargers.  DC moves in one direction.  AC is what we get from the outlets in our house.  AC current moves back and forth never really getting anywhere (i.e. two steps forward two steps back). 

There are several terms used to measure electric current.  Each are related to the other and can be converted quite easily.

The first is ampere or amp.  You can often see this listed on electrical devices by a number and an A.  The actual technical definition of an amp is pretty complex but simply put an amp is a certain amount of electrical current.  The average home usually has about 100A service.  This means that you can pull 100A  of power at a time(TIME is a factor in this).    An amp would be the equivalent of gallons per minute in our hose. 

Next is a Volt(V).  A volt is the potential difference that the electric charge must have to do something.  With the hose it would be the pressure of the water in the hose.  Low voltage = Low Pressure.  

A Watt(W) is the amount of energy used or the amount of push needed to run something or the amount of amps(gallons per minute) multiplied by the volts(pressure).  If you think of a water wheel at the end of the hose, volts would be how much water at what pressure would turn it.  If you dump a LOT of water slowly or a little water under high pressure the wheel will turn.   

Now your electric company sells you power using Kilowatt Hours.  This is the amount of work(1,000 watts) over time(hours).  This would be the amount of spinning the water wheel does over time.

Finally there is the term Hertz which is a measure of frequency and is only used for Alternating Current(AC).  This is the amount of times that something goes back and forth in 1 second in this case the direction of the current.   In North America we use 60Hz most of the rest of the world uses 50Hz.   

So there you have it a bunch of terms about electricity.  In a future post I’ll go over using these terms and measurements to convert and measure your electrical usage.