e-day ?

[lnr]

I've just heard of this on Facebook: http://www.e-day.org.uk/

The idea is that for 24 hours starting from 6pm today we should all leave off any electrical appliances that are not in use. And on their webpage they'll try and chart the day's energy usage compared to a normal day.

In my case I think all I can do is:

• Turn off microwave at wall. This will reset the clock.
• Turn off computers at wall: this will make no difference to computer, monitor or speakers, as they're turned off properly instead of on standby anyway, but will turn off the camera charger.
• Be a bit more careful with lights.

The stereo is off at the wall, phone chargers aren't left plugged in, the kettle and toaster don't use any electricity except when in use. Ah, I can also unplug the video from the four-way block when we've got it turned on to use the telly and DVD player. They're all in the same strip and we turn that off when not in use. Edit Oooh, and we can turn off the ADSL modem too. Can't really turn off the DECT phones or we'll have no handset upstairs.

It's really not going to make much difference, is it?

Comments

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

Measurably, across the whole country? No, it's not going to make any difference at all-- especially at such short notice. Presumably it will mean that *some* amount of difference will be made, and even if it's a drop in the ocean it's still a drop.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Starting from the other end I agree: I'd not expect turning off electrical appliances to reduce energy usage significantly: the lion's share of this country's energy use is transport and space heating, which of course tends to be petrol and gas. Put less pedantically I think they're both targeting and measuring the wrong thing.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Can't really turn off the DECT phones or we'll have no handset upstairs.

Surely you could cope without a handset upstairs for 24 hours (especially given that you'll probably be at work or asleep for at least 16 of them).

And no it won't make much difference (handset or otherwise) to climate change, any more than marching through the streets in support of CND makes bombs fall upwards.

[lnr]

We did turn them off too in the end. Which led to annoying beeping an hour later when the buggered battery ran down. I really must find it a new battery.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

! There has been suggestion of this sort of thing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6981356.stm) in the past, but I think the National Grid will be happy that it's not appearing to have much impact. Currently, no pun intended, we're running at about 0.6% above "normal" consumption and apparently the total savings so far have been minus 14.5%, which sounds strongly incorrect to me.

The impact of domestic use is small compared to that of industrial use and even public lighting. I don't believe there have been any calls to people to plug in random electric devices they normally wouldn't, just for a laugh, or slightly more prosaically for those with electric cookers to start roasting large joints of meat today to save for the next few days. A part of me would be childishly amused if there had been...

[james-r.livejournal.com]

Modern computers don't turn off properly at all these days (even in off, rather than standby) - theres no physical disconnect like with the big clunky power switches which you could feel turned off the computer. I expect they probably draw something like 0.05A - 0.10A when turned off.

Maplin do rather handy plug in energy meters, they're often around GBP13, but they're GBP27 right now :( I have spares if you'd like to borrow one.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343

Cheers
James

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have one of those. When I had my mobile phone charge through it for an hour, it registered a use of 0.00kWh..

[james-r.livejournal.com]

Ah, rats, I guess it's not sensitive enough to detect that small a current on it's own. Try plugging in four chargers and divide the result by four. (Or I've a much more expensive panel energy meter which you could use if you like).

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Nah, any answer will just be dwarfed by noise in the energy consumption of other appliances. It might be amusing to see if it's more or less than the energy consumed by watching a "dark" TV programme versus a light one :) It's certainly much less than boiling a kettle.

[james-r.livejournal.com]

Yeah, although I think the original point was about switched off computers, rather than phone chargers left not charging. Computers are much bigger drains of energy when 'off' - bigger power supplies, often theres a voltage line which is kept on for USB devices to be able to 'turn on' the computer, etc.

The other thing to make a distinction between is Wh consumed, and VAh. Sure, it's the Wh consumption which makes a different to our bills, but the VAh is what you really want to be looking at if you're interested in the environmental aspect. (connect a bank of capacitors to a socket, and you'll have neglegible W, but high VA, and yes, you will be causing more generation capacity and heat loss through the grid).

[pjc50.livejournal.com]

Ah, tedious power factor. Does that cause a problem with un-loaded switchmode PSUs? Intuition says no..

[james-r.livejournal.com]

Switch mode PSUs (even power factor corrected ones) have an atrocious power factor when unloaded (think in the region of 0.1 or worse) (or supposedly off), hence the not many W but still appreciable VA.

Bring back physical power switches on computers and monitors. (oh yeah, monitors are just as bad)

[dave [earth.li] (from livejournal.com)]

I believe that if you have the new digital electricity meters they measure VA. It was discussed on OxLUG recently.

There is also a (possibly snakeoil) power factor correction device for sale http://www.windtrap.co.uk/Energy-Saving-Products/Electric-Power-Saver-EPS-188.htm

[james-r.livejournal.com]

> I believe that if you have the new digital electricity meters they measure VA.

I don't think that's right - I assume you mean the tariff meters installed by the utility company? Some of them may well display VAh too (mine doesn't, and it's one of the new digital ones) but you're being billed in kWh so that's what they are required to use for billing.

I believe this is the case for all domestic customers - commercial customers might be penalised for poor power factor (and thus be billed something closer to their VAh consumption than their kWh consumption).

If you've got access to IEC1036 / BS EN 61036 / IEC 61036 you might find them interesting.

> There is also a (possibly snakeoil) power factor correction device for sale http://www.windtrap.co.uk/Energy-Saving-Products/Electric-Power-Saver-EPS-188.htm

I keep meaning to get one of those to see if they are in the slightest bit any good - I can't imagine them actually lowering energy bills since we are billed for kWh, but theres a potential (highly unlikely) they might just do something for the power factor (and thus reduce generation capacity used). I'm very dubious however - the proper way to do this is to monitor in real time the nature of the power draw on a facility and depending on the amount of reactive loads (inductive / capacitive) switch in banks of capacitors / inductors. Most domestic loads (SMPS) are similar to inductive loads, so the EPS188 is probably a bank of capacitors.

If the EPS188 is just a bank of capacitors and theres no intelligence to switch them in when useful (tricky since that would normally be monitored upstream of the device), then if your household loads are mostly resistive, it'll do no good at all (and actually make your power factor worse).

Still, I might get one to take to pieces to definitevly say whether it is snake oil. I'm surprised I've not found results from other people online doing similar, maybe they keep an eye on things and issue take-down notices?

Project for when I get back to the UK this week I think.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

tricky since that would normally be monitored upstream of the device

Now there's a nice thought; a device with a (presumably wireless?) Internet connection, to which signals are sent representing whether the National Grid would prefer your load to be inductive or capacitive. Get a hundred thousand of those going and it might make a difference.

The lower-tech manual solution:
1) Get a job at a power station, or social engineer yourself a friend who works at a power staiton.
2) Find out whether the power station is being required to create a back emf to produce positive or negative MVAr.
3) Add or remove your bank of capacitors accordingly. (Er, quite possibly "remove or add" rather than vice versa.)

[james-r.livejournal.com]

Umm, yes but no.. The reactive correction needs to be done as locally to the load as possible (one of the main things you're trying to avoid is the extra costs of 'transporting' the reactive energy and the grid losses associated with this, not just the generation requirements) - this is why places with eg very inductive reactive loads (such as large motors) have local capacitor banks nearby. I suspect most of the benefit of this would be negated after the first substation..

As for wireless communication of desired loads on the grid - this is already in place - economy 7 / heatwise / some odd tariffs which switch in more than once a day during low demand times and some even more bizarre tariffs which switch storage heating loads in for longer in the day when the weather is cold, use radio4 longwave as the carrier to piggy back the multi rate meters signalling on.

Theres recently been a rather bonkers effort by some company to have household appliances change their cutting in / out (ie refridgerators) patterns based upon the frequency of the mains supply - the idea being that when supply exceeds demand, the frequency is higher than normal (slightly), and thus now would be a good time to switch in and take power.
This strikes me as bad and wrong, because cutting in extra supply (such as from dinorwig) is precisely what the power companies do immediately before surges in demand (such as advert breakes in coronation street, when everyone turns their kettles on). Having peoples refridgerators second guess this second guessing of demand is probably going to cause nasty positive feedback loops.

Far more sensible would have been to piggy back a little more info onto the radio4 signal, such as to have refridgerators cut out for a few minutes if at all possible during the coronation street advert breaks, to reduce the supply capacity required while everyone turns their kettles on.. But since when did anyone listen to me =)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Apparently the UK is the country in the world with the biggest TV-related demand pickup issue, simply because we are the country with by far the biggest tradition of celebrating with a cup of tea.

Far more sensible would have been to piggy back a little more info onto the radio4 signal, such as to have refridgerators cut out for a few minutes if at all possible during the coronation street advert breaks, to reduce the supply capacity required while everyone turns their kettles on.

What an interesting idea! Are there many items out there that could take advantage of micro-interruptible supply, and is their combined interruptible demand considerable?

Interruptible demand is so far theoretical in this country in modern times. There was one day (in, I think, late December 2006) where the National Grid had to send out "people who are only paying for interruptible supply, prepare for it to be interrupted" notices, and even then, there turned out to be enough generation out there to solve the problem.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

David MacKay found he needed six chargers before he got a non-zero reading (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/charger/)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

I've got rei plugged into a 6-way with a big chunky switch. I spotted something was up when the KVM switch was never convinced she was off.

e-day seems to be (whoops, writing this for the second time today) a classic example of the "if everyone does something small" fallacy. With a per-capita problem if everyone does something tiny you get a tiny result.

[lnr]

I have to admit to being thoroughly amused that so far consumption seems to have been approximately 1% *above* average. I wonder if that's an average for the whole year, rather than for weekdays in February. One might expect consumption to be higher in winter.

But with only 1000 or so people on Facebook taking part, and the apparent complete lack of publicity until the day, I suspect only a very tiny part of the UK population is participating. Making it even harder for tiny changes to make a measurable difference that isn't just lost in the noise.

I *think* e-day was working on the assumption that most people taking part would be able to make more savings that I did though.

[naath.livejournal.com]

Many gadgets draw power *even when off* - of course this depends on the gadget, so you could go around checking them with a power consumption measuring gizmo if you really wanted to know.

It's going to make a very small difference; probably a lot less in your case than in the case of someone who didn't generally do the things that you do anyway. According to Dr McKay (he has a book about it (http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/mackay/Books.html)) gadget use counts for a small but not tiny proportion of our energy use - the production and distribution of stuff counts for rather more.

On the other hand this very small difference to your energy consumption is also a very small difference to your lifestyle - it's a lot easier to turn the TV off at the wall than it is to turn the heating off or give up your car or holiday in Warm Places. I'm not sure whether it's good that this sort of thing gets people thinking about energy use or whether it's bad because it makes people think that gadget use is the only problem area.

[emarkienna.livejournal.com]

I think a motherboard is still live when switched on at the wall? I don't know how much that uses compared to things like a TV on standby though.

Another problem with this is that in cold weather, all this energy must end up as heat, so any amount of extra energy (small or large) surely isn't wasted if that means you don't use as much energy in heating by a corresponding amount (the counter argument is that heating via gas is supposedly more efficient than via electricity - but still, if it was cold and you stuck an extra electric heater on, I doubt anyone would feel guilty about the environment for doing so).

I always turn off things when I go out, but I don't bother at night (I mean, otherwise I'd have to get out of bed first in order to go on the Internet...)

[lenno-cornish.livejournal.com]

I guess the problem is in the daily usage and level of energy saving technologies but not just in the DAY OFF.
But it's true that while some people consume energy as they wish - there are billions of people ho have lack of it.