Electronics in the United States should have a UL (Underwriters Laboratory) tag on them somewhere, in Europe, it’s the CE tag.
Guess how much electricity your computer uses and then take a look at the tag and see what the maximum power consumption is.
Power is measured in Watts, W (Watts, Volts and Amperes are always capitalized since they are named after people). Sometimes, on battery-powered devices, the power is not stated, but the current (in Amperes or Amps) and the potential (in Volts) will be. In this case, you multiply the current (in Amperes or Amps) with the potential to get the maximum amount of instantaneous power your device uses (in Watts). Typically, cell phones use 3 to 5 Watts and laptops use 35 to 50 Watts. Coffee makers are typically 900 Watts. Wow.
When you use power for a duration of time, you can determine how much energy has been used. If you use your cell phone at a power level of 5 Watts for 1 hour then you have used 5 Watthours (Wh) of energy. A battery’s capacity is how much energy it holds.
Take a quick gander and count up the amount of power you are using right now. You may have to catch the refridgerator if its running. You can also split that up between your housemates. Honestly, it will take some real effort to determine how much power you use at any moment, there is a lot of power that was put into making the products in front of you. This is okay, as long as we are aware that our power and energy usage and continue to clarify where it comes from and educate our selves to the direct and embedded energies that fuel our lifes.
Right now, my direct power use is about 100 Watts (two computers and a cell phone) and its daytime so I don’t need to worry about lighting and the alarm clock by the bed is on but I don’t see it. I’m sure Im not counting everything, but I’m getting closer.
In 1998 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology issued its vision for each person to live under 2000-Watts, the current average in the United States is 12,000 Watts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Watt_society
There is a new design paradigm emerging, one that replaced the brute-force method of getting it done. In the past, adding more power or energy meant getting more functionality (more gas give more speed). Now, the elegant design challenge is to get more functionality with less energy (go farther with a hybrid-electric car with regeneative charging from breaking). Where does this lead? All the functionality with no to minimal energy. This is beauty.
And, this is enegy awareness and it spreads. Electrical power is political power. Know your power and energy.
A Twitter contact recently asked us for any info on reliable voltaic solar cell use for the average home.
As our resident, solar pro, Dr. Ryan Wartena is naturally the most qualified to address this. Here is his response:
“Single, multi-crystalline and amorphous Silicon (a-Si) photovoltaics (PV = solar cell) will all have lifetimes over twenty years, some say the lifetimes are beyond 80 years. The most expensive is single crystal Si (and multi-junction PV) and multi-crystalline Silicon is less expensive and amorphous Silicon is even less expensive. The amount of power they produce is greatest for single crystal Silicon (and multi-junction PV) and multi-crystalline Silicon produces less power and amorphous Silicon even less power on a per area basis. Amorphous Silicon produces about 5 Watts/square foot.
Power has the units of ‘Watts’, power for a duration of time is energy and has the units of Watts x hour or Wh (a kWh is 1000 Watthours or Wh).
Installed costs for all types of PV is ~$5 to $8/Watt, so know how much power you and your application wants. The goal for next generation PV is to get the production cost down to $1/Watt.
Installation costs and racking have often been referred to as the obstacle to making the project economically beneficial because additional hardware is required for mounting and a professional electrical contractor should do the installation. This obstacle may be overcome by next generation PV technologies which will result in lower costs of PV. Sometimes, economics are based on capital costs ( i.e., $/W installed), but this is misleading because vision shows that the payback times on PV can be 1 to 2 years and the economics should be based on what the utility company charges per kWh (between 7 and 23 cents per kWh) and what the vision-based cost of point-of-generation PV is (between 15 and 25 cents per kWh).
Outline:
0. Learn about the different types of PV
1. Figure out how much power you need.
2. Figure out how much space you have to generate that power.
3. Use 1 and 2 to estimate the costs and to help determine the type of PV
4. Contact ryan@nanosolsystems.com for more information”
Hopefully this is an adequate overview for those interested in such information. Let us know whether you think it addresses the question from above adequately or not.
In case you’ve missed the latest news on Google, CNET’s reports:
“Search giant Google on Tuesday pledged to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make renewable energy cheaper than coal.
The effort, dubbed RE<C (shorthand for “renewable energy less than coal”), calls for Google to invest in companies developing clean-energy technologies and for Google itself to next year invest tens of millions in research and development in renewable energy.”
To hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, see Google’s blog.
