The Art of Engineering

The DME has released the proposed amendments to the Electricity Regulations Act 2006. It makes for some interesting reading, but here is what it boils down to.

The "licensees" (the people you buy your electricity from – e.g. municipalities) must ensure the following,

1. Incandescent lights must be replaced with energy efficient ones.
2. Unoccupied buildings' lights must be turned off.
3. No street lights should be on during the day.
4. New dwellings with a value over R750000 must include solar geysers.
5. Dwellings larger than 300m² must include solar gesyers.
6. All new installations must have a geyser blanket.
7. Office blocks, hospitals, hotels, resorts, and shopping complexes must incorporate solar water heating by 2010.
8. All geysers must be able to be turned off remotely by 2010.
9. All heating, ventilation and cooling systems (HVAC) must be able to be turned off remotely by 2010.
10. Swimming pool pumps and heating must be able to be turned off remotely (interestingly no date is set for this).
11. Street lights must be fitted with energy efficient bulbs.
12. Time use tariffs for customers who consume more than 500kWh a month, before 2010.

You can submit comments on the regulations up until 25 February 2008.

There are two things which stand out for me:

1. HVAC that can be turned off remotely.

The interesting thing with this is that it will be very noticeable to the end user. Turning off a geyser has little (no) effect on the end user. If your air conditioner suddenly turns off you are going to notice. The other thing is that turning a motor (the compressor) on and off is quite different to turning a resistor (geyser element) on and off. I wonder what the impact of this will be on the lifetime of the equipment?


2. Time use tariffs for customers using more then 500kWh/month.

There are many households using more than this, and certainly just about every business is going to be affected by this. We will have to think more carefully about when we use energy. Business is probably going to take the biggest knock from this, as it eats straight into your bottom line.

Other than that it just looks like we should all start solar geyser companies ;)

We are in the middle of an energy crisis and each of us need to make some dramatic changes to ensure that we have electricity, and that the economy can continue to run.

The first thing we each need to realise is that in the short term Eskom and the government can't help us. In fact, the only short term solution is to punish everyone by load shedding or electricity rationing.

The next thing to realise is that we can help ourselves and everyone else. Here is what to do (keep reading and find out how...)

1. Turn off the air conditioners
   
2. Turn off your geyser
3. Turn off your pool pump
4. Turn off anything that consumes standby energy (TV's, DVD players, cell phone chargers, etc.)
   
5. Switch to CFL and LED lights (and use fewer lights)
   
6. Run appliances as late at night, or early in the morning as possible
7. Use your computers in energy saving modes

Eskom's problem explained

We first need to understand the problem to know how to address it properly. There is a lot of confusing information out there, from silly politician's statements, through to confusing technical information.

There are two types of energy shortages, supply shortages and capacity shortages. Think of it like a dam and pipes. A supply shortage means there is not enough water in the dams, while a capacity shortage means the pipes are not big enough to get everyone enough water.

Eskom has a capacity shortage. That means there is not enough power generating capacity to deal with the peak demands.

Each type of problem requires a different approach to solve it. The supply shortage means we have to use less (just like when there are water restrictions). A capacity shortage means we have to either demand less, or spread the demand out better so that everyone gets what they need. This can easily be done.


Spreading the load

Eskom needs to reduce the demand by about 3000MW (megawatts) ^[1]. So in other words, we need to spread out the load more evenly so that during the busy times there is enough for everyone.

1. Turn off the air conditioners

This is not a suggestion that people like, but let's look at how this could work.

Eskom estimates that HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning) contributes 5400MW (about 15%) to peak demand. If we guess that half of that can be turned off without any dire consequences, we already have 2700MW of the required 3000MW. This would be quite an extreme approach. Eskom estimates that 10% could be saved by just applying some simple principles.

Start with good insulation! If you have good insulation you will need to cool much less in the summer, and heat less in the winter. Make sure your ceiling insulation is in good condition and find out what else is practical to do (weather stripping, better windows, etc.)

Use the fan to circulate cool air from outside early in the morning. Only turn the air conditioning on in the mid–morning. Set the temperature as high as possible, and make sure that it is no more than 10º lower than the outside temperature.

Conservative power saving: 600MW


2. Turn off your geyser

Turning off your geyser for a large part of the day can help significantly with reducing the peak demand. This does require a bit of planning and organisation, especially if you have a large family.

I can turn off my geyser in the morning, and still have enough hot water to bath in the evening. Then just before I go to bed, I turn it back on to heat up for the morning. This may vary, depending on your geyser and its insulation. One thing worth investing in is a geyser blanket (if Eksom hasn't already come to install one for you).

Remember that each time you use hot water while the geyser is off cold water is running into it and cooling the hot water. You want to try to use hot water all at the same time, i.e. get everyone in your family to shower/bath at the same time, then you should have enough hot water for everyone.

Turn your geyser off before you leave in the morning, and turn it back on just before you go to bed. Play around and find out what works for you.

Businesses need to look at how the geyser is used, and try to keep it off before 10h00 in the morning and after 18h00 in the evening.

If one million households with a 2kW geyser element do this...

Estimated power savings: 2000MW


3. Turn off your pool pump

Pool pumps can consume anything from 500–1500W. You will have to experiment with your pool and see what works, but try to run your pool pump at night (after 20h00) rather than during the day when there is a high demand for electricity. You can also look into other lower power pool maintenance options, like the Floatron.

Estimate power savings: 120MW ^[1]


4. Turn off anything that consumes standby energy

TV's, radio's, DVD players, video machines, microwaves, computers, cell phone chargers and (some) ovens are just a few of the things that consume power even while we are not using them. If any of these items are turned on at the plug they can consume anything from 0.5W to 30W (have a look at the results of this guy's power audit).

The easiest way to do this is to use a multiplug (power strip) with switches.

It is really hard to estimate this, but a lot of small savings will add up for everyone. I suspect the savings could be a lot bigger than we think.


5. Switch to CFL and LED lights (and use fewer lights)

In the 2001 census there were 7.8 million households using electricity as their main source of lighting ^[2]. If each of those house were to change a single 60W incandescent bulb for an 11W CFL the savings would be significant (learn more about the benefits of CFLs). Also consider changing your halogen downlights to LEDs.

Unfortunately household lighting does not play a big role during the day. Commercial and industrial users are the ones that need to examine their lighting and reduce their consumption. An easy way to reduce lighting consumption is to retrofit electronic ballasts to your fluorescent lights which consume up to 38% less energy than magnetic ballasts. Commercial installations also stand to win a huge electricity (and money) saving by changing to LED lighting.

Obviously the simplest thing you can do is make sure that lights are turned off when you are not using them. Security lights can also also be changed to motion sensing to avoid them running all night.

Estimated savings: minimum 400MW


6. Run appliances as late at night, or early in the morning as possible

Washing machines, dishwashers and tumble dryers require a fair amount of power to operate (particularly tumble dryers). By simply operating these out of peak demand you can help to alleviate the load on the network. It might not always be practical, but running them before 07h00 or after 20h00 can help to make a difference.

Estimated savings: 250MW ^[1]


7. Use your computers in energy saving modes

We often use our computers in energy inefficient ways – allowing a screen saver to run, or leaving a computer on when you are away from it for a while. Some simple changes to your computers settings can help to reduce the load it puts on the network.

In XP set your power management to "Minimal power" (to ensure the CPU uses as little as possible), and in Vista choose a power saving power plan. Try to optimise the settings for your own situation. Turn off screen savers, and set your computer screen to turn off instead. Set your computer to sleep if not used for more than 20 minutes. Allow it to hibernate if not used for an hour (desktop computers can do this too!)

Again, this is difficult to estimate, but if every business took a small amount of time to do this the total savings could be significant.

With those conservative savings we can "load shed" over 3000MW. I think it is worth doing so that we can keep out homes and the economy powered.

PS. Post your energy saving tips here in the comments, or add to the list we have going on The Forum SA!

References:
[1] National Response to South Africa's Electricity Shortage
[2] Census 2001: Census in brief

Load shedding and Eskom have been on the lips of many South Africans over the past few weeks. We have had some of our worst electrical outages ever — even to the point of mines being forced to close. We are in the middle of an energy crisis and fortunately everyone has now realised that.

On Friday the government released a plan to deal with this crisis, along with a background document explaining the current situation, and some more details of the plan.

The problem is that there has been a rapid growth in demand and the reserve capacity has been consumed, leaving Eskom with only about 8–10% reserve margin. They want to have 15% reserve margin. The current small margin puts a lot of physical strain on the grid as it reduces time for maintenance (generators have to run more), and results in the generators running harder (like driving your car close to the red line the whole time). These stresses result in more unplanned outages.

For example, in the week of 14 January a total of 8700MW (22%) of the capacity was unavailable. 5000MW of that was due to unplanned outages.

In the medium and long term Eskom is continuing to expand their capacity, but in the short term drastic measures need to be taken to keep the economy supplied with electricity. Right now Eskom needs to release about 3000MW of capacity to provide enough "breathing room." That is a large chunk of power....although you might be surprised at how easily it can be obtained.

There is a single viable option to solve this crisis in the short term, and that is power conservation. The government and Eskom have identified this and have the following short term goals (my comments below the bulleted lists):

1. Introduction of a quota system (rationing) based on success in Brazil
   
   • Consumption reduction targets for
     • Industial: 10%
     • Commercial: 15%
     • Hotels, resorts, shopping centres, conference centres: 20%
     • Large offices, government buildings: 15%
     • Agriculture: 5%
     • Residential: 10%
   • Penalty tariffs for use above quotas
   • Cut–off of repeat offenders
   • Incentives for exceeding savings targets
   • Trading of used quotas for large consumers
   
   Brazil's system was pretty simple: all users had to reduce their consumption to 80% of their previous year's consumption. There were penalties for not complying, and incentives for exceeding the targets. Large consumers could trade their excess savings. Interestingly, Brazil's greatest savings came from the low end of the market.
   
   The key to making this work would be to implement the simplest practical system, and stick to it.
   
   I think that it is a reasonable proposal, and could have the fastest impact, as there would be direct cost implications for all users, which would inspire energy savings and efficiency.
   
   
2. Efficient lighting roll–out programme (target 750MW by 2010)
   • CFL roll–out to users
   • Immediate restriction on sale of incandescent light bulbs
   
   There is an estimated immediate savings of 600MW if all residential households change to CFLs. I think energy efficient lighting is great, but residential users are typically only using lighting at night, so this does not really play a role during the day. I believe that if businesses focus on improving their lighting efficiency it could make a significant contribution towards the targets.
   
   It is also interesting that there are plans to back up the drive for energy efficient lighting with a restriction on incandescent lighting. 20 lumens per watt will be the minimum lighting efficiency allowed. CFLs and quartz halogen bulbs are both more efficient than this (examples of lighting efficiencies). For those of you concerned about mercury, there is a plan to develop a disposal protocol for the CFLs.
   
   
3. Solar water heating programme (target 650MW)
   • 1 million installations over three years
   • Unit cost and production capacity are issues
   
   The high cost and slow pay–off of solar heating make it unappealing as a retrofit for residential users. Industrial users probably stand to win the most by changing over, and the next point definitely has merits.
   
   
4. National housing specification
   • Mandate all new houses be built with solar geyser or gas geyser
   • Time switch or interlocker between geyser and stove
   • Ceiling insulation
   • Geyser insulation
   • Double glazing
   • Weather stripping of doors and windows
   
   The actual impact of this will take a while to materialise, but the benefits will be reaped for years to come. Interlocker switches will ensure that geysers and stoves do not operate concurrently, reducing the peak demand in the mornings and evenings. Improvements in insulation will reduce the need for heating and cooling, which is a benefit to the national grid, as well as the user.

Medium term goals include smart metering (I still do not understand how this helps with the load), fuel switching (to LPG), conversion of traffic lights and public lights (to solar powered), and the conversion of water heating to solar in the hospitality industry.

Overall, I think the approach is correct, but the reality is that the power still lies in our hands. That is a great responsibility for each of us. If we want to see our country grow (and our mines working again!) we need to each take responsibility for reducing our energy consumption as much as possible. We (and the government) need to take immediate action to resolve this problem.

I believe that the government and Eskom should embark on a huge national advertising campaign to support this plan. It should be hard hitting and demonstrate that each of us has a role to play in securing our future. It should become socially unacceptable to use power inefficiently. We each need to stand up for our own future.

To find out how to help read the 7 best ways to stop load shedding.

I found out that today is Blog Action Day while reading through my feeds this morning — I've clearly been sleeping. So my small contribution for today is to try to amplify a simple and important message.

For a while I had been struggling with the whole message of global warming and climate change. The main reason was that the story was weak (in my opinion at least). Now what I mean by weak is that it was not changing enough lives — not creating enough action. I think Seth Godin managed to express the problem best.

The next step was figuring out the solution, which proved to be difficult. Thankfully I came across what I consider to be the best environmental blog I know of, No Impact Man, and in particular, this post.

"My point is that a big boost to the environmental cause might come with spending a little less time making people scared of a worse life and a little more time inspiring them towards a better one"

Let us each start working towards a better life right now. We need to realise that the impact of our lifestyle is an event which is taking place now. We have real and immediate problems that need to be addressed, from children suffering from asthma due to exhaust fumes, to the depletion of fish stocks off the West coast of South Africa.

Take action to make a better world for yourself — right now.

Bonus Links:

• The City of Cape Town (my home - thanks to my wife for the photo above) published the "Smart Living Handbook" which has some excellent info and ideas.
• Lawn care for the cheap and lazy (I use these techniques on my own lawn).
• Gardening with indigenous South African plants.
  

Technorati tags : environment

I recently received some samples from Texas Instruments and was pleasantly surprised — actually blown away — by their fill packaging. Blown away by fill packaging? Let me explain...

Most of the fill packaging I have seen before normally involved polystyrene "chips" — basically plastic. What happens to those polystyrene chips normally? Well, expanded polystyrene is considered uneconomical to recycle^[1] (in South Africa at least^[2]) and ends up in landfills (or strewn around the countryside, waterways, etc.)

So I take out my samples and they are wrapped in paper — not just any paper, but a special expanded paper. Lucky for me, the manufacturer was smart enough to put their website onto the packaging: www.geami.com.

Go check it out. It is paper with little slits cut into it. The slits cause the paper to expand when removed from the roll. This is a really great way to avoid bubble wrap, polystyrene chips, and other plastic packaging. They have some videos and cost comparisons that are worth checking out. If TI is using them for the free samples they ship all over the world (and most likely everything that they ship), then that alone must imply that this packaging is a good and viable option.

Other than the direct advantages of the Geami packaging, it can also be transported in its unexpanded form, which reduces the toll that transportation has on the environment.

The beauty of this product is that it is a simple and elegant packaging solution that is easily recyclable and improves not just the environmental friendliness of the packaging, but ALSO reduces the cost. A great example of engineering simplicity.

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There are some other alternatives to polystyrene which are similar, but made from biodegradable compounds. It is hard to compare these with polystyrene because I do not know enough about them, but there are a couple of questions that come to mind (if anyone can answer these for me, please do):

• How do these products compare on cost?
  
• What is the impact of bioplastics on food prices? (I believe this is a big issue with biofuels and bioplastics)
• How recyclable are they? (recycling is generally better than allowing them to degrade in landfills)
  

To me there is just no way that these bioplastics can compete with the Geami packaging in terms of environmental friendliness.

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[1]From The Plastics Federation of South Africa (scroll to the part about "The Plastics Recyling Sequence" and find polystyrene),

"The polystyrene mostly seen is the white, very light, friable, expanded or foamed polystyrene (PS-E). Although this material is recyclable it has such a large volume to mass ratio that it is completely uneconomical to transport and recycle at present."

Also see polystyrene recycling on Isolite's website.

[2]Notice how expanded polystyrene products are absent from the list of recyclables for Cape Town, and on the non–recyclable side for Johannesburg.

Technorati tags : environment, recycling, waste, packaging, paper