Smart meters of a certain type have an issue dealing with variable voltages on LED lighting – Lighting makes up 10% of residential electricity in the USA at 129 billion kWh. If we all had smart meters installed – and we all had LED lighting that was using unique features to lower the energy usage – we could be paying a $100M more than we should. The scientists seemed to pinpoint the exact hardware causing the over/under reading. If every socket knew what hardware was plugged into it a software fix at the utility side could manage it.
Abu Dhabi aims to close $872 million solar plant financing in April – 74¢/W is what you pay for 1.17GW in the desert. It wasn’t too long ago that solar panels themselves cost 74¢/W — actually like two years ago. I wonder if JinkoSolar is being given partial ownership in exchange for the solar panels – long term cash generation?
Utility sued by solar power users who believe net metering credits not properly applied – Taking this article, plus the lead regarding smart meters, pushes me further to think there is a need in the marketplace for better energy usage knowledge. Every item plugged the house can be better managed – and we ought be tracking usage on that level. If we’re doing that – then we’ll be able to know exactly what our electricity bills should look like every single month. Check out Sense.com for one such product.
30 year old climate change model shown as accurate – In this column we’ve seen climate science concepts found in 1859, volumes and outcomes predicted in 1895, and measurements matching those 1895 predictions in 1934. Our scientists know their stuff. This computer model – now 30 years old – spot on. And of course, Shell and Exxon both internally reported that climate science was real and the changes were caused by burning fossils. Pretty soon – the facade of whatever by out politicians will be shown pure greed driving global weather changes that will affect our species for millennia hereafter.
Spring came 26 days early, that means winter is 33% shorter – And it actually might mean that winter is even more than 26 days shorter because how much winter was lost at the back end of the year in December? Being from South Florida, I get to describe the weather as, ‘6 months of summer and six months of spring – with an occasional week or two of fall in February.’ That’s because Florida is just outside of the tropics. I live in Massachusetts now – and in February it was 70 degrees this year. Florida weather about a thousand miles north.
“I strongly believe in clean energy, in conserving energy, all of that – more than anybody.” – Donald Trump – Just sayin’
The propaganda du jour (really the last year or three) from the renewable energy industry is jobs. If that’s the drum to be pounded – here’s another beat:
Some rough math folks – if the USA needs 1.275M GWh/year to cover our vehicle mileage with electricity, we ought first divide that by 52 weeks since that is how often a car will need refill if it has a 300 mile range, then we’ll divide the total number by 15 years since that is how long I hear experts say the American vehicle fleet will replace itself in – and we’ll be left with about 1,600GWh/year needed to hit the streets. That’s 11’ish Gigafactories if Nevada scales to 150GWh/year. One variable is how long those batteries will last – 500,000 miles? Oh, and then there’s the rest of the world.
If needed, please refine the math in the comments, thank you.
https://twitter.com/DavidLawrenceUS/status/838481475033006080
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