[O/T] Re: What do I need to conserve power on my old Linux box?

On Thu, 02 Nov 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.linux.hardware, in article
<a9iq14-5ca.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, John-Paul Stewart wrote:

Also, a lot of the "companies" involved are owned by the provincial
governement (the largest electricity generator, the operator of the
provincial power grid) or municipal governments (local utilities). So
it's one government body regulating a bunch of arm's length government
bodies and crown corporations.

It's less common here, but Phillip mentioned the "Department of Water
and Power" in Los Angeles, and I'm aware of several more municipal owned
utilities in the San Francisco bay area. Here near Phoenix, I'm on APS,
but there are areas served by a quasi-government agency called the "Salt
River Project" which started life as a water supply project, and owns
dams in the hills to the East of here.

Here, there is the fee for the power used which is two-tiered
(over/under a certain threshold) for residential and small business
customers (which are defined as those using less than 250,000 kWh per
year). On top of that are delivery fees, regulatory fees, and a "debt
retirement charge" to cover stranded debt left behind after the
government restructured things a few years back.

250,000 kWh per year??? That's about 9 times what I'm using. Wowser!

Systems here are monopolies, but thanks to the voters in California
several years ago, there is a concept of paying separate companies for power
generation, delivery, billing, and similar. This was to bring competition
to the market reducing the need for nasty government interference in free
trade. Several other states have adopted similar plans, and you may
recall how this totally screwed the system several years ago which is
why California energy rates are substantially higher than (for example)
here.

There are no time of day fees or anything like that. Few electricity
meters are equipped to handle that information. Progress is being made
towards installing "smart meters" over the next couple of years to make
that an option. That's driven largely by a need to reduce peak demand
(which already exceeds peak generating capacity) to reduce the need to
import power at peak times.

There is actually a market here for single board controllers that
monitor power use, and limit the time that the air conditioners (major
energy use here) can run in a given hour. Given our rate structure,
this can dramatically reduce the electric bill (as much as 2/3). The
controller has less than US$50 parts in it, but the current sales
price is over US$3100 plus 7.25% tax. None the less, they pay for
themselves in under two years. Thanks to lots of insulation (the
current homes are built with R24 walls and R39 overhead), the interior
temperate starts the day at 70F/16C and may drift up during the day to
77F/25C (when it may be 113F/45C outside). Tolerable.

You can opt to purchase a fixed-rate, multi-year contract with an energy
supplier but that's about the only option you have around here, AFAIK.

The big advertising here now is "Green Power" generated by wind, solar,
and methane obtained from land fill. It's currently about 20% higher
than our conventional sources (hydro/coal/gas/nuclear), but it gives a
green image.

The two seasons have different thresholds for when the higher rate kicks
in (above 600 kWh per month in summer, above 1000 kWh per month in winter)
but that's the only difference in seasonal rates.

Similar - use here is "S" shaped - moderate in winter, low in spring and
fall, and high in summer. Looking at my bill, the "low" is roughly half
the "high" as measured in KWH.

Ignoring the heating factor is fine by me! I can't imagine 338 Watts of
heat being a significant amount. I know my furnace (natural gas, not
electric) is rated somewhere over 20 kW, so 0.3 kW from the computer is
trivial. I would assume it's an equally trivial percentage for cooling.

Central Air - 7 tons = 84000 BTU = 24.6 KW In winter, it's a heat pump
(running the air conditioning cycle backwards) with a significant loss in
efficiency. Winter also produces stagnant air conditions, and the air
quality boards decree "no burn" days - so I couldn't use the fireplace
even if I wanted to.

Indeed, 70% is a huge variation. I never would have suspected it to
vary so widely in a single location.

That's from a single company. Were my energy consumption much lower
(last 22 months averaged roughly 2300 KWH/mo) the killer rate for me
would be a jewel, and the rate I'm using would be 40-50% higher. A
co-worker lives in a 600 square foot (55.8 square meter, I think)
apartment, and his energy use is 1/5th of mine, and his electric bill
is even less than that - guessing about 1/6th of mine.

Old guy
.

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