NStar and National Grid are currentely offering a discounted rate on the PowerCost Monitor, which monitors your electricity usage wirelessly from your electric meter.
The monitor, which retails for $135 can currently be purchased through their web site using your NStar account number for the price of $29.95 with no tax or shipping added, up until July 31, 2007. (I’m not sure on the National Grid pricing, but I think I remember reading somewhere they are offering it for only $9.95)
I decided to get one. Not only to see where I could cut costs in my electricity usage, but because I think it’s a cool gadget as well. After looking around on the internets, it looks as though the reviews of it are fairly positive, and back-up the company’s claim that it can reduce your monthly electric bill up to 20% if utilized properly.
This is a great step in a positive direction to help consumers visually see how much energy they use in real time. I’m also excited to have found it this week when NStar announced that its consumers will be able to purchase renewable energy beginning next year.
I’m curious to know if anyone on here has had any experiences with these devices.
I’ve come up with a list of questions that I didn’t notice addressed on the website, as well as some concerns. In no particular order:
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* How many batteries for the hand held device? How about the meter-reader? What size, and how often will they have to be replaced?
* Will this work in a larger apartment building? Access to the meter isn’t the issue — it’s distance and lots of brick and metal in between the sensor and the display.
* Is it transferable? That is, assuming my friend and I both have digital or analog meters, is it easy and convenient for him to hook it up at his place after I’ve used it for a while to understand his electrical usage?
* What about their return policy? Not particularly generous; in fact, it looks downright stingy.
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For people interested in reducing their bill/impact and who don’t have a good sense of just what is drawing power, this is a great little learning tool. That being said, most of us already know how to cut usage, as do our grandmothers. You know, the usual turning lights off, not standing in front of the fridge with the door open, hanging clothes to dry, etc. Throw in some CF bulbs, a digital time-based thermostat, and put your electronics on a power supply switch [turned off when not in use], and you’re doing about all you can, with or without the meter.
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Now — if this thing could transmit data to a file to be analyzed, then it would be really interesting. Parse that data real time, put it on a webserver complete with analysis and trending, and you’ve got yourself a really useful tool.
-From the pictures on the site, I gathered that the device uses 4 AA batteries, which are included.
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-Not sure about the range of the wireless signal.
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-Yes, it is transferable. It works on both digital and analog meters, and hooks up easily to both.
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-The return policy looks a bit like Apple’s, unfortunately.
it works on analog or digital — they’re different models. Definitely not both.
Why would NStar ever provide a discount on a product intended to reduce energy demand?
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Call me cynical, but I don’t characterize utility companies as big-hearted folks who are willing to lose a bit of money to help out “Mother Earth.” My guess is they’ve had some marketing/actuary types analyze the situation, and they’ve discovered that the vast majority of people who are likely to buy this fall into one of two categories (1) yuppies who want to appear environmentally conscious, so they purchase a “powercost monitor” and are too busy and/or lazy to actually take steps to lower their power consumption or (2) (as stomv alluded to above) people who are already relatively aware of their energy consumption and already taking most of the reasonable steps (power supplies, compact fluorescents, etc) to reduce their power consumption.
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Assuming they’re not providing the monitors at cost, chances are NStar’s profit from the monitor sales outweighs the average projected decrease in energy consumption that results. And hey, to top it all off they can reap the benefits of a public relations greenwash! Maybe someone will even advertise their kindheartedness on BMG!
I started this post about 18 hours ago and lost Internet, so I may have been “scooped
NStar may be smarter than you give them credit for, and benefit society in the process. Two reasons:
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1. They may know that much of the energy that will be saved will be during peak periods, when the supplier’s price of energy is higher [sometimes even higher than the rate the ratepayer pays, which balances out when the ratepayer substantially overpays off-peak]. So, by providing this tool to customers, they may help shave peak demand by enough for this to save NStar money too, since they may be selling electricity at a loss during peak demand.
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2. NStar, like other utilities in Massachusetts, is subject to the RPS [more clearly explained here, “, where power companies must purchase green energy as part of it’s energy supply portfolio, with “the initial one percent level to represent sources brought on line between December 31, 1997 and January 1, 2003. Thereafter, renewables must be increased at a rate of 0.5 percent per year, reaching four percent by 2009. At this point, the legislation takes the unusual step of creating an open-ended increase of one percent per year, until such time as the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources decides otherwise”].
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If NStar is having trouble buying cheap renewable power in order to be in compliance with the law [thereby increasing the numerator], they can also get into compliance by reducing overall demand [decreasing the denominator]. But are they having trouble? Let’s look:
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According to the Annual RPS Compliance Report for 2005, issued on February 20, 2007 (pdf), MA utilities had a compliance obligation of just over 1,000,000 MWh in 2005; they only generated 650,000 MWh and had to make the rest up in cash payments to the tune of about $50 per MWh — that’s $17.5 million. Now, this wasn’t all NStar; I wasn’t able to find a breakdown per utility. But, I’m betting that NStar missed their specific 2% requirement, and had to shell out. So, it may be cheaper to reduce some demand than to buy sufficient green energy at today’s prices. That’s OK — reducing the amount of carbon-based production is the real goal, and if they meet the requirement by reducing “dirty” demand instead of increasing green supply, then the program is still a success.
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So, that was 2005, the last available report. In 2006, the RPS requirement increased 25% from 2% to 2.5%. Then in 2007, it increased 20% from 2.5% to 3.0%. Since the last available report, NStar has to find about 50% more green energy than they were required to use just two years ago; there may not be enough to go around, and so in an effort to cut the penalty cost [$57.12 / MWh in 2007], they may be looking for cheap ways to cut demand.
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Finally, my suggestions (1) and (2) work in harmony: point (1) or (2) alone might not be enough to make financial sense for NStar, but together they might.
And so if you check out page 23 of the Annual RPS Compliance Report for 2005, issued on February 20, 2007 (pdf), you’ll see:
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Boston Edison (NSTAR)’s RPS obligation: 230,553 MWh
Boston Edison (NSTAR)’s actual renewable: 89,851 MWh
Boston Edison (NSTAR)’s carryover/others: 2,809
Boston Edison (NSTAR)’s shortfall: 137,893 MWh.
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Remember, this was 2005. Since then, their obligations have increased by about 115,000 MWh or more. Has their growth in renewable supply outpaced that — so that their financial penalty will be less than $7,876,448.16? I don’t know. The average American household uses 10 MWh per year; I’d bet it’s a bit lower in MA due to smaller average home size [thanks to urban areas], lots of natural gas or home heating oil, and far less air conditioning usage.
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But, lets say it’s 10 MWh per year per home in Mass. If each home that buys this thing saves 10%, that’s 1 MWh — a savings for NStar not of $57.12, since remember the 2% factor, but instead of $57.12 * 2%, or $1.14. Not very much.
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But, that 2% requirement in 2005 is 3% in 2007, and legislated to keep growing. If they had implemented it in 2005, we might be looking at something like:
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$1.14(’05) + $1.71(’06) + $2.28(’07) + $2.85(’08) + $3.42(’09) = $11.40 over five years. If in conjunction with idea (1) above the electricity saved comes from expensive times of day, this may work out well for NStar financially.
we have – bought by our son as an experiment – was useful to see what power was being used by all our equipment – the fax , the copier, the personal lap tops that stay on (we are 3 generation family of 5). It was informative but really a toy. I can’t find it to tell you how it operated – I don’t think it had batteries, just registered current.
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I know someone who has solar panels and a monitor on the whole electrical system of the house. He says it is useful. They have decreased their usage. And because they can see what is happening, they play games, like trying to be really careful with electrical usage for a day and get it down a little more than it was yesterday.
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we, as a family, are very proud of ourselves when we see on the monthly electric bill that compared to a year ago we are using less. But that’s pretty long term, among other things it’s hard to remember what equipment you were using last year – did we use the dryer or were we organized enough to only do laundry when there was sun so we could hang stuff out last July? Instant gratification is better!
I’ll presume that the PowerCost Monitor mentioned in the post is an interesting toy. I went to the first page of their web site and was singularly unimpressed.
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Here in Wellesley (well, actually there since we’re currently in Germany), the town Department of Public Works, which handles electric power distribution, offers an energy audit. We had one done a couple of months ago, and we were astounded at what the auditor estimated. We hang out at the house most of the day (we’re retired) and the light bulbs are on most of the time. Most of the light bulbs are 15-25 watts (we don’t want to destroy our reverse-painted lamps), some 40, and fewer 60. He estimated that most of our electric costs came from the light bulbs (!) even though they are at so low a wattage.
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He also estimated that (get this) much of the power usage for the refrigerator was because of dust on the coils. Keep them clean by running a brush under the coils. In modern refrigerators, the coils are on the bottom, not in the back, as in olden-days, and there are brushes on long handles that can handle the task. Then use a vacuum cleaner to clean up the residue.
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We keep the computer on over there almost all the time, but surprisingly to the auditor that was not an issue. Nor did he believe that our clothes washing machine and drier (both Miele, and electric) presented much of an issue, even though the washer heats its own water (using electric power) instead of taking in hot water from the (gas-fired) hot water heater. The drier uses relatively low-temperature fanned air to dry the clothes. (NB: we tried drying clothes outside, but after they were stained by so many seeds, etc., we decided it wasn’t worth the effort.)
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Apparently, according to the energy audit, it’s the lighting that is of the primary concern. And keep the refrigerators’ coils clean of dust.
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Buy the gadget if you want, but it seems to me that it would make more sense and be more enlightening to have an energy audit done.
…that logically just does not make much sense. Running large appliances such as dishwashers, dryers, washers, air conditioners/central air, computers, etc. eats up electricity at a much higher rate than do low wattage light bulbs. It’s just a fact.
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I’m not sure where the auditor was getting his information from, but it seems to me to be a bit misinformed.
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But yes, we all know where we can cut our electricity usage to lower our bills/use less energy through some common sense application. I just feel that if I know exactly what appliances/electronics use however many Kw/H, I may just be more inclined to unplug those items when they are not in use.
If you have 10 30W bulbs on for 12 hours a day, you will use 3.6kWhr/day (about 25kWhr/week) for lighting. Most appliances draw less than 1kW and are on for less then 5 hours a week. The primary exception would be an electric stove.
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Most people have light bulbs that draw far more than 30W. I live in a small apartment (1000sf) and switching the lights from incandescents to cfs dropped my electric bill by about 30 kWhr/month. Someone in a large house that uses lights during the day could easily save far more than that. I could easily believe that for many retired people, lighting is responsible for more than 1/2 their electricity usage.
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If you want to know about specific appliances, you should get s single plug electric meter. They sell them in several places with a variety of features. The one I have shows total and current usage, as well as a few other numbers of interest to electrical engineers (volts, amps, power factor, frequency).
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Air conditioning uses less power than most people think. I air condition my bedroom at night all summer. Last summer it used about 30-40kWhr for the entire summer. It is only up to 11kWhr so far this summer.
but lights are variable. People have lots of control over when they use them, for how long, etc.
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Conversely, people are going to wash their clothes one way or the other. It may be using a substantial amount of power per load, but we’re talking a few hours a week, not 100s [which the bulbs, in total, might approach].
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BTW: try getting an indoor wooden collapsible rack to dry clothes — even if it’s just the more delicate clothes in a load. The washer’s spin cycle should make the clothes dry enough that they won’t drip on the floor, and if you can get a little sunlight on ’em from inside, they should dry quickly enough.
try getting an indoor wooden collapsible rack to dry clothes — even if it’s just the more delicate clothes in a load
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Have been using them for years in the basement in Wellesley, and dry most of our clothes on them. Since the basement is a bit humid, we have to use a little fan to circulate the air. We use the dryer for the large items (sheets, primarily) and to fluff the clothes from the racks (they seem to get a bit stiff), but, all in all, the system works quite well.
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BTW, we also use drying racks here in Germany. They aren’t wooden–they are metal and have actual clothes lines for supports, but they work quite well.
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BTW2, you are correct that the spin cycle of the washing machine gets out enough water so that it doesn’t drip. But the spin cycle on our Miele is adjustable–we can adjust it anywhere from 200RPM (final spin–about two minutes) to 1600RPM(!).
if heavy clothing [say, jeans] bunch on one side of the drum?
but I don’t recall any wobble.
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Don’t forget, the Mieles are front loaders, and the washing machine weighs almost as much as a tank (I’m exaggerating, probably 200 lb). 1600RPM is probably used by those who wash blankets; we haven’t exceeded 600-800 rpm since our first fascination with the rotational speed. Actually, 1600 rpm will probably destroy most clothing
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Three things that I will tell you regarding the Miele. One, when they were first installed, we were advised to wash our clothes, but without any detergent. The reason? American machines leave a lot of detergent residue, which is removed by the Miele’s wash and rinse cycles. And it was true. We got more sudsing in the first few weeks after installation than we had seen in years, without any added detergent. The Miele had (programmable) up to five rinse cycles to get the detergent out. A number of years before we got the Mieles we had thrown out what were probably perfectly good undershirts because they stank, probably because of the detergent residue left by our Maytags.
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Two, the device is actually very sparing of water. It measures the water necessary based on the weight of the clothing in the machine.
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Three, we rarely use more that 2-3 tablespoons of (low sudsing) detergent for a load of laundry. Um die Umwelt nicht zu belasten.
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BTW, lest anyone wonder, no, I’m not associated with Miele.
particularly the appliance variety [not whole-house nor window ACs like in tUSA] in developing nations. I know little about appliances in general, but it seems like American appliance makers are not much different than American car manufacturers — far more interested in size than savings. So long as we’re talking about boosting CAFE, lets keep boosting Energy Star requirements, shall we?