Microcontrollers > Data Logging
Data from my home
DamonHD:
--- Quote from: MattM on May 17, 2022, 07:55:52 AM ---Damon,
I think your goal is admirable but counter-intuitive. Energy is life. Everything in nature feeds off external energy. Are you proposing the approach to zero energy in your home? That's really simple. That literally means the opposite of living life. Nature appreciates your waste energy.
We all want a clean environment. And we have access to the cleanest energy in our locations, the stuff coming off the grid. If you're trying to have the least impact on your location then never fill the valleys in your local utility, basically use energy without any hint of storage when everybody else is using it and go without usage when the utility is running peak 'lows' in demand. This will be more efficient than anything you can do with a battery.
The public electricity runs at a much higher power rating than a person can do at home. Storing energy is always at considerable loss, so it wouldn't be wise to store it to ever reach your stated goals. Electricity at peak energy demand is made at a better power rating than energy generated at the lowest public energy periods, but running at peak means higher energy costs and a smaller piece of the public pie. Money is ultimately your best gauge of efficiency. Energy generated at the highest power rating is the most expensive. You'd be splitting hairs to find improvements otherwise. By using energy at peak demand you're doing all of us a favor and burning a hole in your pocket at the same time. So philosophically speaking, you would best serve your stated pair of goals by using all of your energy at peak demand.
I personally would rather seek load balancing across the public grid. I'd be saving money and feeding nature when it needs the waste energy the most. If generating my own electricity its more expensive than the public electricity in every case, then doing so never reaches those goals you outlined. But that independence from the grid will only cost me less over time especially if inflation grows. And eventually I'd hope to have more jingle in my pocket over the life of the project. But that independence will never reduce my carbon footprint and I'm fine with that. Just my two cents.
--- End quote ---
Hi Matt,
(Last few days were a bot hectic!)
Yes, life needs energy and sitting with the lights off rocking back and forth crying is no life at all either.
So, I'm trying to get my family/household doing what they want to but minimising impact on the planet, eg so life can still be fun for my kids when they grow up.
That includes carbon footprint from energy imported from the utilities.
My aim is to minimise carbon footprint and try out parts of the tech to see what works and what doesn't and write it up for others to read.
Storage isn't free, as in beer or as in energy losses, but nor is (a) shipping energy across the distribution network in particular at maybe 5% losses, nor (b) generating energy with peaker plants and other expensive messy ways at peak demand. If the costs and losses of storage at home are less than those then it's a win. I don't know if that is the case yet. Some of these things will definitely be better done at grid level. I try to make that happen as well.
Local generation isn't free either, but injecting energy near load demand is another way of reducing overall system losses, and load shaping/shifting is good too.
But note that we also cut our basic usage for heat and light by more than a factor of 2 and have a more comfortable and quieter house than we did. That's a win in my book.
Rgds
Damon
MattM:
You've always done intetesting projects. The aerogel I think was one iirc.
Don't stop what you're doing. That's great stuff you do. I can be prone to make random observations.. sometime it comes across smartalik I don't try to offend anyone. I hope it didn't come across that way.
DamonHD:
No way, please keep observing also!
Rgds
Damon
DamonHD:
I think that I have most of the energy data sets sorted now.
Even looking at the simple histogram-style display in the tables has shown me new features of this 10+ year old info!
Rgds
Damon
DamonHD:
A short podcast episode on my energy stats, in case any of you are into that!
http://www.earth.org.uk/statscast-202205.html
Rgds
Damon
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