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Archive for July 27th, 2010

In today’s energy climate more and more people have become motivated to accomplish what they can to become more energy efficient to conserve energy and money. Regrettably this same climate has encouraged some to take advantage of innocent consumers’ desires to save energy and reduce operating expenses.

Vendors that advertise power factor improvement (kVAR correction) and transient voltage suppression to save energy are a good case in point of this bad trend. Recently we are seeing more and more of these businesses cropping up and we believe it is time to set the record straight.

First off, transient voltage surge suppression (TVSS) plays an important part in improving power quality to guard sensitive equipment inside a facility. However, TVSS does not save energy. TVSS’s are barely active an infinitesimal portion of a second to defend against voltage surges which only last for less than a millisecond. To actually decrease energy use the TVSS would need to essentially cut power consumption for an extended amount of time which is not what they are designed to do. Again, TVSS is essential to protect susceptible electrical equipment but consumers should steer clear of vendors promising, or even guaranteeing, a reduction in energy consumption.

And what about salespeople who maintain that increasing power factor will save 15% or 20% or 30% of energy consumption and resultant costs? This is false but also a bit trickier.

For homes, power factor correction does zero to save energy because the average home already has an average power factor of approximately 0.97 which is nearly the perfect power factor of 1 or unity. Additionally, the unit (called a capacitor) is installed at the homes main circuit breaker. According to IEEE 5.5.3.3 capacitors must be located at or near the individual inductive motor loads to decrease power system losses by reducing heat and distribution losses known as I2R losses.

So what about commercial and industrial facilities looking to use power factor correction to shrink energy expenditures? It is completely appropriate for a business that is incurring penalties or a kVA billing structure from the utility company to improve the facility’s overall power factor by installing a capacitor bank at the main electrical service entrance or individual capacitors at or near the particular motor loads. Doing so will do away with the power factor penalties and/or reduce the kVA demand charges on the electric bill which can save considerable money and provide a significant ROI on the investment.

But what about power factor correction reducing kWh consumption? IEEE also tells us that at most I2R losses only account for 2 to 5% of the total load in a facility. Simple arithmetic tells us that it would be in opposition to the laws of physics to obtain the 15% to 30% energy reduction claimed by some vendors. Consider it. Even if your facility had 5% distribution losses and you could correct 100% of the predicament via power factor correction at every load (which can’t be done) you would still save no more than 5% at most. No where close to the claims of some capacitor reps and manufacturers.

All that said, power factor correction when done appropriately will eliminate utility penalties and kVA demand charges, improve facility power quality, increase electrical system capacity, and save a modicum of energy when applied at the proper motor loads in an industrial facility.

So make an investment in transient voltage surge suppression and power factor correction when appropriate and necessary. But caveat emptor!

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

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Jul/10

27

Energy Efficiency And Your Own Efforts

There are plenty of things you can do to demonstrate better energy efficiency. Everyone knows the big ones such as recycle and turn off the lights. But there are other small things that can really add up. They may seem odd or like slight inconveniences, but the small magnitude of the inconvenience will completely disappear once it becomes a part of your regular schedule.

The first thing is to unplug all chargers when you are done with them. Many people have their cell phone, camera, or MP3 chargers in the same spot, always ready to go for convenience purposes as we are all always rushing out the door. However, leaving something just simply plugged in can drain electricity and at the same time serves no purpose.

Another thing would be to car pool or take public transportation. These are likewise inconveniences to many people, especially on days when they are running late. However, sticking to a schedule like this may actually make you more punctual and aware of your time. It also can be much cheaper for you. Your car will last longer and your petrol bill will go way down.

You should also start recycling the little bits of plastic you may not even realize can be recycled. For example, many people just throw away the plastic trays from TV dinners. This is hugely impractical, since they can be easily rinsed out and recycled.

Many people throw away lots of little bits of paper like sticky notes, or bits of plastic, like from a candy wrapper. This plastic is merely going to sit in a land fill. Why not put it to good use? These things all add up, so we need to be smart about them. If everyone merely took a step back and looked at what they were really wasting–and knew the life of an object after it was thrown away–people would save so much more in terms of recycling and reusing

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

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Jul/10

27

Options For Saving By Using Renewable Energy

There are many different types of renewable energy that can be used in place of energy created by burning fossil fuels. Renewable energy is generated from geothermal heat, sunlight, tides, rain and wind. All of which will naturally replenish. Currently only about 20% of the worlds energy consumption uses natural energy sources.

One of the cleanest and most efficient types of renewable energy is wind power which is slowly gaining in popularity and usage. Wind power is seen more in Europe though many countries are building off shore wind farms. Only a light breeze is needed to generate power and the energy conversion is one of the most efficient of all renewable sources.

Renewable energy is not only being used in large scale production but many can be scaled down to use for small grid or even residential use. The best example of this would be solar power. Solar power takes the suns light and converts it to electricity using solar cells. Solar can easily supplement current electricity usage and some business and people are finding that they no longer pay an electricity bill after conversion to solar power.

Hydropower has been used for years via construction and operation of dams. Most people are familiar with Hoover Dam which is the largest hydropower station in the world. As water flows from a high spot to a low spot it gives off energy which can be transformed into different types of power such as electrical. You also can use hydropower without dams in rivers and oceans as long as there is a current or tide.

Biofuels are mainly based on bioalcohol or bioethanol. This fuel is produced from fermenting soy or sugar that comes from plants. This pure form can then be used instead of gasoline. Biodiesel is an oil made from animal fat, vegetable oils and recycled grease. Although these fuels when burned produce emissions, they are much cleaner than the traditional petrol.

So now that you know, consider how you can make changes and choices to take advantage of these alternatives.

LEED Certified and Green Technology, Energy Edge Technologies can help save your Industrial, Hospital, Grocery Store or any other high energy commercial buildings massive amounts of money! We Take A Full Facility Approach or call 888-729-5722 Ext. 100.

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The term “meme” is easy to experience but difficult to describe. Basically it is a disease we catch in our culture and society. It is nothing physical but causes a serious alternation in our mentality. Its effect of grouping people into one container can easily be identified in the social media world. Here are 7 qualities possessed by some top rated websites.

1. Content is Everything

To capture audience’s attention, great content is the first way to go. As long as it is relevant and well-packaged, people will be attracted to your site. There are 2 main genre of content: the creative, authentic ones and the shorter, ordinary ones. It all depends on your talent. If you are too lazy to write a loaded piece, you can always keep it real and produce loosely organized content.

2. Simplicity

A joke is always more preferred to grand theory on the Internet. Make sure your content is as light-hearted as it can be.

As your readership grows, your site will be over-flooded by mails and you don’t want to trouble yourself with some complicated administrative work. It is wiser for you to choose less decorative design. You may consider hiring someone to build the website and its operating system in order to save time and energy.

3. Connect

The brain is very good at making associations. If your content is able to get people to respond emotionally, get people to laugh and enjoy themselves, you’re gold. That emotional connection serves as a sort of glue, binding the association between your content or site and enjoyment and with each exposure to entertaining, funny, or otherwise emotionally provocative content, that association between “your site” and “totally amazing” becomes stronger and stronger. Here’s a quick case study: According to my network of unnamed spies, there are two groups of people who seem to be drawn to LOLCats. The first are people who just find it funny. The other group is made up of the passionate folks perhaps better known as “crazy cat ladies.” Their overwhelming love of cats drives them to spend time on the site as well as to spend money on the books that are available now as well. Think about that. One of the biggest emotional hooks is empathy, which is where the success from sites like Awkward Family Photos and Shit My Dad Says come from. We’ve all got our own awkward family portraits, and we’ve all heard our parents say ridiculous things. White people will laugh at themselves reading Stuff White People Like, while non-white people will gladly laugh at the ironically accurate absurdity of “the definitive guide to the unique tastes of millions.” Note how race and family are some big-picture concepts. There’s lots of potential material in those spaces to play with, which can get users to respond to easily.

4. Be a Owner

Any popular websites have one thing in common, that they are special and one of a kind. Nobody can ever take over their well established status, for they are being nobody but themselves.

5. Share It

As with all things on the ever-growing social web, memes live and die by the ability to share content. If your content isn’t bite-sized and isn’t surrounded by some controls to share: Like, Tweet, Stumble, Digg , or something else, you’re doing something wrong. “Your content should be instantly identifiable no matter where it ends up on the web,” says Ben Bator, co-founder of Texts From Last Night. “Humorous material is meant to be shared, so don’t limit the possibilities.” My personal favorite sharing control is the “share by e-mail” function found on ICanHasCheezburger. Remember how crazy cat ladies love that stuff? Guess what else they love to do – that’s right, forward everyone they know those pictures, so why not have that right on the site? Brilliant, though unfortunate for the rest of us. If you’re using a blogging service like WordPress or Tumblr, make sure that that sharing via third party services (Facebook , Twitter ) as well as controls like AddThis are enabled. At the launch of your project, you should also make sure that there are appropriate avenues for discussion, sharing, and fandom on third party services. Get yourself a Facebook Fan page, add certain pages to Stumble Upon, register appropriate Twitter handles, and popularize the hashtags you want to use. Being in control of your content outside of your site is important.

6. Protect Your Ideas

If you don’t want your written content to be riped off by any Internet users, get some help from Google Alerts. If necessary, hire a lawyer to send out warning letters to those shameless copycats. In most cases, unauthentic content will be removed immediately.

7. Satisfy The Audience

The only reason Chuck Norris Facts exist is because I asked the visitors to my site what they wanted to see. I had started my site with “Vin Diesel Facts” and after getting a few million hits and some mentions in the press, I put up a poll to ask visitors who the site should include next. The rest is history. Don’t necessarily crowdsource your major decisions to your users since you probably don’t know or trust them that well, but it’s just as much their site as it is yours to a certain extent. Users/members ought to have a say in things, if only to let you know if you’re going in the right direction.

Looking to find the best deal on social media, then visit www.yoursite.com to find the best advice on online promotion for you.

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