Live View

My green home upgrade continues with the addition of a product from a company name The Energy Detective called TED 5000. Basically this is a meter that let’s me keep an eye on energy usage with both the feed from Xcelenergy (the power company here) and my solar panels. It’s something only a guy could love (the geeky graphs and huge amounts of data), but on the side, also lets me know, down to the watt, what each device in the house is using.  I’ve attached a couple more “sample pictures” after the break below.

It has a “live mode” (the picture on the left) where I can watch real time as I turn on things like:

• TV (100-600 watts, depending on if it’s displaying a predominantly black or white screen)
• Clothes Dryer (a scary 6,300+ watts)
• Oven (2,500 watts) and burners (2,800 watts each) [which explains why I don't cook!]
• The furnace (1,100 watts for the blower motor) [which explains why I keep the house at 64 degrees day, and 55 night]

I haven’t gone around measuring everything yet, but may do something like that over the long weekend. I’m really curious how much energy all the little power bricks I have for all the little devices take. I’m betting it’s going to be a surprising number.

The company still has some work to do on the software that comes with the product (quite a few minor bugs, and a couple major ones (like mis-labeling outputs on graphs). The appear totally overwhelmed by the popularity of their products, and are trying to ramp up support, but they’re not there yet. Be prepared to be “on your own” for a while. But, for the most part, it works OK, and provides information I simply didn’t have before.

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Categories: Geek Toys, Green, Hardware
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Panels from the North East

I finally made the decision to jump into some home improvements, one of which is putting a Solar PV array (Photo-voltaic) on the roof. I’m not home enough to benefit from solar heating, but I thought it would be interesting to see if I can end up with zero electricity bills at the end of each year.

Ali, a friend of mine, works at Conergy (a world-wide solar wholesale/distributor) and recommended that I talk to Bella Energy, an local installer who they work with often. I contacted Bella, and ended up purchasing a system from them (contact me for a reference if you’re interested).

For an east-facing roof (mine faces due east), I should expect to get about 77% of the efficiency of a south facing roof, which really surprised me. Apparently the panels work much better when cold (in the morning) than when warm (west-facing in the afternoon).

The market is getting a little crazy, what with rebates from the local electric company, and the recently changed law that gives you a 30% tax credit (of course, you pay income tax on the tax credit) so it’s really more like a 20% credit. The net cost to the consumer, after the rebate and the credit, is only about 30% of the price of the system. Given my “history” of electricity usage, I should be able to pay for the system in about 8-10 years, and that’s if the price of electricity doesn’t change at all (yeah, right).

The installers came out and had the whole thing installed in under 3 days, but won’t actually “hook it up” until after the first of the year, so that I can get the new tax credit (it went from a $2,000 credit to a 30% credit). The city will be doing their inspection soon, Xcelenergy will come install a “reversable electric meter”, and then we’ll fire up the whole thing in January. Below the break are some pictures of what it looks like, and a more detailed description of “what” was installed.

[edited on 11/24/2008] – I added some photos from the neighbors roof today.

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Tags: bella energy,conergy,photo-voltaic,pv,solar,solar array
Categories: Green, Hardware
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First Impressions, December 2006
This is my latest navigational hardware (aka toy) for work (and a little play). I’ve used a handheld eTrex Vista and a Quest in the car. My comments will be a little biased due to the features I have (and love) on the Quest.

Right off the bat, let me point out that I love the “functionality” of the Quest. I like the fact that I can change all of the display information on any of the screens to whatever I feel like seeing (like altitude, arrival time, next turn time, etc).

To be fair, I did NOT pay money for this NUVI, I used points from a hotel program. So my “disappointments” will be tempered by the fact that I don’t feel the loss of value (see the negative section) as much as if I had paid $$$ for it.

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