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New Podcast -Listen as Matt Malinosky of Questions and Solutions Engineering explains how HOBO data loggers can be used for building commissioning.

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Energy Empowers | Idaho schools saving energy, educating students.

When Idaho officials decided to spend Recovery Act money to make their school buildings more energy efficient, it set off a chain reaction. Now, the project is creating more comfortable and safe learning environments for its students and providing them with examples of how to save energy. At the same time, it’s saving taxpayers some dough.

The Idaho K-12 School Efficiency Project increases energy efficiency while saving precious education dollars, says schools superintendant Tom Luna. “It also provides a great opportunity for schools to incorporate lessons about energy education in the classroom,” he says.

Read full story here.

New Podcast – Listen as Larry Lesser of Rana Creek Living Architecture explain how HOBO data loggers are being used to monitor different types of green roof designs at the Miami Museum of Science. The data will provide valuable information about which design would work best in South Florida’s subtropical climate.

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By Elisa Wood

Some green energy sources seem to have charisma; others struggle for public attention with little success.

Solar energy is an “it” technology, as evidenced once again by the tremendous participation in the annual Solar Power International conference in Anaheim, California this week (Oct. 27-29). Twice as many companies (945) are displaying their wares in the Expo Hall this year, despite the still lagging economy. And overall attendance is expected to break last year’s record, itself a record breaker.

Even on Main Street, ask pretty much anyone and they know solar, probably like it, and see it as an economy builder.

Ask the same people about geothermal heat pumps and there is a good chance they won’t know what you’re talking about. Or they may give an answer that confuses the appliances with geothermal geyser power plants. For whatever reason, the concept of extracting heat from the ground has yet to capture the public or political imagination as much as extracting it from the sun.

Yet, geothermal heat pumps could have a significant impact on our energy supply. They can be installed pretty much anywhere there is a building. And if we used them to maximum potential in the United States, we could avoid building 91-105 gigawatts of generation, nearly half of the new power we will need in 2030, according to the US Department of Energy.

Homeowners who consider then discard the idea often cite the high upfront installation costs. Yet the same argument could easily be made about solar photovoltaic panels. So why is geothermal an also ran technology?

One problem, according to the DOE, is that the heat pump industry needs to collect and disseminate more solid data on heat pumps. Work underway by the Chewonki Foundation, an educational institute in Maine, moves in this direction. With a grant from the Maine Public Utilities Commission, Chewonki is monitoring and measuring the performance of a newly installed heat pump system at its 11,000 square-foot meeting hall. The state is looking for an alternative to heating buildings with oil, a relatively common fuel in Maine. Geothermal heat pumps may prove to be that alternative. http://www.onsetcomp.com/resources/white_papers

This is not to imply that the geothermal heat pump industry is not growing. To the contrary, US shipments of geothermal heat pumps grew 40 percent last year, according to a report released this month by the Energy Information Administration. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/ghpsurvey/geothermalrpt.pdf. The industry is very much a domestic jobs builder. Most of the systems shipped in the US last year where manufactured here — 416,019 tons – with the remaining 86 tons from China. Sixteen percent of US product was exported.

Still, the geothermal heat pump industry is a small one, representing $319 million last year. Compare this to a domestic solar PV cell and module market of $1.72 billion in 2007 (2008 figures are not yet available from EIA).

Of course, it was just a few years ago that solar conferences were drawing hundreds, not tens of thousands of people, as Solar Power International does now. So who knows? Perhaps it’s not far-fetched to imagine the term” geothermal” rolling off the tongue of the average consumer, as easily as “solar” does today.

Visit Elisa Wood at http://www.realenergywriters.com/ and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter

When Governor Schwarzenegger signed the landmark Solar Water Heating and Efficiency Act of 2007, he launched the largest solar water heating program in our nation’s history. The new legislation calls for a 10-year program aimed at installing approximately 200,000 solar water heaters in homes and businesses throughout California. By creating this program, lawmakers hope to see a reduction of harmful emissions, increased energy efficiency and lower utility bills.

A recent study shows that families below the poverty line spend 19% of their income on utility bills. To alleviate this burden and ensure that energy conservation is widely accessible to California residents, the California Department of Community Services and Development and the Southern California Forum for Energy Efficiency, Environmental, and Human Services Providers (SCF) initiated a renewable energy pilot program. As part of the program, solar hot water heating systems have been installed in four of the 22 low-income, single family homes across the state.

Funded by the State Petroleum Violation Escrow Account (PVEA), this program, in particular, will monitor each of the study homes’ energy and gas consumption to determine the efficiency of the solar hot water heating systems.

Arleen Novotney, Executive Director of SCF, is leading the project.

“Our goal is to provide low-income homeowners with access to renewable energy solutions designed to decrease energy consumption and reduce energy bills,” explains Novotney. “For this program, we installed solar hot water systems in various climate zones across the state and will monitor the efficiency of the solar hot water heating systems.”

To monitor systems performance, Novotney chose web-based HOBO® U30 Remote Monitoring Systems manufactured by Massachusetts-based Onset Computer Corporation. The monitoring system consists of a GSM cellular-based data logging unit and sensors that monitor gas usage, cold and hot water supply temperature, solar collector water temperature, and hot water flow.

The HOBO U30 collects data at one minute intervals, 24/7 and the information is accessible via the web.

Novotney and her team can access the data from Onset’s HOBOlink™ website. “With HOBOlink, we can view the data anytime, anywhere we have access to the Internet.” says Novotney. “The ability to view data remotely allows us to see how the hot water heating units are performing without having to go back into the field to manually collect the data.”

According to Novotney, many factors are being considered for this study. The evaluation of these systems will include a snapshot of the costs associated with the homeowners’ gas and electrical usage, as well as the energy costs following the installations. The energy savings will be reflected by the climate zone, the household size, and fuel type.

“Since no one in our state has ever monitored the natural gas usage associated with a solar water heating unit, we wanted to track the consumption of gas when the solar power was on versus when the solar power was turned off,” explains Novotney.

So far, the collected data indicates that the solar hot water heating systems are helping. During daylight hours the system turns off and only turns back on at night. “This is the kind of data we needed to see,” explains Novotney. “We wanted to determine whether or not the systems were performing the way we hoped they would. The data showed us that during the day there is no need for the system’s gas or the electric power to turn on, and this will ultimately save homeowners money.”

According to Novotney, the HOBO U30 systems will continue monitoring the current test homes until October and then she and her team plan to change the location of the loggers to include additional test homes.

“We plan on using the HOBO U30 systems on each of the 22-test homes for the pilot study”, concludes Novotney. “We hope to have comparison data on all of the solar hot water hearing systems by next year.”

Onset recently assembled a roundtable to discuss the current role data loggers play in energy and retro-commissioning applications. Roundtable participants included: Adam Knickelbein, Summit Blue Consulting, Don Gray, US Innovative Green Technologies, and Stephen Pfeiffer, Energy Plus.

How do data loggers play into your overall performance monitoring strategy?

Don: Data loggers allow us to do full baseline testing on a facility before we do any upgrades, changes or modifications. We work with utilities to get Customer Directed Rebates (CDR) for energy-efficient projects that decrease electrical usage at our clients’ facilities – putting money back in their pockets. With the data loggers, we get extremely high quality data.

Adam: We do a lot of evaluation work for gas and electric utilities that implement energy efficiency programs. An important part of doing that is to measure the energy savings that they get from various projects. For example, when we are monitoring lighting runtimes, we often use light on/off loggers or current-activated switches. When we measure motor runtime we use 4-channel loggers with current transducers to monitor the energy usage and estimate energy savings

There is an increased need for precise and reliable data because we need to verify whether the energy savings is really there.

Stephen: Data loggers play a very big role in my job. I use the loggers mainly for retro-commissioning to measure how efficiently an existing HVAC system and other building systems work. I also use the devices to verify whether or not a system is working properly after a retrofit.

What particular challenges do you face with respect to data collection?

Adam: We have a lot of different monitoring projects going on simultaneously and have to go to a number of different sites to download the data. I know that there are a number of web-based loggers that allow you to get real-time data, but right now, we only use stand-alone loggers that don’t have web access.

Don: One of the main challenges we have faced in the past is sending a tech out to a site to collect the data. Historically we collect high-volume samples. Collecting data with a web-based system, like the HOBO U30, saves us time and money. It gives us the ability to access the data anytime without having to go out in the field.

Stephen: I find that at times it’s difficult to put the loggers on older systems. Another challenge I face is bringing a laptop into the field to activate the loggers.

How do you work with the data?

Adam: We usually export the data into a statistics software program. For example, if we are measuring lighting we will often look at a population of retail stores or office buildings to get a snapshot of the energy usage other buildings are using and then we are able to get an average based on the data.

Don: I export the data files into Excel. Our customers want to see a graphical interface of what’s happening with their data. When I prepare a report, I put the data into graphs to show everything that has happened during the entire lifespan of the project.

Stephen: I always export the data into Excel because it helps me get a clear picture about how a system is working and easily helps me identify problems.

Do your monitoring projects typically require trend logging, real-time data, or both?

Don: We need both. I need real-world data for a lot of our projects. However, in general, trending data is more important to us.

Adam: We are looking at trend logging mostly.

Stephen: I only need to look at trend data.

What are the most important product features you look for in a data logger?

Stephen: The most important feature for me is memory since I need to log a lot of data using short- time sampling rates. I also look for a logger that can withstand harsh environmental conditions. They have to be able to take a beating.

Don: For us, its ease- of-use. The more complicated the test equipment, the longer I have to train our techs to go out and collect the data. Data loggers have been historically created for scientific types, and I think that more work-a-day people are going to be looking for products that are easy to use for their monitoring projects.

Adam: Cost is a big one for us as well as ease-of-use.

The word geothermal literally means “earth heat.” We can capture the heat that is stored in the earth and use it to heat our buildings. The top 500 feet of the earth stores heat from solar radiation. Although the top 30 feet of the earth changes temperature with the seasons, below 30 feet, the ground stays fairly stable at the average yearly temperature of the air.

In Maine, for example, the ground remains at nearly-constant 50 degrees Fahrenheit. As the earth absorbs the heat from the sun, that heat is transmitted downward to a depth of approximately 500 feet.

The Chewonki Foundation, a Wiscasset, ME-based nonprofit educational institution and winner of the 2009 GreatNonprofits Green Choice Award, is leveraging the natural phenomenon to lower energy costs and reduce its carbon footprint. The Foundation recently installed a geothermal heating unit that will help heat its largest building on campus – the Center for Environmental Education. The geothermal unit will use heat collected from a deepwater well to warm the building’s radiant floors.

“The geothermal system we installed is expected to be energy efficient,” said Tom Twist, sustainability educator for Chewonki. “In fact, we’ve projected the system will function at one-third the cost of a traditional oil-heat system, and can be expected to pay for itself in 3-5 years.”

To help verify these claims, and determine if geothermal is a viable energy source option to fossil fuels, the Foundation installed a web-based energy logging system from Massachusetts-based Onset to measure the heating system’s performance.

The system, a HOBO U30-ETH, was funded through a grant from the Maine Public Utilities Commission (MPUC), which is interested in verifying that our geothermal system will be a more economical energy source over the traditional oil heat source we used previously. If the results look promising, the MPUC may consider incorporating geothermal systems into public housing projects.

The data logging unit, which measures, records and transmits system performance data to the web, is configured with a number of sensors. Two flow meters are connected to the well pump, which measure BTUs the system is producing and flow rates. A kilowatt sensor measures the electric draw of all the system pumps, including a number of tiny circulating pump and the larger heat pump itself. Temperature probes measure air temperatures inside and outside of the building, and well temperatures coming in and going out.

A real-time display of the data is transmitted via Ethernet to the web over HOBOlink®, an Onset-hosted server. Twist configured the webpage with a “public access” feature so faculty and students can log on to see the latest measurements, as well as measurements taken over past week and month.

“The web display of the data is a benefit to us for a number of reasons,” explains Twist. “First, I am not a programmer, and it’s unlikely that I could develop any kind of interesting way to view the data online. Having it published by Onset using their secure and dedicated server makes it easy for us to see what we need to see. Second, it makes the data widely accessible, which is great for our students who can log in and see firsthand how the system is performing.”

The Foundation will be collecting data on the geothermal heating system through the fall and winter seasons, and aims to have cumulative data to present to the MPUC in the spring of 2010.

“We should, however, know fairly quickly this fall if the system seems to be reducing energy costs and shrinking our carbon footprint,” said Twist.

By Elisa Wood
July 23, 2009
A Cisco executive attracted some eye rolling after commenting that smart grid could be “even bigger than the Internet.” http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/energy/smart_grid_solutions.html

But the statement isn’t farfetched when you think about what smart grid encompasses: a convergence of three industry giants: information technology, telecommunications and the electric grid, the world’s biggest machine.

A report this week by Greentech Media made clear just how large an empire this triumvirate can create — and what it will mean to our society if it succeeds and if it fails.

The smart grid – which will cost an estimated $165 billion to build – may constitute the largest single information technology investment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, according to “The Smart Grid in 2010: Market Segments, Applications and Industry Players” by David Leeds. http://www.greentechmedia.com/

It also represents one of the biggest business opportunities of the century, says the report. How big is big? “When you consider that the U.S. electric utility sector, with its annual revenues of roughly $300 billion, is 30% larger than the automobile industry and twice as large as the telecommunications industry, and then bring to mind the craze of dotcom investments and telecom merger & acquisition which occurred in the mid to late 1990s, a reasonable picture starts to emerge of what can be expected of in terms of smart grid investments and M&A in the next five to 10 years,” says the report.

Keep an eye on demand response because it’s likely the first smart grid “killer ap” to capture market penetration, even before smart meters, says Greentech Media. “The demand response market is now being referred to as a gold mine and industry analysts have called for this market to quadruple over the next five years,” says the report. The successful public offerings of demand response leaders, Comverge and EnerNoc, underscore the market’s maturity, according to the report. But what if society loses interest in smart grid? (It would not be the first time we’ve abandoned promising energy innovations.)

Without smart grid, forget about green energy, says the report. Renewables “will remain niche,” “a non-starter.” We need the smart grid to facilitate and integrate renewable energy because of its variable nature. After all, solar, wind and electric cars are nothing new. Photovoltaics have been around since the 1950s and wind and electric cars since the turn of the century. Smart grid offers to take them from “novelty to norm,” says the report. Green energy is “battle ready;” what it needs is smart grid infrastructure to support its introduction on a mass scale.

For all of smart grid’s benefits, it still faces uncertainty: If we build it will they come? Smart grid is premised on the idea that if consumers receive real-time information about their electricity usage, they will consume power more judiciously. That requires “re-imagining and re-engineering” our relationship with energy. “Changing North American consumption habits, especially those related to energy, which historically has been “dirt cheap,” cannot be assumed to be an easy assignment,” Greentech Media warns.

So whether the smart grid becomes an enormous business opportunity or an enormous bust may rest largely with human mindset. The question becomes not, how big is smart grid, but how big will we allow it to be.

Visit Elisa Wood at www.realenergywriters.com and pick up her free Energy Efficiency Markets podcast and newsletter

By Elisa Wood

July 9, 2009

When it comes to energy efficiency, it used to be the big guys that mattered. Policymakers and market leaders focused on manufacturers, refiners and others that gobbled up lots of kilowatt hours.

It’s not surprising. Manufacturers create bang for the buck. Better motors, refrigeration or combined heat and power can lead to six-digit dollar savings — far more impressive than the $10 per month an aggressive household effort might generate.

An energy attorney once told me an interesting story in this regard. He asked his family to turn down the thermostat to save money; they said they would rather just skip ordering pizza once a month.

Household efficiency often doesn’t seem worth the effort. But a shift is occurring; efficiency efforts are increasingly focused on the residential sector.

In fact, a study released this week by the Electric Power Research Institute shows that homes, in aggregate, offer greater technical potential for energy savings and reductions in carbon dioxide emissions than stores or factories. And it does not require use of refrigerators that talk to the grid, glowing energy orbs, or other cutting edge technologies to significantly reduce emissions. Instead the report finds carbon reductions in switching out common home devices that use fossil fuels with those that use electricity.

EPRI looked at household activities that use energy: clothes drying, heating, cooling, cooking, warming pools. It then found electric technologies that allow us to perform these activities with less fossil fuel use; a heat pump for example might replace a natural gas furnace.

What electric devices did the best job replacing fossil fuel? EPRI’s short list for households includes heat pump clothes dryers, heat pump pool heaters, air source heat pumps for heating and cooling, ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling, heat pump water heaters and in the Northeast, electric instantaneous water heaters.

The report also cites what regions offer the most potential for energy savings. Not surprising (See my July 2 blog, “Energy bill could open Southeast’s EE market” www.realenergywriters.com), the South offers the most potential, followed by the Midwest, Northeast, and the West, when residential, commercial and industrial energy use is considered. For reductions in CO2 emissions, the potential is greatest in the Northeast, followed by the South, the Midwest, and then the West.

Of course, savings achieved by switching from fossil fuels to electricity will be even greater as the nation introduces more renewable energy into its power generation fleet. EPRI says a good next step might be study how great those savings could be.

For years the electric power industry has taken heat for being a polluter. Odd to think it could also be what saves the planet.

For more details see: “The Potential to Reduce CO2 Emissions by Expanding End-Use Applications of Electricity,” www.epri.com.

The following post in an excerpt from CSE live.
By David Sellers

Sorry for the break in the string; we just changed the software platform that drives the blog and its taken me some time to get everything set up and working with the new system. But hopefully, at this point, I am good to go and can pick up where I left off and keep moving forward.

My previous posts before the transition to the new system had been exploring 4-20 milliamp current loops, including why we use them in the first place , what they are and how they work , and how to interpret the information they provide . In this post, I’ll begin to discuss how you can hook a current loop up to a typcial data logger. I’ll be discussing how I hook them up with the Onset HOBO H8 and U12 families.. But the concepts can be applied to loggers by other manufacturers.

Most loggers accept temperature and ac current inputs directly. Temperature measurement is typically accomplished by measuring a resistance element such as a thermistor in a bridge circuit using very little power. The current transformers (CTs) typically used to measure ac current are actually self-exciting; i.e. the current they are measuring generates the measured signal via induction. Using a current loop with a logger is a bit more challenging because current loops need a power source to drive them.

That’s the down side. The up side is that being able to pick up a 4-20 milliamp signal opens the door to measuring just about anything from flow to pressure to carbon dioxide. You can even “piggy-back” onto an existing 4-20 milliamp signal by simply inserting your load resistor in series with it as I discussed previously . So, if you are in the data logging business for the long haul, as is the case for most commissioning folks and a lot of operations folks, then investing in a DC power supply panel or two can make a lot of sense. And, if you are like most field people, you will enjoy the process of putting one together.

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