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Thread ID: 32826	2003-04-29 05:53:00	OT: Saving Power	csinclair83 (200)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
139932	2003-05-03 13:52:00	In Invercargill, we got a taste of life in a third world country just a few days ago! Around 5:45pm on Friday, most of Invercargill was completely blacked out. Lasted for about half an hour, but its not all that fun to rely on candles and torches to live. Besides what can you eat for dinner if your whole city is powered down!? It ended up being some fault in the main line somewhere, but we thought Manapouri had run out of power or something. :p Also if you were to go into the IT Labs at the Southern Institute of Technology, they have over 300 computers there powered up all day and all night churning up power. If SIT had a brain they would power down all the computers at about 10pm each night. The saving on that alone would provide power to about 100 houses, where it is really needed. Why should some of us suffer for their stupidity? I agree with the streetsign displays as well. The stupid stores can give up their power hungry signs for a while. Who really pays attention to them anyway? When your driving by a sign, do you stop and think 'oooh I might go there cos of the nice flashing colourful sign'. No. The sign barely registers in your brain, unless you are specifically wanting to go to that shop. Do we really need street lights on? Isn't that what car lights are for?? We can drive fine without them especially if you live out of town and there are none. Why not have just every second street light powered up? Cheers :p	PoWa (203)
139933	2003-05-03 23:46:00	> I thought I'd do my bit by getting a hot water cylinder wrap . > Now I'll have to go and buy a heater to keep the airing cupboard warm :D I am in two minds about having one of those cylinder wraps . During winter down here the washing usually comes in a bit damp and if I were not able to "finish it off" in the nice warm cylinder cupboard I would have to put them in the dryer and that sucks power like nobody's business . Our hot water cylinder is on night rate and is only running from 11pm to 7am anyway so I can't see how I can save power by having a wrap and using the dryer to finish off the clothes . On the other side of the coin maybe the water would stay hotter in the cyclinder until I have had my shower instead of it sometimes going cold on me since I am usually the last one in . Hmmm . . . . save power - (have a HOT) shower with a friend! :p :D	Susan B (19)
139934	2003-05-04 00:40:00	You can't go past a clothes horse, or one of those pull up to the ceiling drying thingees. Cylinder wraps will be a fat lot of use when they turn the hotwater off for 18hours each day	Baldy (26)
139935	2003-05-04 01:05:00	Susan and Baldy, Ive wrestled with this problem for over 40 years trying to decide what was best . When we had central heating in UK, then the hot water tank was just another radiator and part of the house heating system as far as I was concerned . Electically heated tanks were different too, they all had 5KW heaters not the ridiculously miserable 1KW we found when we came here, at least it's a 2 KW unit now . So with 5KW the water temperature would recover very quickly . The thermostat was also mounted from the top and reached down the tank, it was user adjustable, not like (again stupid) behind a cover mixed up with the heating element and only supposed to be adjusted by an electrician . At our last house I compromised by having the lagging open at the top to keep the cupboard warm . On balance by well insulating the tank, the water will keep warmer when the power goes off and less power will be used overall . If a separate heater is put into the airing cupboard then you have full control over the cupboard heating and it can be switched off during warm weather . Dont buy a cupboard heater, use a towel rail, these cost less than half the price of a cupboard heater . I put 2 in a wardrobe that tends to get damp and mouldy in winter, a total of just 80 watts, and it is now always dry and warm feeling . I have sets of 2x 25 watt bulbs in series under certain chests of draws and a dressing table in our bedroom that also gets a bit cold and mildewy with a south wall and a small drainage creek next to it, ( about 1 meter away), That provides just the right amount of heat at very little power consumption to keep the drawers mildy warm and dry . Neither did we have ripple control in UK, when I discovered that here, I thought it smacked of a communist state :)	Terry Porritt (14)
139936	2003-05-07 08:55:00	Auckland is not interested in saving power, On the way home from work about 6.00pm , there was office after office that had the office lights on, but nobody at home, Auckland needs "power police" to save power. Either that or "screen saver" type light switches, when someone goes out of the room, the lights automatically go out, With the motion-heat senser part of it been switched over to use in the bugler alarm over night.	E.ric (351)
139937	2003-05-07 10:49:00	Yes , shame on you Orklanders . You only saved 2% [according to 3News tonight] whereas, Otago/Southlanders saved almost 5% I thought Orkland was supposed to be a hot climate compared to down here . Baldy:-) p/s: There is a rumour that Aucklanders are scared of the dark ;-)	Baldy (26)
139938	2003-05-07 11:04:00	> Neither did we have ripple control in UK, when I > discovered that here, I thought it smacked of a > communist state :) Terry, you often do not have to have ripple control. Most Retailers have tariffs that are not ripple controlled, but the price is not attractive. For every kW of peak load Transpower (who run the national grid) charge about $85 per year. Typical waterheater elements are 3 kW, so uncontrolled you would be costing the Retailer $255 per year, without the cost of the energy or the remaining delivery charges. Ripple control keeps a lid on these costs and NZ is lucky to have most Networks equipped with it. Networks would also need to spend millions just to cope with the uncontrolled peak, by installing larger cables, and guess who would be paying. Unless they turn off waterheaters for more that 12 hours per day, little is saved, as it simply pushes the consumption into other parts of the day. The savings figure is flawed as well, as its hard to compare given the highly variable weather patterns NZ have, where temperature and light variations exist within the same areas.	godfather (25)
139939	2003-05-07 11:08:00	That rumour is completely false (with perhaps the exception of my sister, who uses a torch to climb up the ladder into her loft bed... don't ask me why, I mean, I could do it in the dark). And I see Sky City is doing it's "little" bit: only lighting up the top half of Sky Tower. Now, I ask myself, WTF DON'T THEY JUST TURN ALL LIGHTING OFF AND ONLY USE THE FLASHING RED LIGHTS, THEY'RE JUST AS EFFECTIVE! And now my opinion: For a hell of a long time, my family has used less power than most people we know. We don't turn on lights unless they're needed, rarely watch TV (well, used to rarely watch it, now it's more like "tape it and watch it later", so we still watch it). I turn my monitor off all the time when I go away from my computer (after locking the comp, of course, so prying fingers can't change anything). Don't use hibernate, as it wastes 256MB of space on my C:. Don't use excessive amounts of power. Now, why the hell doesn't NZ harness the sea and use those "floating duck" devices that make power from the waves? I know! We're going to bring in a big ship to the Ports of Auckland and use it's generator to supply power, just like when we had that big fault in the power lines (mainly affecting the CBD) a few years back. Now, let's analyse my school: lights (yes, fluorescent, but they still use power) are used uneccessarily. And we librarians have lately taken to flicking the lights on and off (admittedly, only while the staff weren't there...). And during lunchtime... THE WHOLE COMPUTER SUITE IS LEFT RUNNING, MONITORS AND ALL. I ask you, which crazy Minister was sitting on the toilet when they decided not to act on analysis of our weather/power situation? I suppose Nando's been handing around his big joint or something. If you ask me, I still think we should turn off the NIWA supercomputer. I wouldn't mind less accurate weather forecasts. And the steel mill, that apparently uses ~20MW of power every time it's run. In any case, we already know what winters' going to be like: rather warmer than usual, with the normal amount of rain. Oh fun, we've turned into a tropical monsoon country, I see. Hot and humid. Sweaty. Buses that are packed full of angry passengers and even angrier drivers. Oh, the smell...	agent (30)
139940	2003-05-07 11:20:00	And while we're at it... It should be compulsory to have windfarms on top of every large enough roof in Wellington. Now that's power for you.	agent (30)
139941	2003-05-07 11:39:00	we use one heater - he studies. no one else uses heater. one laptop on a few hrs a day. no desktop PC left on. no cordless fone. tv on like 2hr max a day, news and such for another hr. lounge no heater. generally 3 room wif lights on most. what ya think about this. intead of punishing each person. we should figure out what amount is a resonable power usages per person in kW value. for those who cannot measure up to it will have x amount of hrs or mins no power each day - not defined at sleeping times. people should be responsible and accept liability than accepting other people to do their savings for them. being a north islander myself i believe people in the S and N Island should not be paying more for power. it should be the same. this means everyone can live with a reasonable level power than using the 10% figure. which some people are heavy h users and some are low l users like the elderly, poor, students. exceptions businesses, people who contact officials and have evidence for such like business, health, elderly etc.. Nomad.	nomad (3693)
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