Electric Vehicle Chargers / EV Service Equipment EVSE

Electric vehicles (EV’s) — along with the subset of this class known as plug-in hybrids — are a fast-growing part of the automobile market for both personal and commercial and fleet vehicle applications. Robert Monk Electric is on the cutting edge for installers ready to provide the support equipment (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment, or EVSE) for these vehicles.

Voltec 20A 240V (3.6kW) EVSE EV charger has a compact form factor and elegant cord management situation adaptable to many stretch length applications with minimum slack

Whether you need a NEMA 14-50 dryer type receptacle for your portable or semi-permanently wall-hung EVSE device, or a hard-wired 9kW high-speed vehicle charger with grid-interactive network configuration, we can deliver your order. Robert Monk Electric is both an independent installer of EVSE setups, and a certified independent service contractor for Bosch Automotive Service Solutions, having received special training and extensive vetting for insurance and other qualifications by the Bosch EVSE services division.

See also:

• Electric Vehicle buys you reserved street parking in Philadelphia 

From a distance, the Voltec EVSE charger appears similar to a spiral garden hose reel.

Mobile office and green events HQ?

Links to resources:

• Big Green Bus touring project by students at Dartmouth
• GreenIsHappening

LED’s for Muni Services Bldg: Letter to Mayor’s Office of Sustainability

To Whom It May Concern:

As a sustainability-oriented electrician certified as a solar PV installation professional by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners (http://www.nabcep.org/), I am always alert to energy-saving opportunities in the buildings I visit. I am happy to report that the basement level counter service areas of the City’s Municipal Services Building, located just across from City Hall at 15th & JFK Boulevard, can save about $2,500 per year in electricity consumption — plus about 4/5 off on lamp replacement labor costs, and a continuous 8kW of cooling load, by swapping about 160 inefficient PAR type filament lamps for new LED types.

(Note that these filament PAR lamps will become increasingly difficult to source, following the January 1, 2013 cessation of production and distribution in the United States. Implementing a proactive replacement plan now will realize the maximum energy cost-savings while ensuring uniform lighting from identical lamp types, throughout the affected areas.)

The investment cost would be about $3200, so the payback is less than two years on this conservation retrofit — and this is before subsidies for lighting efficiency rebates available through PECO.

Although the numbers may be small in the scheme of a very large municipal energy bill, please consider the public information potential of this type of investment in the public face of the City’s municipal services. Also, you may have substantial additional opportunities in the building that could multiply the savings from a retrofit project by 10- or 100-fold.

- Robert Monk

Robert Monk Electric

Philadelphia Lic. # 35849

Pennsylvania HIC Lic. # PA060608

See also:

• 2013 post-phase-out Lamp Replacement Guide
• Advantages of LEDs and other high-efficiency lamps

Heroes helping struggling homeowners – Low-cost loans for energy savings (2) – Money Magazine

Heroes helping struggling homeowners – Low-cost loans for energy savings (2) – Money Magazine.

Corbett’s tax breaks all about gas, excluding renewable energy

…

Ah yes, the ole’ “we don’t play favorites” argument. That must explain why the Corbett administration offered Royal Dutch Shell $1.65 billion in tax breaks to locate an ethane cracker plant in Monaca, Pennsylvania. Does the word “hypocrisy” come to mind?  Because, you know, we don’t play favorites.

The fact is that Corbett has gone “all in” with natural gas, betting that focusing every state policy on developing that single industry – from superseding traditional local control over planning to balancing the state’s budget on the back of childhood education instead of a reasonable shale gas tax - will raise the tide for all. 

…

PennFuture Facts: Corbett’s tax breaks are all about natural gas, to the exclusion of renewable energy.

Cyclecide » Rides

More bike-powered people movers — purely for fun

Cyclecide » Rides.

For work:

From Wikipedia: flywheel energy storage traits:

A 600 kg, 50 cm diameter flywheel spinning at 30,000 RPM will store about 26 kWh of energy. I believe the shape factor, k, of 0.5 refers to an ideal disk with mass distributed evenly. With mass distributed at the rim, as in a ferris wheel or merry-go-round, the shape factor of a crude structure might be more like .8 or .9.

Multiplying for weight of 6 people at 60 kg = 3600 / 600 kg = 6x the energy of the Wikipedia sample.

Multiplying for diameter of 6 m vs. 0.5 m = 6/.5 = 12x the energy of the Wikepedia example.

Multiplying for RPM difference (1 turn every 4 seconds) = 0.25/sec. * 60 sec/min / 30,000 RPM = .0005 x the energy of the Wikepedia example.

Multiplying for 26 kWh x .0005 = .013 kWh (13 Watts for one hour).

Saying we’ll use half that available energy rather than let the ride spin down to zero RPM, and that we need a buffer of only 30 seconds instead of a full hour, we can have much more power for a much shorter amount of time:

.013 kWh * 1/2 * 60 min/hour x 60 sec/min * 30/60 seconds = 11.7 kW for 30 seconds stored in the flywheel

CONSIDERATIONS and CONCERNS

Energy stored in the weight of the structure besides the people riding (energy not considered above) may roughly offset energy losses in bearing friction, gears, and in the AC dynamo.

Concern: in that 30s of 11.7 kW energy, representing a slowing of revolutions per second from the maximum of 1 rev per 4 seconds,  to 1/2s, is the RPM still enough to be useful for driving the AC dynamo?

Bicycle-Powered Ferris Wheel Test Run |

Another pedal-powered ferris wheel with internal drive per carriage.

Bicycle-Powered Ferris Wheel Test Run |.

Pedal Powered Ferris Wheel – YouTube

The stable angular momentum of this bike-powered ferris wheel could become the power supply for an AC dynamo.

Pedal Powered Ferris Wheel – YouTube.

Gear up for a cooler summer: save money and reduce your carbon footprint

Hot weather is around the corner, and you can make your home more comfortable while saving money through long-term energy conservation savings.

First Step to Comfort and Energy Savings: Conservation Measures

A careful ceiling-fan installation avoids bent blade brackets (a source of wobble) and ensures that the electrical enclosure/mechanical support box above the fan is rated and UL listed for fan support.

Energy conservation measures leading into summer can make for a much more comfortable, cheaper summer and put you in a position to half your winter heating bills. A typical payback for a few thousand dollars spent on building envelope sealing and insulating will be well within five years, for an effective return on investment better than an aggressive mutual fund, even in bull market years we’ve not seen for a while.

Several organizations stand ready to help:  Read on for weatherizing resources, info on ceiling fans, central air AC, mini-split systems and more

Bike-powered mobile AC/DC stage power system

DRAFT

Design Considerations and Resources

for

Mobile, Bike-powered Energy Systems

Tailored for

Outdoor Events and Live Performance

Understand the design requirements

Total System Power

Total system power requirements will largely be determined by the audio power amplifiers and, to a lesser extent (?), any tube amplifiers used in signal processing, such as pre-amps or sound effects.

For audio-only power supply systems, the primary power load will be the audio amplifiers, whose consumption may be estimated by applying an efficiency factor (based on the type or ‘class’ of amplifier) to the Total System Power rating of the amplifier(s). Wikipedia has a helpful article on amplifier power with a subsection on Total System Power:
Read on for resources and design considerations for mobile, off-grid power systems for events and performances

Learning from Sandy: is Philly prepared for natural disaster? / 2013-02-21

The Academy of Natural Sciences will host a panel discussion on how we can learn from 2012′s super storm Sandy in improving city planning, disaster preparedness planning, engineering, and policy.

The event takes place this Thursday, 6pm-8pm, February 21, 2013.

View details and register.

Mid-Atlantic Residents May Consider Backup Power Options in the Wake of Super-storm Sandy

Read about options for backup power, such as retrofitting a grid-only solar PV installation for battery backup power

PA DEP reboots its Sunshine Rebate Program for solar PV and hot water

Since 2008, Pennsylvania’s Sunshine Rebate Program has provided rebate money as a flat figure per unit of installed capacity, for residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (solar PV: at $0.75/Watt up to $7,500 for a 10kW system) and solar hot water (solar hydronic) systems.

Read more on PA Sunshine’s ‘reboot’ by DEP

Advantages of LED lamps and high-efficiency lamps

It’s not just about energy savings: CFL’s, LED’s and other SSL types offer aesthetic, labor-saving, and special-application advantages

Compact fluorescent,  and LED and other high-efficiency lamps in the emerging field of Solid State Lighting (SSL) promise dramatic advantages in energy use and control convenience in homes, businesses and industry. Although high-efficiency has been the primary focus in promotion of these lamps, all the new technologies also claim significantly longer lamp life, as well as a variety of other advantages not widely reported.

Read on about CFL and SSL advantages relating to lamp life, power factor, and reduced fading from UV

Lamp replacement guide, Energy Efficiency for 2013

Lamp replacement guide 2013

Way back in 2007, Congress enacted legislation called the EISA (Energy Independence Security Act), stating that “all light bulbs be 25 to 30 percent more efficient by 2012″. This is our lamp replacement guide to help you figure out how to make the change to more energy efficient light bulbs (and linear and circline fluorescent tubes).

As of 2012, all phased out light bulbs and other lamp types are required to be replaced by energy efficient light bulbs, at the U.S. manufacturing and distribution level. This doesn’t mean you necessarily need run out right now and buy new replacement bulbs, it just means that when an old bulb or fluorescent tube burns out, you might be hard-pressed to find an old incandescent type light bulb or older T12 type fluorescent tube.

Read more on how to adapt to a changing lamp and light bulb market

Phillips Hue 600 lumens 8.5W remote color-changing lamp sets

Phillips Hue 600

Phillips Hue 600 sets of three edison base remote-controlled color-changing LED bulbs provide up to 600 lumens each at only 8.5W, and may be controlled from your iPhone. At 600 per 8.5 W, lumens per watt is competitive with comparable simple dimmable 3000K single-color temperature lamps, and each lamp can be separately controlled from iOS devices via a 3W command center module that lives anywhere in the home.

So instead of your old “Clap-on” system you can have a sleek and cool way of operating your lights. Isn’t the future great!

See also:

• LIFX wifi-integral smart-phone controllable color changing dimmable lamp on kickstarter.com
• NY Times / David Pogue: New Reasons to Change Light Bulbs

Time to power up: PECO Wind ends Dec 2012

The PECO Wind program, which has allowed Philadelphia metropolitan area customers to select anywhere from 50% to 100% wind energy for their power source, will phase out January 2013.

On its website, PECO announces the termination of the program, and directs customers to the Pennsylvania Public Utilities Commission (PUC) website listing alternative energy suppliers for PA customers.

Since 2010, deregulation of the power supplier markets for Pennsylvania electricity consumers has resulted in many new alternative and renewable-energy suppliers offering a wide range of energy supply portfolios at competitive rates. Still, energy consumers have been conservative when it comes to switching suppliers, even in the face of major public outreach by consumer advocacy and environmental groups, aggressive marketing by alternative providers, and decisively lower rates from some. If conservative consumer habits left many on relatively expensive PECO wind power, PECO’s termination of the program will move them either onto the PECO default rate, or toward the better choice of an alternative provider that provides greener energy at the same price, or 100% renewable sources for only slightly more than the default rate PECO offers.

See also:

• PennFuture provides information on alternatives to PECO’s default rates

VCharge retrofit turns ETS heating from legacy to innovation

New England energy innovator VCharge is taking the bite out of ETS heating cost in the face of PPL’s phase-out of the discounted RTS heating rate (tariff). VCharge’s SmartBricks(TM) product for Electric Thermal Storage (ETS) heating customers in PPL distribution territory is an integrated controls and electric generation supplier (EGS) system that yields lower heating costs for ETS customers while providing grid supply/demand balancing services that save all electric customers money, and could help drive new investments in wind power capacity. Read more about SmartBricks(TM)

PECO Switch Providers: Choosing Green Electricity Alternatives

According to a recent Philadelphia Inquirer article, PECO will temporarily hike prices 21% starting Monday, October 1, 2012. This is a legally required quarterly adjustment to cover changes in bulk rates PECO is buying at, and especially in this instance, under-collection of ratepayer dues.

Whatever the reasons, the increase in the generation portion of electricity costs for PECO customers is yet another perfect motivation to switch to a new provider for generation of your electricity. Most alternative providers offer a lower rate than PECO’s default rate, and you still get the same solid, strictly-regulated distribution and billing network operated by PECO as the area’s default provider and transmission-line operator. Even providers offering premium green-portfolio energy tend to come in at prices lower than PECO.

Read on for full guide and links by PennFuture.org