[Noisebridge-discuss] PG&E Bill

[Rachel McConnell]

Jim, do you have any sense as to the power efficiency or lack thereof of
the current fluorescent ballasts?  It seems worth at least doing some
math to figure out if replacing some or all of them would be worth the
cost.  The math should of course include the significant additional time
required.  I can do a first pass at this math if you can help me with
starting points for the current ballasts.

Rachel

jim wrote:
>    probably good to start a lighting thread. 
> 
>    one conceptually easy fix is to separate the 
> existing flourescent lights and switch each on or off 
> separately. 
> 
>    we've estimated something like 1.5 Amps for each 
> eight-foot fixture. also, it's possible that fixtures 
> without bulbs are leaking some power. 
>    i'm for LEDs but suspicious of the current crop of 
> socket-ready lamps, mainly wrt mechanical aspects. 
>    CFLs are probably more efficient, but we have only 
> a few fixtures that'll take them. 
>    note that there area bulb sockets in the ceiling 
> that are likely switched--we'll have to do the PITA 
> hunt to figure the wiring out. 
> 
>    maybe we can come up with a mix of LEDs for 
> low-level general lighting and flourescents to 
> illuminate particuar working areas. 
> 
>    as to other power aspects, the cold season is upon 
> us, and it looks like "the kitchen" is coming 
> together: both suggest greater power bills. 
>    what's the possibility of using propane or similar 
> room heaters? and what's the possibility of 
> controlling the kinds of cooking and refrigeration 
> appliances we add? also, we should be aware of the 
> efficiencies of ventilation systems ("fart fans" in 
> the toilet rooms, darkroom vent fan, others). 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Sun, 2009-12-06 at 15:46 -0800, Jeffrey Malone wrote:
>> Rather than starting a new thread, I'll just revive this one.
>>
>> We have received our new PG&E bill for the period of 11/4-12/4.
>>
>> The bill may be viewed here:
>> http://tehinterweb.com/PGE/PGE120609.pdf
>>
>> To summarise,  the bill is for $353.73, a drop of about $115 from the
>> previous bill.
>>  We used 2214Kwh over the period, at 71.4 per day, as compared to the
>> 73.6 we used for the previous billing cycle.
>>
>> The reason for the drop is due to a power rate drop. If you compare
>> the bills, you'll see the cost per Kwh in the last billing cycle was
>> approx $0.187880254, whereas for the most recent, it was approx
>> $0.131825327 -- about 1/3rd less.
>>
>>
>> I would still encourage us to look into what we can do to help reduce
>> power usage.  The lighting, I believe, is still the largest drain and
>> one of the most unnecessary ones.
>> The amount we're using is about $11.41/day or $0.48/hour, which seems
>> small, but if we were to cut out half our current lighting, we'd
>> likely cut our power usage by as much as a third.
>>
>> Anyone have any ideas on lighting?
>>
>> Jeffrey
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Nov 5, 2009 at 12:49 AM, Jeffrey Malone
>> <ieatlint at tehinterweb.com> wrote:
>>> At some point I'll have a better method of posting these, but right
>>> now I'll just throw this out there since I'm sure people are curious:
>>>
>>> http://tehinterweb.com/PGE110509.pdf
>>>
>>> In short, it's $468.44 and we used 2136Kwh (that's 73.6Kwh per day and
>>> 3Kw per hour!).
>>>
>>>
>>> Anyway, read it if you're curious, bitch if you think we're using too
>>> much, whatever.
>>>
>>> Jeffrey
>>>
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