Elektromizer

Cold Weather

2009-10-29T05:47:40Z

Since I run many computers in one of our offices, I'm always glad when winter comes around. It means cold weather, and no more air conditioning costs!

I hope to see a $50 to $75 reduction in my monthly electricity bill.

Its too bad computers make so much heat. Cooling them can get expensive! If computers get too hot, they fail, so I monitor the temperature of the machines I manage every four hours.

Energy Kinetics Heat Exchanger

2009-10-20T15:23:37Z

This is a picture of a heat exchanger that my step-father installed at his house:

“Energy Kinetics Heat Exchanger Model 14U”

Rolling Brownouts

2009-09-01T20:44:53Z

Strange, but this past Sunday there were rolling brownouts here in Bethesda, MD.

Electronic Device Charging Station

2009-08-11T22:37:47Z

This is a great idea by IKEA for a very annoying problem!

As we use more and more hand held electronic devices, the chargers needed to charge all these devices multiple like rabbits.

Why isn't there a standard for AC/DC adapters? Who knows, but I bet its due to a very annoying reason.

Anyway, this little device helps make the situation less annoying:

Massachusetts Energy Sales Tax Exemption: Form ST-13

2009-06-25T14:01:46Z

To qualify for the small business energy sales tax exemption in Massachusetts, my business must file form ST-13 every year.

Usually its not a big deal, National Grid even sends out the form now that I've filed it once on my own.

This year has been a pain though. The first form that they send out was the wrong one. I didn't know that so of course I filled it out and mailed it in. Then the sent out the right one and I forgot to include the number of employees. They sent it back, I put "3" in the box, and sent it back.

Wouldn't it be easier and more energy efficient to do this online?

What did this machine do?

2009-06-10T01:39:48Z

I love the way electrical stuff looks. So when I found this machine in the garbage at Tufts (yes, while I was attending there), I had to take it home with me.

I didn't even bother trying to get it to work because I had absolutely no idea what it was or what it did. I just took it apart and took pictures of it! Too bad the digital camera I was using was one of the first generation consumer models and didn't have a very high resolution.

The question remains: what did this machine do?

Blackout! in Stoughton, MA

2009-05-25T02:59:42Z

A power outage has been reported in your area, as of Sunday, 05/24/2009 at 4:13 PM.

Outage Details:

Our records indicate an outage began on Sunday, 05/24/2009 at 3:04 PM in your area.
Restoration Estimate: Sunday, 05/24/2009 at 4:15 PM
Estimated Customers Affected: 249

Paying National Grid Bills with a Credit Card

2009-05-22T03:08:42Z

I'm trying to find out if its possible to pay my small business electricity bill with a credit card.

Unfortunately, the website only seems to let residential customers pay by credit card, and even then there is a four dollar fee for doing so.

Doh!

At least their online system has improved quite a bit.

Kill-O-Watt for $16

2009-04-30T15:53:15Z

The Kill-O-Watt meter makes it super easy to measure how much electricity consumer electronics use. These devices usually cost around $20, but this one is available for $16.

Photograph: Telephone Pole with Streetlight and Transformer

2009-04-22T02:03:02Z

Nothing much to say about this, other than I thought it looked cool and decided to take a picture of it. Since it has to do with electricity I decided to share it here.

Infrastructure Hackers

2009-04-09T10:18:18Z

I read in the news headlines yesterday that recent investigations have revealed that malicious hackers have infiltrated the United States energy grid control systems with the apparent intent of disrupting our national infrastructure. For some reason, this news does not seem to have attracted that much attention, but to me it spells serious trouble.

When the power goes out, business and our livelihood grinds to a halt. Doesn't anyone realize this? If hackers put out the lights, how quickly could we put them back on?

This is yet another good reason for local power generation as opposed to the grid. Add the fact that local power cannot be easily disrupted on a massive scale to the list of benefits of local power: higher efficiency (no transportation loss), lower cost, and more environmentally friendly.

Lastly, are these hackers targeting other areas of our infrastructure, like communications and transportation? I hope for goodness sake that the air traffic control system has not been compromised!

Server Power

2009-04-08T00:31:34Z

My small business offers customized hosting services, and what makes our service offering so special is that we manage everything about our services - we don't outsource our core competency.

Therefore, we directly pay for the electricity our servers consume. To me, it is an interesting part of our business. At this point in time, its not a gigantic part of our expenses, but it is substantial, so I do my best to try and reduce the consumption as much as possible.

Speaking of which, I'm planning to shut down another development server to try and reduce the power consumption even more!

Huge Electricity Bill

2009-02-20T04:36:19Z

I almost fainted when I read my electricity bill this week. It was almost $900! Last month it was around $150. When I wrote about my electricity bill last month, I made special note about the "estimated" part of the reading.

The meters for my office and those around me are in the basement of our building, and for whatever reason, they are inaccessible from time to time. In those cases, the electric company simply estimates the usage.

Only problem is that they estimated my usage for the past four months, and apparently my usage over the past four months was a heck of a lot more than the previous four, so their estimates were way low.

The icing on the cake for all this is that I found out too late - the auto-payment went through today and debited more than I had in my checking account, so I'll be getting an insufficient funds fee from my bank as well. Doh!

Estimated Meter Readings

2009-01-28T17:03:12Z

I finally got a chance to look at my electricity bill from last month, where is shot up to $160, and noticed that the amount of energy my company supposedly used was exactly the same as a year before for the same month! What are the chances of that?

Then I noticed that next to the meter reading values is the word "estimated". Huh? How does that work?

I'm going to have to give them a call and see what this is all about.

Power Failure

2009-01-23T22:08:14Z

My pfSense box has had a power failure. It's a bummer I haven't been able to connect to my work networks since it happened which has slowed my work on xsl.

The specs on the Power Source are as follows:

Netgear Switching Adapter
P/N: 332-10006-01
MODEL: DSA-12R-12 AUS 120120
INPUT: 100-120VAC 50/60Hz 0.3A
OUTPUT: +12V ---- 1A