Home Energy Analysis

A couple of posts ago, I bemoaned an apparent lack of interest from Australia in the Solar Decathalon, a competition challenging home builders. Australia does have the World Solar Challenge which requires cars to travel 3000 kilometres North-South across Australia powered entirely by the sun. There have been nine races since the first in 1987. Average speed then was 67 km/h but this year’s winner averaged 91 km/h and was restricted by road and other rules from achieving a higher speed.

Each year the rules become tougher as technology improves. For instance solar collector area was 25% less in 2007 than in 2005 and drivers were required to sit upright lessening the aerodynamic efficiency of a prone driver. Teams are mainly from universities. For the fourth consecutive year, a team from the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) produced the winning car.

We won’t ever be seeing any of these mobile laboratories disguised as cars  in car showrooms for sale, but high end technologies have a way of percolating down. (Can you imagine the 2012 Formula 1 series requiring cars to be electric and fuel cell powered?)  The team members involved will be taking their knowledge and enthusiasm into diverse industries.

Yesterday I went to work a little early, and because it was the first Monday in November traffic was light. (For those who don’t know, the Melbourne Cup is run on the first Tuesday in November, and it is a public holiday. Many workers give themselves a four day weekend by taking Monday on Annual Leave. Hence, little traffic.) In the couple of months since I have been driving our “new” car to work, I’ve played a game of minimising fuel consumption, keeping score by watching the car’s computer. Yesterday was a record.

This made me think of the role that analysis of performance plays in my life. One area is that each year I run the Melbourne Marathon, and every year I recognise that training must commence immediately if I want to run an acceptable time. When I start training, distances are short, times are slow. Nothing is written down. When fitness increases, I start recording training in a diary - now Excel but originally a paper diary. The fitter I get, the more detail and analysis goes into the spreadsheet which becomes a motivator - “I can’t miss training today, because the 7 day rolling average would drop.” A couple of years ago, my training was so bad that no diary survives. In a slightly different class, Robert de Castella went over 1000 days in a row where he ran at least twice.

I assume the Weight Watchers organisation uses the weekly weighings for a similar reason. Those participants who succeed will do so at least in part because of seeing the achievement of weekly successes, each of which will be small, but the cumulative effect can be the desired weight reduction.

Here comes the commercial. The Home Energy Analysis System can operate in the same way by enabling monitoring of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The graphs available will soon show changes by day, week or month. Stick them on the refrigerator so that the whole family can see what is happening.

The 2007 Solar Decathalon was recently held in Washington D.C.: twenty teams from colleges and universities designed and constructed solar powered houses. Groups from all over the world applied, and 20 were selected to submit their houses with the help of $100,000 from the Department of Energy. The selected teams were mainly from the US, but there were two teams from Europe, and one each from Canada and Puerto Rico.

The houses were to be completely independent from the power grid, to the extent that one of the requirements was to use energy generated from the home to power commercially available cars. Photovoltaic cells were used to generate power, although one house also had three windgenerators. All had solar driven water and space heating systems.

There were ten contests from which the teams could gain points. “Architecture” provided most points and livability contests of various kinds featured highly. Engineering was just one of the contests so that the houses are more than a technical solution to the problem. It is true, however, that many of these homes would stand out in Melbourne streets and might have some difficulty gaining planning approval. 

Visitors were able to view the homes during the competition period and apparently interest was high with long queues.

The winning entry was from Technische Universität Darmstadt Germany. Bosch appliances were used extensively. Sponsorship in kind and money was important to all entrants as $100,000 represents a small part of the cost of development and construction, typically over two years. Photos indicate that the German team had more than 30 student and faculty members which I assume is typical of team size.

 The next contest is in 2009 and I hope that some Australian institutions are quietly preparing their entries. I will donate a copy of the Home Energy Analysis System!