Anyone moved to LED Lighting?

Given the low (relative) cost for coal, utilities will take other plants off-line first. However, given that demand has already increased (big flat screens) more than a 100% CFL/LED conversion would save, they won't take any offline and will continue to build new coal-fired plants. Regulation or a carbon tax (or if the projected glut of shale gas comes to pass) might change that but switching to CFL/LED lighting will not.

Power Factor affects total generating capacity. Low PF means the projected reductions from CFL/LED switches are partly imaginary.

Nibbling won't save many polar bears, Maldivians or Bangladeshis.

In all these arguments we have to consider the electrical grid system is constantly growing. Meanwhile people are excited about plugging their cars in overnight (and having to increase their electrical service to 400A, as a result). System capacity reductions will never happen.

Nibbling does save some but it is not apparent due to massive system growth and reasons you stated, also. CFLs are not the answer. Too many nays in the early stages tell us that. ESL makes some promises.

Agreed: Generators have to supply the VA capacity of the system and this still takes conductor (I won't say copper) and generating capacity to handle it.

Nibbling won't save many polar bears, Maldivians or Bangladeshis.

Thanx for that. Some interesting information there.

BTW: You know that GE dropped their hi-eff. incandescent development about a year ago?

"Josepi" wrote: Will do. Thanx

Yes, I saw that. They said they were going to concentrate on LEDs but they are (were?) also looking at incandescents with internal coatings that reflect IR.

The new promise is ESL lamps, now.

Yes, I saw that. They said they were going to concentrate on LEDs but they are (were?) also looking at incandescents with internal coatings that reflect IR.

Yes - I've posted about them in comp.home.automation a couple of times in the past few months. They seem to fit a niche (canned spots) rather than be general purpose.

Maybe we should genetically engineer future generations to glow in the dark. It's already been done with lab animals.

New travelling nightlight! Glows in the dark.

All you need is to train it to come on command and $49.95 per lamp.

Our operators are standing by!

S&H (4 easy payments of $99.99) not included.

Maybe we should genetically engineer future generations to glow in the dark. It's already been done with lab animals.

New travelling nightlight! Glows in the dark.

All you need is to train it to come on command and $49.95 per lamp.

Our operators are standing by!

S&H (4 easy payments of $99.99) not included.

Maybe we should genetically engineer future generations to glow in the dark. It's already been done with lab animals.

snipped-for-privacy@whocares.com (Dave Houston) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@nntp.fuse.net:

No genetic engineering necessary. Fireflies do it when aroused. So it's just a question of ...

If we get that 2% reduction in total electricity consumption, they will at least build fewer new coal-fired plants.

But not so much for fuel consumption. Reactive component of load does not translate to turque required to turn the generator. in torque load, not net torque.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

No item of energy consumption accounts for anywhere close to a majority. The only way to make total energy consumption a lot smaller is to slash energy consumption of a large number of items that are all minorities of total energy consumption.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

I would guess because they are still about 35-40% as efficient as CFLs and they think their CFLs are doing OK enough or will soon.

Meanwhile, Philips has some of these on the market already.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

I don't remember hearing about it in sci.engr.lighting.

I Google for it, and it does notsound too promising:

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Perhaps you need to use a better Usenet reader, period. You seem to have problems reading formats that don't tickle your fancy (top posting) and now your reader won't separate things for you properly either.

Your lines seem to be truncated quite short also. Perhaps check your settings. That's very annoying.

Some people seem to be pretty particular, for technical people.

On Sat, 26 Dec 2009 05:38:02 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@manx.misty.com (Don Klipstein) wrote: Dog-gone it, my Unix shell account's news software (or the composer that it invokes) does not recognize the dash-dash-space sig-separator as beginning of quoted material to exclude. Since I normally only use one line for signature, no wonder I failed to get into the habit of dash-dash-space.

Maybe I need to try more modern news software such as Thunderbird?

Given the number of lighting patents held by Mr. Elliot, this tastes like very sour grapes.

I don't believe I've ever encountered this claim before but it's been about

Power delivered to the load is the main required energy input to the generator.

However, losses in the delivery equipment and the generation equipment is due to the current or VA required to deliver power to the load. eg. Heating in the windings of the generator is due to the current passing through the windings and is not related to the usage (watts) the load makes from the source.

I'm still not clear on this. 50 years ago when the USAF taught me electronics there was only a brief discussion of reactive power where current is stored and then released out-of-phase. That was fairly straightforward. I don't recall any mention of THD (at least in relation to power lines) so I don't have a good grasp of the issues with SMPS. And, it's not clear to me whether PF as it relates to CFL/LED incorporates THD.

You and Don (and Cummins) seem to be saying that low PF adds to the generator load but the increased load is not linearly proportional to PF. How is this calculated?

The generator has to produce all the power consumed by the load, where it is desired and the delivery system and generator.

Lets say you have a 120watt bulb at unity pf it would consume 1ampere x

If we have a 120watt bulb with a poor PF, say 50% PF (for easy figurin') we now have 2amperes x 120volts x cos60< (pf=50%) = 120watts.

The generator has to produce the bulb load (120watts) and the losses in the generator and syetm at 2 amperes. This amounts to double the losses in the conductors, transformers, generators, tap changers and all delivery equipment. With twice the current , twice the heat is generated in laminations and coils.

This is all losses to the energy source being converted by the generator. Not twice the total load but twice the twice the delivery and generating system losses. This can vary from a few percentage points to over 100% of the end load value in long systems.

Harmonics generated in lighting gets really weird and plays havoc with average sensing voltage control systems and many systems with neutral reactors. These reactors are a few ohms at 60Hz and increase with harmonics. On faults they stop the system from severe damage due to electrcal explosions in the tens of thousands of amperes and give time for the protection to take out a circuit more safely. On unbalanced loads or thrid harmoinics all the phase line up and make three times the third harmonic current in the neutral.. This becomes a big problem for distribution systems and your motor love it. They burn out.

You and Don (and Cummins) seem to be saying that low PF adds to the generator load but the increased load is not linearly proportional to PF. How is this calculated?

"Josepi" wrote: