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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials

AMAT 330.48

+2.4%

Feb 9 3:59 PM EST

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To: Gottfried who wrote (46990)	5/19/2001 6:57:00 AM
From: w0z	Read Replies (1) of 70976

Gottfried, *OT * energy "TOU sounds like a great idea and is cheap to implement if it only costs $50." $50 is not correct and I'm sorry if I misled you. Simple programmable timers cost ~$50 each and you need one for each high energy device to make sure it does not come on during the 4 hour peak rate periods. I used them on swimming pool pumps and hot water heaters (total 5 for $250). If you use a heat pump, you also need a "smart" programmable thermostat (~$150) for each heat pump. These can be set to program temperature by time of day and day of the week in accordance with TOU rates. They also have a mode which raises temperatures gradually thus preventing inefficient backup resistance heating from kicking in. I also put thermostats in the heat pumps to sense outside air temperature and prevent the backup resistance heating from coming on unless the temperature dropped below 20 degrees (the point where heat pumps become very inefficient). Total system cost was about $500 in materials and $200 installation. Payback was less than 2 months. At one point I even thought about starting a business to offer energy efficiency improvements to consumers. You could even offer to install the equipment for free in return for 50% of the resulting savings for people who could not afford the installation! I wonder if any of the CA utilities are offering any programs like this? Seems like there is a huge opportunity to reduce peak consumption just by installing some very simple devices but I suppose CA may be beyond the point where this could help their immediate problem. In effect they have implemented TOU by rotating blackouts! I've been following the technical discussion of AMAT and, if you're not already aware of them, you might want to subscribe to Larry Dudash's technical charts at geocities.com This discussion reminds me of Marty Zweig's old maxim "Don't fight the Fed and don't fight the tape." Good luck!

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