On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.

" wrote in
:

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:55:25 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:23:48 -0400, "
wrote:




Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are
tens of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a
situation, staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the
load across both a local, as well as a larger area. Since the
grid is already pushed pretty far into its capacity, this helps to
alleviate brownout conditions, which, from my understanding, is the
rationale behind their scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

I imagine they do that in blocks and each gets a ten minute segment.
Peak load is usually between about noon and 5 PM so it would be a
juggle during that period. Once factories go off line about 4 and
offices close at 5, no need to juggle.

So what? Every one of those ACs that went off-line will use that much
more power after coming back on line.

Of course, all any of us are doing is guessing. It would be
interesting to see the real method and results.

Ten minutes isn't going to do it. If they leave them off for hours,
perhaps. Then the delta-T is reduced, saving something.

We've been getting solicitations for this PSE&G program:
http://www.pseg.com/home/save/manage_costs/cool_customer.jsp
It sounds attractive to the customer and features 15 min off periods when
PSE&G experiences too high demand (as they define it).
I called them once or twice and they never responded. Then the question
was posed by the person in charge why should we trust them? That was the
end.

Is there anyone here with experience with the PSE&G program?

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

TDD

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

Jon

On Aug 15, 10:23*pm, "
wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken





wrote:
On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, wrote:

Absolutely right. *The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). *Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. *I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. *It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. *In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. * *Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. *Now what?- Hide quoted text -


That's what I'd like to know too. The only way this
reduces the load the utility sees is if they actually reduce
the cooling going into the home or business, by
repeatedly cycling them so that they run less than if
they were not being cycled. But they
typically claim that it has no effect, which I believe is
not true.

On Aug 16, 7:53*am, Han wrote:
" wrote :





On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:55:25 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:23:48 -0400, "
wrote:

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are
tens of thousands of units controlled centrally. *In such a
situation, staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the
load across both a local, as well as a larger area. * *Since the
grid is already pushed pretty far into its capacity, this helps to
alleviate brownout conditions, which, from my understanding, is the
rationale behind their scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. *Now what?

I imagine they do that in blocks and each gets a ten minute segment.
Peak load is usually between about noon and 5 PM so it would be a
juggle during that period. *Once factories go off line about 4 and
offices close at 5, no need to juggle.

So what? *Every one of those ACs that went off-line will use that much
more power after coming back on line.

Of course, all any of us are doing is guessing. *It would be
interesting to see the real method and results.

Ten minutes isn't going to do it. *If they leave them off for hours,
perhaps. Then the delta-T is reduced, saving something.

We've been getting solicitations for this PSE&G program:
http://www.pseg.com/home/save/manage_costs/cool_customer.jsp
It sounds attractive to the customer and features 15 min off periods when
PSE&G experiences too high demand (as they define it).
I called them once or twice and they never responded. *Then the question
was posed by the person in charge why should we trust them? *That was the
end.

Is there anyone here with experience with the PSE&G program?

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I have the JCPL unit. But since they rarely activate it
and I have no idea when they do it, there is no way to
know. I might not even be around.

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.

On Aug 16, 7:42*am, "
wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:55:25 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:23:48 -0400, "
wrote:

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. *In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. * *Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. *Now what?

I imagine they do that in blocks and each gets a ten minute segment.
Peak load is usually between about noon and 5 PM so it would be a
juggle during that period. *Once factories go off line about 4 and
offices close at 5, no need to juggle.

So what? *Every one of those ACs that went off-line will use that much more
power after coming back on line.

If you figure that most of the ACs are cycling randomly on
their own, then I don't see how the power company cycling
them is going to do anything to reduce the load, unless
they cycle them off enough that they can't run as much
as they would under thermostat only control. In that case
they do reduce the load and the temp in the building rises.
THAT is how I think it works. The rise is small enough
that most people don't notice it. But we had one report
here of someone that did have a problem with an upstairs
becoming too hot. And that seems possible and logical
to me.



Of course, all any of us are doing is guessing. *It would be
interesting to see the real method and results.

Ten minutes isn't going to do it. *If they leave them off for hours, perhaps.
Then the delta-T is reduced, saving something.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:53:11 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 16, 7:42*am, "
wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 05:55:25 -0400, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:23:48 -0400, "
wrote:

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. *In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. * *Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. *Now what?

I imagine they do that in blocks and each gets a ten minute segment.
Peak load is usually between about noon and 5 PM so it would be a
juggle during that period. *Once factories go off line about 4 and
offices close at 5, no need to juggle.

So what? *Every one of those ACs that went off-line will use that much more
power after coming back on line.

If you figure that most of the ACs are cycling randomly on
their own, then I don't see how the power company cycling
them is going to do anything to reduce the load, unless
they cycle them off enough that they can't run as much
as they would under thermostat only control. In that case
they do reduce the load and the temp in the building rises.
THAT is how I think it works. The rise is small enough
that most people don't notice it. But we had one report
here of someone that did have a problem with an upstairs
becoming too hot. And that seems possible and logical
to me.

That's sorta where I'm going with this. If the cycle time is shorter than the
normal off-time of the AC, there is no savings. If it's longer, the
temperature rises above the set point. On the hottest days, when one would
expect the cycling would become necessary, this time gets shorter. IOW, I
don't see this working, at least as advertised.

Of course, all any of us are doing is guessing. *It would be
interesting to see the real method and results.

Ten minutes isn't going to do it. *If they leave them off for hours, perhaps.
Then the delta-T is reduced, saving something.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:48:13 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

But if the temperature doesn't rise (above the set point) in that time, you
haven't gained a thing! All you've done is move the problem ten minutes.

On 8/16/2012 9:06 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:48:13 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

But if the temperature doesn't rise (above the set point) in that time, you
haven't gained a thing! All you've done is move the problem ten minutes.


that's the point. hopefully if you keep moving that problem 10 minutes
into the future, at some point, some heavy load is going to switch off
(factory, etc), and they won't have to buy spot electricity, which is
even higher than normal in cost.

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:47:29 -0700, chaniarts
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:06 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:48:13 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

But if the temperature doesn't rise (above the set point) in that time, you
haven't gained a thing! All you've done is move the problem ten minutes.


that's the point. hopefully if you keep moving that problem 10 minutes
into the future, at some point, some heavy load is going to switch off
(factory, etc), and they won't have to buy spot electricity, which is
even higher than normal in cost.

You can only move it ten minutes. You can't move it further because that AC
is now on. You've saved nothing. In 48 cycles (an 8-hour day), you've pushed
10 minutes worth of electricity for 1/48th of the ACs, after the (first shift)
load drops off. Whoopie!

On 8/16/2012 9:56 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:47:29 -0700, chaniarts
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:06 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:48:13 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

But if the temperature doesn't rise (above the set point) in that time, you
haven't gained a thing! All you've done is move the problem ten minutes.


that's the point. hopefully if you keep moving that problem 10 minutes
into the future, at some point, some heavy load is going to switch off
(factory, etc), and they won't have to buy spot electricity, which is
even higher than normal in cost.

You can only move it ten minutes. You can't move it further because that AC
is now on. You've saved nothing. In 48 cycles (an 8-hour day), you've pushed
10 minutes worth of electricity for 1/48th of the ACs, after the (first shift)
load drops off. Whoopie!


if you need XMW of power right now, and you only have (X-5%)MW
available, you have to buy more. if you turn off 5%, you don't have to
buy that 5% on the spot market.

the next 10 minutes, you still have X-5% available, and if your load is
not X-5 then, you still don't have to buy more. you turn on that 5% load
that you had turned off, and turn off a different 5%. if your load has
gone up, you turn off more than 5% to keep your load under what you can
generate. you keep doing this until your load matches your generation,
and then you have enough in your own generating facilities to not buy
spot electricity.

On Aug 16, 1:05*pm, chaniarts wrote:
On 8/16/2012 9:56 AM, wrote:





On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:47:29 -0700, chaniarts
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:06 AM, wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:48:13 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, wrote:

Absolutely right. *The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). *Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. *I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. *It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. *In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. * *Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. *Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. *Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

But if the temperature doesn't rise (above the set point) in that time, you
haven't gained a thing! *All you've done is move the problem ten minutes.

that's the point. hopefully if you keep moving that problem 10 minutes
into the future, at some point, some heavy load is going to switch off
(factory, etc), and they won't have to buy spot electricity, which is
even higher than normal in cost.

You can only move it ten minutes. *You can't move it further because that AC
is now on. *You've saved nothing. *In 48 cycles (an 8-hour day), you've pushed
10 minutes worth of electricity for 1/48th of the ACs, after the (first shift)
load drops off. *Whoopie!

if you need XMW of power right now, and you only have (X-5%)MW
available, you have to buy more. if you turn off 5%, you don't have to
buy that 5% on the spot market.

the next 10 minutes, you still have X-5% available, and if your load is
not X-5 then, you still don't have to buy more. you turn on that 5% load
that you had turned off, and turn off a different 5%.

I don't know how your AC works, but all the ones
I've had cycle on and off randomly. Therefore the
cooling load is what it is. You can't reduce it by
shifting the load out 10 mins. You have to DECREASE
that load for real, by not letting the AC run as much
as it would if it had power available constantly. And
that translates into the temp in the building going
up.

Let's say it's a very hot day. From 1PM to 5PM the
power company sees it needs to reduce demand
because either the system could go down or they
would have to buy more very expensive power.
All the ACs out there are either running constantly
or cycling on and off. If they are running constantly,
then obviously turning them off for 10 mins every so
often is going to reduce the load, but it will also reduce
the cooling.

If they are cycling on and off, then with all of them
together, it's already randomized. Nothing the
power company can do is going to reduce the load
without it also causing less cooling going into
the buildings.

Just look at it from an energy balance point.
If the power company can reduce it's power
output from 1PM to 5PM by 5% by screwing
with shifting in 10 min periods, how could all
the buildings be as cool as they would be
with no intervention? How did we supply
the same BTUs to all those customers
buildings with 5% less power? Why not just
do this miracle 24/7 and save everyone a
lot of money?





if your load has
gone up, you turn off more than 5% to keep your load under what you can
generate. you keep doing this until your load matches your generation,
and then you have enough in your own generating facilities to not buy
spot electricity.- Hide quoted text -



Sure, you can do that. But you can't do it without
less cooling at the buildings with those AC's being
turned off by the power company.

" wrote in
:

On Aug 16, 7:53*am, Han wrote:
snip

Is there anyone here with experience with the PSE&G program?
snip

I have the JCPL unit. But since they rarely activate it
and I have no idea when they do it, there is no way to
know. I might not even be around.

Could you tell me more about what you got? Just the switch they remotely
activate to shut off the AC? Or the whole fancy thermostat thing? Did
they give you the promised credits? Was the installation done
professionally?

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Aug 16, 4:13*pm, Han wrote:
" wrote :



On Aug 16, 7:53 am, Han wrote:
snip

Is there anyone here with experience with the PSE&G program?
snip

I have the JCPL unit. * But since they rarely activate it
and I have no idea when they do it, there is no way to
know. *I might not even be around.

Could you tell me more about what you got? *Just the switch they remotely
activate to shut off the AC? *Or the whole fancy thermostat thing? *Did
they give you the promised credits? *Was the installation done
professionally?

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

It was on the AC when I bought the house 20 years ago.
It's just a radio controlled switch that's mounted on the
AC compressor.
Orignally they paid a flat fee, think it was about $25 a year.
Recently they switched to paying I think $2 per activation.
And they rarely activate it, so I get even less money.
The only way I'd know is looking at bills. I guess there
are a couple lights on it and you could also notice that
the blower continues to run with the compressor stopped,
but I've never noticed that actually happen. But then
again, I'm not paying that much attention to it either.

" wrote in
:

On Aug 16, 4:13*pm, Han wrote:
" wrote
innews:4b777cdd-a78
:

On Aug 16, 7:53 am, Han wrote:
snip

Is there anyone here with experience with the PSE&G program?
snip

I have the JCPL unit. * But since they rarely activate it
and I have no idea when they do it, there is no way to
know. *I might not even be around.

Could you tell me more about what you got? *Just the switch they
remote
ly
activate to shut off the AC? *Or the whole fancy thermostat thing? *D
id
they give you the promised credits? *Was the installation done
professionally?

It was on the AC when I bought the house 20 years ago.
It's just a radio controlled switch that's mounted on the
AC compressor.
Orignally they paid a flat fee, think it was about $25 a year.
Recently they switched to paying I think $2 per activation.
And they rarely activate it, so I get even less money.
The only way I'd know is looking at bills. I guess there
are a couple lights on it and you could also notice that
the blower continues to run with the compressor stopped,
but I've never noticed that actually happen. But then
again, I'm not paying that much attention to it either.


Thanks!

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

TDD

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 10:05:42 -0700, chaniarts
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:56 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:47:29 -0700, chaniarts
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:06 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:48:13 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/15/2012 07:23 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:53:00 -0700, Jon Danniken
wrote:

On 08/08/2012 01:50 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

Shifting the draw by ten minutes will make an effect if there are tens
of thousands of units controlled centrally. In such a situation,
staggering compressor draw will serve to even out the load across both a
local, as well as a larger area. Since the grid is already pushed
pretty far into its capacity, this helps to alleviate brownout
conditions, which, from my understanding, is the rationale behind their
scheme.

Sure, you push the load back ten minutes. Now what?

Now you don't have every compressor trying to turn on at the same time,
and can count on a certain percentage of them not even running. Ten
minutes later that compressor comes back on and operates normally, and
the next block gets shut down for ten minutes, and so on and so forth.

This assumes that your house is insulated enough to withstand the 10
minutes without the A/C going, and that your unit is properly sized.
One would have to assume they take these factors into consideration in
order for a person to qualify for the program, as it wouldn't make sense
to extend the offer to a tin shack with an undersized unit.

But if the temperature doesn't rise (above the set point) in that time, you
haven't gained a thing! All you've done is move the problem ten minutes.


that's the point. hopefully if you keep moving that problem 10 minutes
into the future, at some point, some heavy load is going to switch off
(factory, etc), and they won't have to buy spot electricity, which is
even higher than normal in cost.

You can only move it ten minutes. You can't move it further because that AC
is now on. You've saved nothing. In 48 cycles (an 8-hour day), you've pushed
10 minutes worth of electricity for 1/48th of the ACs, after the (first shift)
load drops off. Whoopie!


if you need XMW of power right now, and you only have (X-5%)MW
available, you have to buy more. if you turn off 5%, you don't have to
buy that 5% on the spot market.

But it's nowhere near 5% of your load because your main load is industrial (or
it won't go offline after hours and you're screwed even worse). The entire
load is *not* AC.

the next 10 minutes, you still have X-5% available, and if your load is
not X-5 then, you still don't have to buy more. you turn on that 5% load
that you had turned off, and turn off a different 5%. if your load has
gone up, you turn off more than 5% to keep your load under what you can
generate. you keep doing this until your load matches your generation,
and then you have enough in your own generating facilities to not buy
spot electricity.

Absolutely wrong. See above.

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:51:58 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

DEC never made a "supercomputer".

Moons ago, we had a test floor with a bunch of Lieberts on it for cooling the
ATE equipment. Some joker laid out the raised floor with grates under the
desks where the operator's consoles were. For some reason the women had
problems with that idea.

Once, over the July 4 weekend, the floor was completely shut down. On Monday,
one of the managers came in to start the AC back up so it would be cool by
start of work Tuesday. Sometime later, the thermostat stuck. Since there was
no heat load (all the ATE systems were still powered down), it got *cold*.
Tuesday morning people noticed that it was *cold*, so the moron manager opened
all the doors to warm it up. Since it was humid (July, remember) water
started condensing everywhere. Water was running out of the ceiling tiles and
every piece of test equipment was wet, and visibly growing rust. Three of
these systems were worth $2.5M each, and another half-dozen were $1M each. Of
course rust wasn't covered in the service contracts (environmental control was
a requirement). Ice formed on the steel raised floor and people were falling
all over. Needless to say, it was a mess. We laughed our asses off. ;-)

The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

TDD

I worked at Apollo goldstone. The one piece of equipment I was working on
was a beast, with different kinds of circuits. That monster caused me a lot
of worries. It also made the operating room colder, because they
intensified the cooling to the whole building just to cool my gear. Also
really cold to crawl underfloor. Most all equipment was noisy back then. A
pdp 8/I had four 100 cfm fans. that was working at dec. When the NASA
station shut down the air handlers, it sure got quiet.

I pushed a button one day and the whole station shut down. 75 hp motor
shorted blowing the first, then the second breaker which was 4 miles away.
It's that, did I do something wrong feeling.

Greg

" wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.

I think some had freon actually running through the circuits with direct
contact. The problem is concentrated heat much like a hot CPU chip today.

Greg

On 8/16/2012 9:28 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:51:58 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

DEC never made a "supercomputer".

Moons ago, we had a test floor with a bunch of Lieberts on it for cooling the
ATE equipment. Some joker laid out the raised floor with grates under the
desks where the operator's consoles were. For some reason the women had
problems with that idea.

Once, over the July 4 weekend, the floor was completely shut down. On Monday,
one of the managers came in to start the AC back up so it would be cool by
start of work Tuesday. Sometime later, the thermostat stuck. Since there was
no heat load (all the ATE systems were still powered down), it got *cold*.
Tuesday morning people noticed that it was *cold*, so the moron manager opened
all the doors to warm it up. Since it was humid (July, remember) water
started condensing everywhere. Water was running out of the ceiling tiles and
every piece of test equipment was wet, and visibly growing rust. Three of
these systems were worth $2.5M each, and another half-dozen were $1M each. Of
course rust wasn't covered in the service contracts (environmental control was
a requirement). Ice formed on the steel raised floor and people were falling
all over. Needless to say, it was a mess. We laughed our asses off. ;-)


Perhaps you misunderstood me, the DEC gear was in the same room as the
Cray X-MP. I remember a separate cabinet that coupled the Cray's cooling
system with the building's chilled water system. I distinctly
remember seeing a 30lb jug of R-22 next to the cabinet. O_o

TDD

On 8/16/2012 10:02 PM, gregz wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

TDD

I worked at Apollo goldstone. The one piece of equipment I was working on
was a beast, with different kinds of circuits. That monster caused me a lot
of worries. It also made the operating room colder, because they
intensified the cooling to the whole building just to cool my gear. Also
really cold to crawl underfloor. Most all equipment was noisy back then. A
pdp 8/I had four 100 cfm fans. that was working at dec. When the NASA
station shut down the air handlers, it sure got quiet.

I pushed a button one day and the whole station shut down. 75 hp motor
shorted blowing the first, then the second breaker which was 4 miles away.
It's that, did I do something wrong feeling.

Greg


On one of the islands on the North end of the atoll, there was older
computer equipment at the deep space tracking radar and the backup
power supplies were motor/generator sets with big flywheels. If the
power plant went down, the big flywheels kept things on while a backup
generator could be started up. There was a lot of really cool old stuff
out there at the missile range. ^_^

TDD

On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:32:23 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:28 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:51:58 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

DEC never made a "supercomputer".

Moons ago, we had a test floor with a bunch of Lieberts on it for cooling the
ATE equipment. Some joker laid out the raised floor with grates under the
desks where the operator's consoles were. For some reason the women had
problems with that idea.

Once, over the July 4 weekend, the floor was completely shut down. On Monday,
one of the managers came in to start the AC back up so it would be cool by
start of work Tuesday. Sometime later, the thermostat stuck. Since there was
no heat load (all the ATE systems were still powered down), it got *cold*.
Tuesday morning people noticed that it was *cold*, so the moron manager opened
all the doors to warm it up. Since it was humid (July, remember) water
started condensing everywhere. Water was running out of the ceiling tiles and
every piece of test equipment was wet, and visibly growing rust. Three of
these systems were worth $2.5M each, and another half-dozen were $1M each. Of
course rust wasn't covered in the service contracts (environmental control was
a requirement). Ice formed on the steel raised floor and people were falling
all over. Needless to say, it was a mess. We laughed our asses off. ;-)


Perhaps you misunderstood me, the DEC gear was in the same room as the
Cray X-MP. I remember a separate cabinet that coupled the Cray's cooling
system with the building's chilled water system. I distinctly
remember seeing a 30lb jug of R-22 next to the cabinet. O_o

Yes, I misunderstood you incorrectly. Lieberts do use chilled water to cool
air, precisely because water has a fairly high specific heat (and it's cheap).
I don't remember if the X-MP uses boiling freon, or not, but the reason it's
used is because it's inert (and the boiling point can be engineered). In the
'70s, we used freon to cool chips. A 100-chip, about 4" x 4" module was
encapsulated in freon. On the back side was a water-freon heat exchanger. The
chips on a vertical surface inside the module, covered in freon. The freon
was set to boil at 85C, the optimum temperature for the circuits. Neat stuff,
until they "discovered" that boiling was the opposite of distilling. All the
bad stuff gets left behind (can you say, "black plague"?).

That idea was junked in favor of one that use helium. ;-)

On 8/16/2012 10:46 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:32:23 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:28 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:51:58 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

DEC never made a "supercomputer".

Moons ago, we had a test floor with a bunch of Lieberts on it for cooling the
ATE equipment. Some joker laid out the raised floor with grates under the
desks where the operator's consoles were. For some reason the women had
problems with that idea.

Once, over the July 4 weekend, the floor was completely shut down. On Monday,
one of the managers came in to start the AC back up so it would be cool by
start of work Tuesday. Sometime later, the thermostat stuck. Since there was
no heat load (all the ATE systems were still powered down), it got *cold*.
Tuesday morning people noticed that it was *cold*, so the moron manager opened
all the doors to warm it up. Since it was humid (July, remember) water
started condensing everywhere. Water was running out of the ceiling tiles and
every piece of test equipment was wet, and visibly growing rust. Three of
these systems were worth $2.5M each, and another half-dozen were $1M each. Of
course rust wasn't covered in the service contracts (environmental control was
a requirement). Ice formed on the steel raised floor and people were falling
all over. Needless to say, it was a mess. We laughed our asses off. ;-)


Perhaps you misunderstood me, the DEC gear was in the same room as the
Cray X-MP. I remember a separate cabinet that coupled the Cray's cooling
system with the building's chilled water system. I distinctly
remember seeing a 30lb jug of R-22 next to the cabinet. O_o

Yes, I misunderstood you incorrectly. Lieberts do use chilled water to cool
air, precisely because water has a fairly high specific heat (and it's cheap).
I don't remember if the X-MP uses boiling freon, or not, but the reason it's
used is because it's inert (and the boiling point can be engineered). In the
'70s, we used freon to cool chips. A 100-chip, about 4" x 4" module was
encapsulated in freon. On the back side was a water-freon heat exchanger. The
chips on a vertical surface inside the module, covered in freon. The freon
was set to boil at 85C, the optimum temperature for the circuits. Neat stuff,
until they "discovered" that boiling was the opposite of distilling. All the
bad stuff gets left behind (can you say, "black plague"?).

That idea was junked in favor of one that use helium. ;-)


Was the freon R-11 perchance? R-11 is a liquid at cool room temps. I
think it boils at about 75°F and you can get a thrill by dipping your
hand into the liquid because it will come out clean. The stuff was often
used as a cleaner instead of a refrigerant in centrifugal chillers. I
believe it murdered more cute little ozones than any other
refrigerant so production stopped in 96. Being a good cleaner, was the
high boiling point Freon you were using dissolving elements in the
modules? O_o

Oh yea, did you have problems sealing in the Helium? ^_^

TDD

On Fri, 17 Aug 2012 02:01:27 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 10:46 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 22:32:23 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:28 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:51:58 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 9:51 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Thu, 16 Aug 2012 08:46:55 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/16/2012 6:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:58:34 -0500, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 8/15/2012 9:12 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On Wed, 15 Aug 2012 19:28:25 -0400, wrote:


Actually, for maximum efficiency and maximum dehumidifying, an air
conditioner that has to run constantly on the hottest anticipated day
to maintain the desired temperature is sized "just about right".
Mine is too big - just like my furnace - and runs about 8 hours a day
when outside temps hover in the low 90s F - which is as hot as it
usually gets around here. Running only roughly 30% of the time,
humidity is not as well controlled as it should be - an additional
dehumidifier extracts about a gallon or more a day with outside
humidity in the 73% range - which is on the low side of normal for a
sothwestern ontario hot summer day.


Some decades ago, my father was the maintenance supervisor for a
printing plant. The plant was air conditioned to provide for better
handling of paper and printing. To control the humidity on damp
cooler days, they would run the heat at the same time as the AC.

I don't know the capacity of the AC, but I remember walking into the
ducts where the filter system was. .


The air conditioning for data centers where something like a super
computer is operated on a raised floor has air handlers which blow
air down under the raised floor so cooling air can come up through
open sections under equipment to cool it. The air handlers often have
pans of water with electric heaters to add humidity to the air and
will control humidity using a method called reheat which will reheat
the cooled dehumidified air the bring it back up to room temperature. ^_^

Are any "supercomputers" air-cooled? The ones I've worked with were water-
cooled, with heat exchangers under the covers for those parts that use air.
Only peripherals, smaller computers, and test equipment used air from the
floor as the cooling source.


The one I was involved with back in 1988 was a Cray X-MP at the mission
control center for SDI tests at The Quajalein Missile Range. The Cray I
think, had Freon cooling system interfaced with the building's chilled
water system. There were a number of DEC VAX systems too and the Liebert
air conditioning units were blowing down into the raised flooring
system. It was a very interesting experience to be involved in that
project during those days. ^_^

Right, but not air-cooled. Air just doesn't have the necessary specific heat
to do the job, no matter how much is moved.


The DEC computers and other gear was air cooled. I think there was an
atomic clock in one of the rooms next to mission control. It was all
raised flooring air conditioned by the Liebert units blowing air into
the raised floor. GEEZ! There was a lot of wiring in that darn place. O_o

DEC never made a "supercomputer".

Moons ago, we had a test floor with a bunch of Lieberts on it for cooling the
ATE equipment. Some joker laid out the raised floor with grates under the
desks where the operator's consoles were. For some reason the women had
problems with that idea.

Once, over the July 4 weekend, the floor was completely shut down. On Monday,
one of the managers came in to start the AC back up so it would be cool by
start of work Tuesday. Sometime later, the thermostat stuck. Since there was
no heat load (all the ATE systems were still powered down), it got *cold*.
Tuesday morning people noticed that it was *cold*, so the moron manager opened
all the doors to warm it up. Since it was humid (July, remember) water
started condensing everywhere. Water was running out of the ceiling tiles and
every piece of test equipment was wet, and visibly growing rust. Three of
these systems were worth $2.5M each, and another half-dozen were $1M each. Of
course rust wasn't covered in the service contracts (environmental control was
a requirement). Ice formed on the steel raised floor and people were falling
all over. Needless to say, it was a mess. We laughed our asses off. ;-)


Perhaps you misunderstood me, the DEC gear was in the same room as the
Cray X-MP. I remember a separate cabinet that coupled the Cray's cooling
system with the building's chilled water system. I distinctly
remember seeing a 30lb jug of R-22 next to the cabinet. O_o

Yes, I misunderstood you incorrectly. Lieberts do use chilled water to cool
air, precisely because water has a fairly high specific heat (and it's cheap).
I don't remember if the X-MP uses boiling freon, or not, but the reason it's
used is because it's inert (and the boiling point can be engineered). In the
'70s, we used freon to cool chips. A 100-chip, about 4" x 4" module was
encapsulated in freon. On the back side was a water-freon heat exchanger. The
chips on a vertical surface inside the module, covered in freon. The freon
was set to boil at 85C, the optimum temperature for the circuits. Neat stuff,
until they "discovered" that boiling was the opposite of distilling. All the
bad stuff gets left behind (can you say, "black plague"?).

That idea was junked in favor of one that use helium. ;-)


Was the freon R-11 perchance? R-11 is a liquid at cool room temps. I
think it boils at about 75°F and you can get a thrill by dipping your
hand into the liquid because it will come out clean.

FC86 (I have no idea why I remember that). the boiling point was right at
85C, IIRC.

The stuff was often
used as a cleaner instead of a refrigerant in centrifugal chillers. I
believe it murdered more cute little ozones than any other
refrigerant so production stopped in 96. Being a good cleaner, was the
high boiling point Freon you were using dissolving elements in the
modules? O_o

No, it wasn't dissolving anything it just couldn't be made clean enough. Any
residual contamination was left right on the chips, in the worst possible
location.

Oh yea, did you have problems sealing in the Helium? ^_^

You bet. It even diffuses through the aluminum module. They were used in
every IBM mainframe for more than ten years, though.

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ex...506VV2137.html

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 22:44:47 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 11:45:21 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:50:19 -0400, "
wrote:

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 11:39:46 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 8, 2:24*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
"Hell Toupee" wrote in message

It's called a SaverSwitch by my utility company. They come out and add it
to the a/c unit, in exchange for giving the customer a 15% discount on
their monthly electric bill. The utility remotely controls it - during
peak load times (which are only an occasional thing hereabouts) they turn
off the a/c's compressor every twenty minutes or so, leaving the fan
running to circulate air in the house.

They claim that most people will typically notice little or no difference,
comfort-wise, when this is done. However, my sister has a 4-level home and
when she was on the program, her upper levels simply never had a chance to
cool down sufficiently, so she had them remove the switch.

I can see that system working, based on my own experience with AC. *Short
down times are not a big deal. *Many people keep the house cooler than it
has to be and a brief time down makes no discernable difference.

Recently, on a pretty hot day, there was a quick power outage. *My AC went
off, came back on but not in the "cool" position. *It took about an hour
before I finally noticed that it was getting overly warm. *If the power
company has shut it down for five of twenty minutes, I never would have
noticed.

In the case of your sister's house, the system is either not sized properly,
not laid out properly, or not installed properly. *The technology to have a
well balanced system has been around for decades. Unfortunately, things like
this happen.

I don;t know about that. An AC system is supposed to
be sized so that it runs most of the time on the hottest
days. If the power company then turns it off so it can't
run as much as it needs to, it seems perfectly possible
that some people could wind up with homes that are
too hot.

Another way of looking at it is this. The power companies
claim that it makes no difference in the temp in your
house. If that's the case, what good does it do the
power company? All the AC units out there are already
either randomly cycling because they can maintain the
set temp or else just running all the time. If they are
randomly cycling, then how do you reduce the load
to the power company without reducing the cooling?
If the ACs were all coming on and off at exactly the same
time, then by fooling with then, the power company
could even it out. But because they are already random,
I don't see what they are doing having any effect unless
it raises the temp in the house. And if the AC is running
100%, then for sure turning it off for 10 mins is going
to decrease the cooling output.

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

They are trying to reduce PEAK load. Lets say there are 1,000,000
power customers. And lets say they want to reduce the peak load 10%.
If all those users AC units were running then turning off 10% of the
running AC units would get MORE then a 10% reduction in peak load
because the AC while running is probably 50% of the load on each
house. So they only need to turn off perhaps 5% of the AC units at any
one time. If the meters are really "smart" they would be able to tell
if the AC is on or not if by no other way then simply the current draw
at that point in time compared to the average for a typical day in the
season. So they should be able to target running ac units. And since
it's "smart" they should be able to shut down *just the right number*
of them to reduce the peak load to whatever their target is. Going
back to it probably being 5% or less needing to be turned off at any
one time, that means of the 1 million houses, if they cycle thru each
house so no house gets hit twice until all the houses with running ac
have had a turn, it means they need to turn off 5% of a million, or
50,000 AC's. If they want to keep the off time to 10 minutes (1/6 of
an hour), it means that for every hour they want to reduce the peak
they need to deal with 300,000 AC's. Given that they have a million
of them, and on a really hot day most of them will be running at any
point in time, that means they have a 3+ hour time period where they
can be turning off AC units without ever hitting the same house twice.
Rounding up to make this example worse, lets say I'm off by a factor
of two, it still means that at most your AC will be turned off for 10
minutes twice in a 3 hour period and the off time would be 1.5 hours
apart. I doubt many people would ever notice those two-10 minute off
periods 1.5 hours apart. And for those rare people who do notice it,
by the time they notice it more then likely the 10 minutes will be
expired and it will be back on.

(You really need to breathe once in a while)


No kidding. I wrote that a few days ago and just came back to the
thread. Wow, almost like a drug induced dream.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't work. The peak power is
exactly the same (as is the average) unless they're leaving the power off long
enough for it to get warmer in the house. Then the difference is only in the
delta-T.



I think you miss the whole point of the system. It *IS* going to
reduce the peak because that's the driver determining whether to turn
off *any* houses. If the algorithm says "we're peaking according to
the powermeter" it starts to turn off AC units and continues to do so
until the algorithm says "you've turned off enough and the power
output meter is now back down where we want it". It will continue to
iterate that cycle till it starts to drop off the peak and then it
turns AC's back on. Of course it's not going to pick YOUR system and
keep it off for 3 hours, it's going to spread the *off* time over the
millions of houses, 10 minutes at a time. And yes, the houses turned
off will each get a tiny bit hotter, ... if that were not the case
their AC would not have been needed.


I just went thru this on the fly so I could have missed something but
assuming it's a reasonably good armchair estimate, the use of smart
meters to control peak use seems like a very good way to save money
(by not building excess capacity to deal with a couple hours of peak
use) with essentially zero impact on anyone's comfort and convenience.

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.


Doesn't matter, the algorithm will have taken that into account and
each time one it turned back on, another house somewhere else gets
turned off unless the "master power meter" says it's started dropping
off the peak. Not only will another house get turned off as a
replacement for the one that was just turned back on but if the system
is still "peaking" an additional house will get turned off. That's
the beauty of this kind of system, it's able to spread the pain out
over such a large number of houses, for so short a time at each
individual house, that no one house even notices the 0.3 degree rise
in temperature for that one hour slot.

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:14:30 -0400, "
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:37:54 -0500, G. Morgan wrote:

wrote:

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.

Unless the shutdown unit also has a random delay built-in when restored.


Ok, but you've still accomplished nothing unless you've raised the average
delta-T. IOW, a ten-minute power off does absolutely nothing.

Off course it does, otherwise why wouldn't you simply put a timer on
your AC to turn it off 10 minutes out of every run hour just to save
money. You're not seeing the small picture at the house end nor the
big picture at the system end.

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:24:08 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:14:30 -0400, "
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:37:54 -0500, G. Morgan wrote:

wrote:

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.

Unless the shutdown unit also has a random delay built-in when restored.


Ok, but you've still accomplished nothing unless you've raised the average
delta-T. IOW, a ten-minute power off does absolutely nothing.

Off course it does, otherwise why wouldn't you simply put a timer on
your AC to turn it off 10 minutes out of every run hour just to save
money. You're not seeing the small picture at the house end nor the
big picture at the system end.

Ok, you've just proved my point. If load shedding worked on air conditioners,
everyone would just power them off for 10 minutes per hour and save on their
power bills. The fact is that it doesn't work. Worse, it synchronizes the
loads.

BTW, did it really take you two weeks to read my post?

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:22:22 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 22:44:47 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 11:45:21 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:50:19 -0400, "
wrote:

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 11:39:46 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 8, 2:24*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
"Hell Toupee" wrote in message

It's called a SaverSwitch by my utility company. They come out and add it
to the a/c unit, in exchange for giving the customer a 15% discount on
their monthly electric bill. The utility remotely controls it - during
peak load times (which are only an occasional thing hereabouts) they turn
off the a/c's compressor every twenty minutes or so, leaving the fan
running to circulate air in the house.

They claim that most people will typically notice little or no difference,
comfort-wise, when this is done. However, my sister has a 4-level home and
when she was on the program, her upper levels simply never had a chance to
cool down sufficiently, so she had them remove the switch.

I can see that system working, based on my own experience with AC. *Short
down times are not a big deal. *Many people keep the house cooler than it
has to be and a brief time down makes no discernable difference.

Recently, on a pretty hot day, there was a quick power outage. *My AC went
off, came back on but not in the "cool" position. *It took about an hour
before I finally noticed that it was getting overly warm. *If the power
company has shut it down for five of twenty minutes, I never would have
noticed.

In the case of your sister's house, the system is either not sized properly,
not laid out properly, or not installed properly. *The technology to have a
well balanced system has been around for decades. Unfortunately, things like
this happen.

I don;t know about that. An AC system is supposed to
be sized so that it runs most of the time on the hottest
days. If the power company then turns it off so it can't
run as much as it needs to, it seems perfectly possible
that some people could wind up with homes that are
too hot.

Another way of looking at it is this. The power companies
claim that it makes no difference in the temp in your
house. If that's the case, what good does it do the
power company? All the AC units out there are already
either randomly cycling because they can maintain the
set temp or else just running all the time. If they are
randomly cycling, then how do you reduce the load
to the power company without reducing the cooling?
If the ACs were all coming on and off at exactly the same
time, then by fooling with then, the power company
could even it out. But because they are already random,
I don't see what they are doing having any effect unless
it raises the temp in the house. And if the AC is running
100%, then for sure turning it off for 10 mins is going
to decrease the cooling output.

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

They are trying to reduce PEAK load. Lets say there are 1,000,000
power customers. And lets say they want to reduce the peak load 10%.
If all those users AC units were running then turning off 10% of the
running AC units would get MORE then a 10% reduction in peak load
because the AC while running is probably 50% of the load on each
house. So they only need to turn off perhaps 5% of the AC units at any
one time. If the meters are really "smart" they would be able to tell
if the AC is on or not if by no other way then simply the current draw
at that point in time compared to the average for a typical day in the
season. So they should be able to target running ac units. And since
it's "smart" they should be able to shut down *just the right number*
of them to reduce the peak load to whatever their target is. Going
back to it probably being 5% or less needing to be turned off at any
one time, that means of the 1 million houses, if they cycle thru each
house so no house gets hit twice until all the houses with running ac
have had a turn, it means they need to turn off 5% of a million, or
50,000 AC's. If they want to keep the off time to 10 minutes (1/6 of
an hour), it means that for every hour they want to reduce the peak
they need to deal with 300,000 AC's. Given that they have a million
of them, and on a really hot day most of them will be running at any
point in time, that means they have a 3+ hour time period where they
can be turning off AC units without ever hitting the same house twice.
Rounding up to make this example worse, lets say I'm off by a factor
of two, it still means that at most your AC will be turned off for 10
minutes twice in a 3 hour period and the off time would be 1.5 hours
apart. I doubt many people would ever notice those two-10 minute off
periods 1.5 hours apart. And for those rare people who do notice it,
by the time they notice it more then likely the 10 minutes will be
expired and it will be back on.

(You really need to breathe once in a while)


No kidding. I wrote that a few days ago and just came back to the
thread. Wow, almost like a drug induced dream.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't work. The peak power is
exactly the same (as is the average) unless they're leaving the power off long
enough for it to get warmer in the house. Then the difference is only in the
delta-T.



I think you miss the whole point of the system. It *IS* going to
reduce the peak because that's the driver determining whether to turn
off *any* houses. If the algorithm says "we're peaking according to
the powermeter" it starts to turn off AC units and continues to do so
until the algorithm says "you've turned off enough and the power
output meter is now back down where we want it". It will continue to
iterate that cycle till it starts to drop off the peak and then it
turns AC's back on. Of course it's not going to pick YOUR system and
keep it off for 3 hours, it's going to spread the *off* time over the
millions of houses, 10 minutes at a time. And yes, the houses turned
off will each get a tiny bit hotter, ... if that were not the case
their AC would not have been needed.

No, I didn't miss anything. The system doesn't work unless they're going to
shed loads long enough for the *average* temperatures to get significantly
higher. Ten minutes isn't going to do anything except synchronize the load
(the worst possible outcome).

I just went thru this on the fly so I could have missed something but
assuming it's a reasonably good armchair estimate, the use of smart
meters to control peak use seems like a very good way to save money
(by not building excess capacity to deal with a couple hours of peak
use) with essentially zero impact on anyone's comfort and convenience.

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.


Doesn't matter, the algorithm will have taken that into account and
each time one it turned back on, another house somewhere else gets
turned off unless the "master power meter" says it's started dropping
off the peak.

Then you've done exactly nothing. The house you're just turning back on
*will* come on. It's duty will not have changed. Its total power will not
have changed, except for the 10-minute lag.

Not only will another house get turned off as a
replacement for the one that was just turned back on but if the system
is still "peaking" an additional house will get turned off. That's
the beauty of this kind of system, it's able to spread the pain out
over such a large number of houses, for so short a time at each
individual house, that no one house even notices the 0.3 degree rise
in temperature for that one hour slot.

Except it doesn't work.

On Thu, 9 Aug 2012 08:44:27 -0400, "Ed Pawlowski"
wrote:

My guess is increasing the delta-T would make many of the ultra cold houses
more in line with what they should be and that is at least part of the
goal.

Your opinion of "what they should be" and what the individual wants is
totally irrelevant. If one wants the temperature either higher or
lower than someone else that's nobody's business but the one who pays
the bill. We don't have any Temperature Police... yet.

On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 17:20:57 -0400, "
wrote:

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:24:08 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:14:30 -0400, "
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:37:54 -0500, G. Morgan wrote:

wrote:

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.

Unless the shutdown unit also has a random delay built-in when restored.


Ok, but you've still accomplished nothing unless you've raised the average
delta-T. IOW, a ten-minute power off does absolutely nothing.

Off course it does, otherwise why wouldn't you simply put a timer on
your AC to turn it off 10 minutes out of every run hour just to save
money. You're not seeing the small picture at the house end nor the
big picture at the system end.

Ok, you've just proved my point. If load shedding worked on air conditioners,
everyone would just power them off for 10 minutes per hour and save on their
power bills. The fact is that it doesn't work. Worse, it synchronizes the
loads.

BTW, did it really take you two weeks to read my post?


Yes, there was a 2 week gap.

On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 17:26:18 -0400, "
wrote:

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:22:22 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 22:44:47 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 11:45:21 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:50:19 -0400, "
wrote:

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 11:39:46 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 8, 2:24*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
"Hell Toupee" wrote in message

It's called a SaverSwitch by my utility company. They come out and add it
to the a/c unit, in exchange for giving the customer a 15% discount on
their monthly electric bill. The utility remotely controls it - during
peak load times (which are only an occasional thing hereabouts) they turn
off the a/c's compressor every twenty minutes or so, leaving the fan
running to circulate air in the house.

They claim that most people will typically notice little or no difference,
comfort-wise, when this is done. However, my sister has a 4-level home and
when she was on the program, her upper levels simply never had a chance to
cool down sufficiently, so she had them remove the switch.

I can see that system working, based on my own experience with AC. *Short
down times are not a big deal. *Many people keep the house cooler than it
has to be and a brief time down makes no discernable difference.

Recently, on a pretty hot day, there was a quick power outage. *My AC went
off, came back on but not in the "cool" position. *It took about an hour
before I finally noticed that it was getting overly warm. *If the power
company has shut it down for five of twenty minutes, I never would have
noticed.

In the case of your sister's house, the system is either not sized properly,
not laid out properly, or not installed properly. *The technology to have a
well balanced system has been around for decades. Unfortunately, things like
this happen.

I don;t know about that. An AC system is supposed to
be sized so that it runs most of the time on the hottest
days. If the power company then turns it off so it can't
run as much as it needs to, it seems perfectly possible
that some people could wind up with homes that are
too hot.

Another way of looking at it is this. The power companies
claim that it makes no difference in the temp in your
house. If that's the case, what good does it do the
power company? All the AC units out there are already
either randomly cycling because they can maintain the
set temp or else just running all the time. If they are
randomly cycling, then how do you reduce the load
to the power company without reducing the cooling?
If the ACs were all coming on and off at exactly the same
time, then by fooling with then, the power company
could even it out. But because they are already random,
I don't see what they are doing having any effect unless
it raises the temp in the house. And if the AC is running
100%, then for sure turning it off for 10 mins is going
to decrease the cooling output.

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

They are trying to reduce PEAK load. Lets say there are 1,000,000
power customers. And lets say they want to reduce the peak load 10%.
If all those users AC units were running then turning off 10% of the
running AC units would get MORE then a 10% reduction in peak load
because the AC while running is probably 50% of the load on each
house. So they only need to turn off perhaps 5% of the AC units at any
one time. If the meters are really "smart" they would be able to tell
if the AC is on or not if by no other way then simply the current draw
at that point in time compared to the average for a typical day in the
season. So they should be able to target running ac units. And since
it's "smart" they should be able to shut down *just the right number*
of them to reduce the peak load to whatever their target is. Going
back to it probably being 5% or less needing to be turned off at any
one time, that means of the 1 million houses, if they cycle thru each
house so no house gets hit twice until all the houses with running ac
have had a turn, it means they need to turn off 5% of a million, or
50,000 AC's. If they want to keep the off time to 10 minutes (1/6 of
an hour), it means that for every hour they want to reduce the peak
they need to deal with 300,000 AC's. Given that they have a million
of them, and on a really hot day most of them will be running at any
point in time, that means they have a 3+ hour time period where they
can be turning off AC units without ever hitting the same house twice.
Rounding up to make this example worse, lets say I'm off by a factor
of two, it still means that at most your AC will be turned off for 10
minutes twice in a 3 hour period and the off time would be 1.5 hours
apart. I doubt many people would ever notice those two-10 minute off
periods 1.5 hours apart. And for those rare people who do notice it,
by the time they notice it more then likely the 10 minutes will be
expired and it will be back on.

(You really need to breathe once in a while)


No kidding. I wrote that a few days ago and just came back to the
thread. Wow, almost like a drug induced dream.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't work. The peak power is
exactly the same (as is the average) unless they're leaving the power off long
enough for it to get warmer in the house. Then the difference is only in the
delta-T.



I think you miss the whole point of the system. It *IS* going to
reduce the peak because that's the driver determining whether to turn
off *any* houses. If the algorithm says "we're peaking according to
the powermeter" it starts to turn off AC units and continues to do so
until the algorithm says "you've turned off enough and the power
output meter is now back down where we want it". It will continue to
iterate that cycle till it starts to drop off the peak and then it
turns AC's back on. Of course it's not going to pick YOUR system and
keep it off for 3 hours, it's going to spread the *off* time over the
millions of houses, 10 minutes at a time. And yes, the houses turned
off will each get a tiny bit hotter, ... if that were not the case
their AC would not have been needed.

No, I didn't miss anything. The system doesn't work unless they're going to
shed loads long enough for the *average* temperatures to get significantly
higher. Ten minutes isn't going to do anything except synchronize the load
(the worst possible outcome).

I just went thru this on the fly so I could have missed something but
assuming it's a reasonably good armchair estimate, the use of smart
meters to control peak use seems like a very good way to save money
(by not building excess capacity to deal with a couple hours of peak
use) with essentially zero impact on anyone's comfort and convenience.

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.


Doesn't matter, the algorithm will have taken that into account and
each time one it turned back on, another house somewhere else gets
turned off unless the "master power meter" says it's started dropping
off the peak.

Then you've done exactly nothing. The house you're just turning back on
*will* come on. It's duty will not have changed. Its total power will not
have changed, except for the 10-minute lag.

Not only will another house get turned off as a
replacement for the one that was just turned back on but if the system
is still "peaking" an additional house will get turned off. That's
the beauty of this kind of system, it's able to spread the pain out
over such a large number of houses, for so short a time at each
individual house, that no one house even notices the 0.3 degree rise
in temperature for that one hour slot.

Except it doesn't work.

All I can say is we will have to disagree. The power company seems to
think it works and they are the ones who know how much power is being
produced and consumed as well as when and where.

On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 22:46:41 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 17:26:18 -0400, "
wrote:

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:22:22 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 22:44:47 -0400, "
wrote:

On Sun, 12 Aug 2012 11:45:21 -0700, Ashton Crusher wrote:

On Wed, 08 Aug 2012 16:50:19 -0400, "
wrote:

On Wed, 8 Aug 2012 11:39:46 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Aug 8, 2:24*pm, "Ed Pawlowski" wrote:
"Hell Toupee" wrote in message

It's called a SaverSwitch by my utility company. They come out and add it
to the a/c unit, in exchange for giving the customer a 15% discount on
their monthly electric bill. The utility remotely controls it - during
peak load times (which are only an occasional thing hereabouts) they turn
off the a/c's compressor every twenty minutes or so, leaving the fan
running to circulate air in the house.

They claim that most people will typically notice little or no difference,
comfort-wise, when this is done. However, my sister has a 4-level home and
when she was on the program, her upper levels simply never had a chance to
cool down sufficiently, so she had them remove the switch.

I can see that system working, based on my own experience with AC. *Short
down times are not a big deal. *Many people keep the house cooler than it
has to be and a brief time down makes no discernable difference.

Recently, on a pretty hot day, there was a quick power outage. *My AC went
off, came back on but not in the "cool" position. *It took about an hour
before I finally noticed that it was getting overly warm. *If the power
company has shut it down for five of twenty minutes, I never would have
noticed.

In the case of your sister's house, the system is either not sized properly,
not laid out properly, or not installed properly. *The technology to have a
well balanced system has been around for decades. Unfortunately, things like
this happen.

I don;t know about that. An AC system is supposed to
be sized so that it runs most of the time on the hottest
days. If the power company then turns it off so it can't
run as much as it needs to, it seems perfectly possible
that some people could wind up with homes that are
too hot.

Another way of looking at it is this. The power companies
claim that it makes no difference in the temp in your
house. If that's the case, what good does it do the
power company? All the AC units out there are already
either randomly cycling because they can maintain the
set temp or else just running all the time. If they are
randomly cycling, then how do you reduce the load
to the power company without reducing the cooling?
If the ACs were all coming on and off at exactly the same
time, then by fooling with then, the power company
could even it out. But because they are already random,
I don't see what they are doing having any effect unless
it raises the temp in the house. And if the AC is running
100%, then for sure turning it off for 10 mins is going
to decrease the cooling output.

Absolutely right. The only way to save any energy is to decrease the average
delta-T (make it warmer in the house). Otherwise, you're just shifting *when*
the compressor is running, not how much. I don't see how shifting it by ten
minutes helps either. It'll just draw more power (than it otherwise would
have) later.

They are trying to reduce PEAK load. Lets say there are 1,000,000
power customers. And lets say they want to reduce the peak load 10%.
If all those users AC units were running then turning off 10% of the
running AC units would get MORE then a 10% reduction in peak load
because the AC while running is probably 50% of the load on each
house. So they only need to turn off perhaps 5% of the AC units at any
one time. If the meters are really "smart" they would be able to tell
if the AC is on or not if by no other way then simply the current draw
at that point in time compared to the average for a typical day in the
season. So they should be able to target running ac units. And since
it's "smart" they should be able to shut down *just the right number*
of them to reduce the peak load to whatever their target is. Going
back to it probably being 5% or less needing to be turned off at any
one time, that means of the 1 million houses, if they cycle thru each
house so no house gets hit twice until all the houses with running ac
have had a turn, it means they need to turn off 5% of a million, or
50,000 AC's. If they want to keep the off time to 10 minutes (1/6 of
an hour), it means that for every hour they want to reduce the peak
they need to deal with 300,000 AC's. Given that they have a million
of them, and on a really hot day most of them will be running at any
point in time, that means they have a 3+ hour time period where they
can be turning off AC units without ever hitting the same house twice.
Rounding up to make this example worse, lets say I'm off by a factor
of two, it still means that at most your AC will be turned off for 10
minutes twice in a 3 hour period and the off time would be 1.5 hours
apart. I doubt many people would ever notice those two-10 minute off
periods 1.5 hours apart. And for those rare people who do notice it,
by the time they notice it more then likely the 10 minutes will be
expired and it will be back on.

(You really need to breathe once in a while)


No kidding. I wrote that a few days ago and just came back to the
thread. Wow, almost like a drug induced dream.

The problem with your theory is that it doesn't work. The peak power is
exactly the same (as is the average) unless they're leaving the power off long
enough for it to get warmer in the house. Then the difference is only in the
delta-T.



I think you miss the whole point of the system. It *IS* going to
reduce the peak because that's the driver determining whether to turn
off *any* houses. If the algorithm says "we're peaking according to
the powermeter" it starts to turn off AC units and continues to do so
until the algorithm says "you've turned off enough and the power
output meter is now back down where we want it". It will continue to
iterate that cycle till it starts to drop off the peak and then it
turns AC's back on. Of course it's not going to pick YOUR system and
keep it off for 3 hours, it's going to spread the *off* time over the
millions of houses, 10 minutes at a time. And yes, the houses turned
off will each get a tiny bit hotter, ... if that were not the case
their AC would not have been needed.

No, I didn't miss anything. The system doesn't work unless they're going to
shed loads long enough for the *average* temperatures to get significantly
higher. Ten minutes isn't going to do anything except synchronize the load
(the worst possible outcome).

I just went thru this on the fly so I could have missed something but
assuming it's a reasonably good armchair estimate, the use of smart
meters to control peak use seems like a very good way to save money
(by not building excess capacity to deal with a couple hours of peak
use) with essentially zero impact on anyone's comfort and convenience.

Doesn't work. A soon as you turn the block of ACs back on, *every* one will
cycle on, increasing your peak. You've actually made it worse because they're
all synchronized, now, rather than random.


Doesn't matter, the algorithm will have taken that into account and
each time one it turned back on, another house somewhere else gets
turned off unless the "master power meter" says it's started dropping
off the peak.

Then you've done exactly nothing. The house you're just turning back on
*will* come on. It's duty will not have changed. Its total power will not
have changed, except for the 10-minute lag.

Not only will another house get turned off as a
replacement for the one that was just turned back on but if the system
is still "peaking" an additional house will get turned off. That's
the beauty of this kind of system, it's able to spread the pain out
over such a large number of houses, for so short a time at each
individual house, that no one house even notices the 0.3 degree rise
in temperature for that one hour slot.

Except it doesn't work.

All I can say is we will have to disagree. The power company seems to
think it works and they are the ones who know how much power is being
produced and consumed as well as when and where.

No, the power company has convinced you that there is a free lunch. You're
willing to go along with their scheme to control you. Reality won't be so
"free", as that is what you will be giving up.