Uncontrolled
ecological damage is catastrophic. By an large, this catastrophic
consequence is deemed foolish. Foolish because 40% or more of the
electrical energy generated are loss or wasted.
The EPA estimated that
an average American family can save an equivalent of 60 trees a year
simply by being more energy efficient. Surveys also show that the same
American household is paying an additional 40% of power cost for unused
or wasted energy.
Further studies by Vin
Callcut, D. Chapman, Martin Heathcote and Richard Parr found that
electrical energy is the most expensive form of energy - 8 times of coal
and 6 times of gas. Their findings also suggested that:-
1. More than 8% of
electricity bill is paid for power losses arising from poor equipment
design & installation;
2. An inductive motor
uses electricity equivalent to its capital cost in just three weeks of
continuous use.
The desire for low
initial capital investment resulted in widespread uses of inefficient
equipments. These poor efficiency equipments are the major cause of
energy wastage. The above statistics worsen as the level of development
gets lower. These undesirable statistics are direct results of
ineffectiveness in our modern power generation, transmission and
application systems.
Concept of Power Loss
The modern electrical
applications' installation and designs often leave much rooms for
improvement. Energy efficiency and conservation effort may be summarized
into three levels:
1. Inefficiency
arising from poor design and installation;
2. Inefficiency
arising from poor maintenance and up keeping;
3. Inefficiency
intrinsic of the equipment itself.
Engineering design for
a particular functionality of a host motor usually and rightly must take
into consideration product durability, operational performance and
reliability and most importantly user safety. Efforts to minimize
product liability claim necessitates additional cost in the form of
"over-sizing and over-engineering". The negative effect of such
"over-engineering" is energy inefficiency. This problem is further
compounded by poor facility design and equipment installation. Examples
such as doubling up of chilled-water system capacity (HVAC application)
and poor ducting design are good points in case.
Even in an environment
where the initial facility design and equipment installation have been
good, the operational efficiency of the entire electrical system still
very much depends on day to day operational housekeeping and
maintenance. It is common to see commercial buildings fitted with
state-of-the-art HVAC system but operated poorly. There're many reasons
commonly cited for this. Among the most common is lack of top management
participation in building management (not surprisingly!) decision
making. State-of-the-art equipments tend to require extensive manpower
training and familiarization exercises to optimize operational
effectiveness. Unfortunately, equipment vendors are not obliged to
continue providing such extensive trainings each time personnel changes
take place. The poorly trained technicians would justifiably operate the
equipments on "by-pass" basis; in order to avoid the complexity of the
equipments.
Then there is the
third part of power losses i.e. intrinsic losses. A typical load of our
modern electrical power is transmitted as AC inductive power. The
inductive nature of AC power causes power losses both in the core and
coil. It occurs with or without load. No-Load Losses occurs 24 hours a
day 365 days a year. It happens when a voltage is applied to the
inductive equipment regardless of its loading at the time. These
constant losses may be any of the following components:
1. Hysteresis losses;
2. Eddy-current
losses;
3. Stray-eddy current
losses; and
4. Dielectric losses
Deal
Now!
