Ten initiatives to reduce energy consumption in the United States

And quickly build a number of 10 new power plants to increase power generation compared to save electricity, especially to reduce power plant emissions as the goal of saving, is becoming a more feasible solution. Energy consumption in the United States in 2005 reached $296 billion, an increase of nearly 50% in 1993, the fact that also provides the driving force for energy conservation. In addition, in terms of how to save energy, the new technology allows people to use a reasonable cost of investment in the production of energy-efficient hardware. Now the government has more data available when it comes to energy conservation projects. They know what energy conservation measures have been successful in the past and have made greater progress on the basis of success. The following are 10 innovative initiatives that will make significant changes in energy consumption in the next few years.

lighting

Compact fluorescent lamps

Lighting industry is the highest power consumption, and is still one of the most expensive means of electricity. However, because of the ubiquity of lighting equipment, it is often impossible to get as much attention as the large power equipment such as air conditioners. This means that there has been a huge potential for improvement in the field of lighting. We have improved the traditional lighting technology, greatly reducing its energy consumption. Compact fluorescent lamp, for example, the base is small enough to be embedded in the standard screw socket. Compact fluorescent lamps can usually save 75% of the cost of lighting, and more than ordinary incandescent lamp life of at least 7 times. A lot of compact fluorescent lamps can even make a soft white light, similar to the incandescent lighting. Many power companies to provide users with a tariff discount, which will be able to produce 100W incandescent light intensity of the 24W compact fluorescent lamp to reduce the use of the cost of $1 or $2.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) statistics, if every American household a compact fluorescent lamp to replace an ordinary incandescent lamp, American consumers $60 million a year can save electricity. This saves enough energy to light up 7 million homes; reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, equivalent to reducing the number of cars running on the road by 1 million.

Semiconductor light-emitting diode technology

Light emitting diode (LED) to replace the traditional traffic lights, a substantial reduction in the amount of electricity consumption in many cities. Under normal circumstances, in the traffic lights with a 11W light emitting diode to replace a 140W incandescent lamp, will produce an energy saving effect of 92%. Light emitting diodes are ready to go into more industrial applications, such as in a supermarket. At present, the production of white LED light source is also more difficult, because the white light-emitting diode is much higher than the cost of color light-emitting diodes. But according to lighting experts predict that in the next few years, the price of white light-emitting diodes is expected to decline to a certain level, which can be widely used.

Using natural light to replace part of indoor lighting

At the same time, consumers and businesses in a variety of new methods, such as "collect" natural light, natural light device together onto the interior, as buildings do not need to use a large number of lighting. SLighting (Nature), Parke, Utah, is producing solar panels with embedded mirrors. They are placed on a flat roof, and the sun light is projected into the building through a skylight. In the WAL-MART storage company, electricity is second only to the main cost of labor costs, more than $1 billion per year. As a result, WAL-MART has been improving daylight harvesting technology, the introduction of sunlight into the shop through the refraction of the skylight. The skylight collects sunlight but does not radiate heat. The illumination sensor automatically adjusts the fluorescent light in the store according to the available natural light intensity. The average investment in each WAL-MART shop to install such lighting systems about $200 thousand, by saving electricity and reducing air conditioning costs, within 2 to 3 years to recover the investment.

Energy efficient hardware

Frequency conversion motor

Over the past few years, hardware efficiency has been greatly improved. For example, industrial motor technology innovation can save a lot of money for the enterprise. According to the state of California, Artaud, Palo Electric Power Research Institute (ELectricPowerResearchInstitute) director Clark Goering, vice president of innovation (ClarkGellings) said that the current motor energy consumption accounted for 67% of industrial energy consumption. However, due to the need for the old motor to start and shut down and waste a lot of energy. Now many companies are switching to variable frequency motor. According to Mr. Gellings, variable frequency motor with different load and adjust the speed, rather than frequent start and shut down the machine. MGMMirage, a large hotel operator, installed 22 new variable speed motors on the refrigeration equipment inside the hotel in Las Vegas. The $4 million equipment renovation project will take about 2.5 years to recover the cost of electricity, after which the company will save $1 million 600 thousand a year.

Develop new energy efficiency standards for air conditioners

Air conditioning industry can also save huge sums of money. According to domestic and commercial central air conditioning device of the new federal energy efficiency standards came into effect in January 2006; the new standard minimum efficiency air conditioner energy saving 30% of the 2006 sale of the lowest energy efficiency of air conditioner must be at least sold in 2005. That is, the former must reach 13SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ranking) standard, which is the implementation of the 14 year 10SEER standard. According to the U.S. Department of energy statistics