In a world vulnerable to the effects of Climate Change, we should develop a consciousness of our energy consumption. Every kWh of power, every liter of gasoline brings hundreds of thousands of people closer to their death. In the Philippines, a kWh emits about 0.6kg CO2 mainly from coal fired power plants. A liter of diesel emits 2.3kg of CO2 equivalent. While the prospect seems bleak there are practical ways to slowdown global warming. Here are a few of them:

1.) TURN OFF THE LIGHTS- In the Philippines, the most abused appliance is the bathroom light. STOP scaring your kids so you don't need a night light!

2.) UNPLUG your appliances - When you turn off your TV, stereo its actually on standby so you can activate it with a remote. Other appliances only turn off the secondary coil of its power supply. These cases actually draw current from the outlet up to 40% of the appliances rated current consumption. By unpluging or using a power strip, you completely isolate the appliance from the outlet.

3.) DON'T LET MUCH OF THE SUN IN - The sun radiates infrared and ultraviolet rays that carry heat. Permanently shade your east and west facing windows. Put awnings on your north and south facing windows. Put infrared blocking coatings on all your fenestration.

4.) PARK IT - Instead of driving your car during rush hour, park it and leave later. In a traffic jam, you burn gasoline without going anywhere.

5.) CARPOOL - Its not a swimming pool for your car, silly! Get your officemates to share your ride. You reduce your emissions to 1/5 since more people benefit from the burning of your fuel. To save even more, commute, bike or even walk.

This doesn't end here. Once you've done all these, tell at least five other friends or let them read this article.

Finally got the EPlus plugin for sketchup to work.  I guess you really can use it only for the geometric aspects of modeling.  You still have to do some edits in the idf file if you want to change the construction or add equipment into your model.  The plugin has a "getting started" manual visible in the plugins tab of sketchup.  It teaches you how you can define zones and zone parameters.  It doesn't tell you how the animation function works, so this is the next thing I will have to find out.  

www.leonardo-energy.org offers free webcasts and webinars on sustainable energy.  I tried out 2 introductory courses on PV systems and Distributed generation.  The Information was very basic, good enough for novices in the renewable energy systems.  This was basically something like a powerpoint presentation with a voice over. They have webcasts for harmonics, lighting, renewable energy.  They also have webinars to discuss updates on specific technologies and issues.  Free e-books are also available in this site.  I think every sustainable energy advocate must check this site regularly

I got into an LED vs CFL conversation in a meeting today. Which technology is really appropriate for us in the Philippines? To answer this question, we ought to examine each technology.

What is an LED? The name, Light Emitting Diode, says a lot. First, the device is a diode. Which means it lets current pass under a when the positive and negative terminals are connected one way (forward bias) but nothing terminals are reversed (reverse biased). Second, it means that light is produced as it goes through this process. The device construction is simply a junction of unlike semiconductor materials (i.e. PN junction). When the device is unconnected, a electric field exists because of the interactions of charges on semiconductor and that of introduced impurities. In a forward bias condition, the field facilitates the movement of charges across the junction, thus the current. As charges(i.e. electrons, negative charge) move in one direction, they meet "particles" (holes, positive charge) with opposite charge and direction. When electrons and holes meet light is produced as the electron moves to a lower energy state. This process is called photoluminescence. The photovoltaic phenomenon an the opposite process to photoluminescence.

LED Mechanism: image taken from wikipedia

CFLs on the other hand, are socket type versions of Fluorescent tubes.  The technology is simple.  Electrons come is from a terminal and collide with gas molecules in the tube.  The molecules go to a higher energy state then go down immediately  to achieve stability.  As the molecules seek stability, they emit light in the UV range. The UV waves hit the coatings on the tube walls, causing it to Fluoresce.  The gas is a mixture of mercury vapor and other noble gases.

CFL: image taken from wikipedia

The main argument against CFL is the mercury while LEDs are always hit with cost and directional capability.  Which one is appropriate?  A CFL bulb only has 4.0mg mercury or 40% of mercury coming from the usage of an incandescent if power came solely from coal plants.  In the Philippines, it would probably be the same but the financial savings  and the avoidance of CO2 emissions would merit CFL use.  The ADB estimates that switching 1M CFLs would result to about $47M savings due to avoidance of new power plant installation.  Philippine government and the ADB are gearing for piloting the worlds first efficient lighting project under the clean development mechanism.  CFL was chosen, considering affordability which is crucial to the long term sustainability of the project.  This is to note that a significant percentage of the population are below poverty line.  Since this is under CDM, waste handling would be something that would be considered in the approval process.  Folks from 1st world countries may yap about the evils of CFL but until the cost of LEDs go down this is the only accessible solution.  Instead of us harping about CFLs, lets do something to make LEDs affordable and accessible to the poor.

I began experimenting with the Energy Plus plugin for Google SketchUp. The concept of the tool is to use SketchUp to render a building model and launch a EPlus simulation from it. It is an excellent tool from the geometric aspect as you just have to click and drag shapes to make the structure. The problem is that the simulations don't work!!! Output CSV (Comma Separated Value) files don't come out. Why? It might be a problem of passing parameters or some issues in variable naming consistency. I guess I have to read the Input Output Reference of EPlus to find out. It looks like I'll be using the plugin to render the geometric aspect but I'll use the EPlus IDF (Input Data File) editor to work on the thermal and run parameter. As soon as I figure this out, I'll be saying something about it here. 'Til then....

I just finished doing the tutorial exercises for Energy Plus.  It is an interesting application because you can simulate the cooling and heating performance of a building.  You start out by creating partitions of the building you want to analyze. The software has values on construction materials taken from ASHRAE databases.

Thermal zones of model

The next step is to render sub elements like windows and doors.  As soon as this done,  energy plus can render it as a .dxf file.  

Rendering windows and doors

 You can then simulate building performance based on weather/climate data taken from WMO.  You can also add HVAC, lighting or occupancy components to your model.    After running your model, you can get a good estimate of your energy performance.  The output would be something like this:

Site and Source Energy

	Total Energy (GJ)	Energy Per Total Building Area (MJ/m2)	Energy Per Conditioned Building Area (MJ/m2)
Total Site Energy	233.55	503.77	503.77
Net Site Energy	233.55	503.77	503.77
Total Source Energy	655.37	1413.66	1413.66
Net Source Energy	655.37	1413.66	1413.66

Building Area

	Area (m2)
Total Building Area	463.60
Net Conditioned Building Area	463.60

Resized picture of end use output

Energy plus seems to be a great tool in analyzing building performance whether for retrofits or new designs.  I will be exploring more of this tool and its google sketch-up plug-in. I will be making it part of my arsenal of tools in my advocacy for sustainable energy.  Stay tuned...

drawings taken from Energy Plus getting started guide