Energy Saving Ideas

[hike]

Just wondering what programming ideas you guys have come up with that result in energy savings.

I've done what I can think of...but I know I have not thought of everything.

Also, I have a ridiculous amount of recessed lights (BR-40) and all are on dimmers.

What (if any) dimmable CFL's work in this scenario??

Best,

Hike

[RyanE]

Unfortunately, CFL's don't typically work well on electronic dimmers, even those that are 'dimmable'.

My energy savings are mostly along the lines of setting up programming that shows me the % of lights that are on for each floor, by the color of the LEDs on the left 3 buttons of my 6-button, and having one-button off for those floors, as well as two-tap restore if I accidentally turned someone off I shouldn't have.

RyanE

[jberger]

Dimmable CFL's suck, Dimmable LED's are not much better, but Cree does have a few nice fixtures with decent dimming range with LED's.

If you are serious about energy usage, go with the TED meter and C4 energy management software. This allows you to watch your usage in real time, and fire off events in C4 based on usage, thresholds, etc. The ability to make a change in a lighting scene and immediately see a reduction in usage is great, but the main advantage lies in understanding what is using the most energy and how you can manage it.

One very simple idea is to add a "welcome home" and "goodbye" keypad buttons by your exit doors. Mine triggers the HVAC systems into "away" mode, kills all the lighting in the house, switches off any TV's that were left on, etc. The welcome home button returns the HVAC units to the standard mode, turns on pathway lighting, etc.

[tebery]

As far as dimmable CFL's, I have been using GE CFL's in eight cans in my kitchen for over 2 years now (One bad bulb so far). What I have done is tap on is full brightness, double tab takes them to about 18% which is about the lowest before they start to strobe. So basically you have high and low brightness. There is some, but really not much more range than that. However our kitchen lights are on pretty much all the time, so I am assuming there is some savings.

[RyanE]

If you can get your CFLs to work with a dimmer, there should be considerable cost savings, as 100% level on the CFL's is pretty low to begin with.

It's the *dimming* functionality that doesn't work terribly well with CFLs.

RyanE

[slemay]

We took (as a test) 4 CFL's put them onto 4 seperate ELV dimmers and was able to run some tests...

We noticed that 4%(+/- 1%) was the lowest we could go and 40% (+/- 5%) was the highest. With that info - we put that into Control4 so it was adjusted to a 0 - 100% scale. Still had some minor issues in the 10% dimmer range - but was happy with the rest of the results in that we actually could see an entire range of dimming now working!

We did have to tell the CFL to first come on at 100% for 250ms - then turn down to the dimmer level (and that can be annoying - but it works). So it can be done... but I'm still happier with regular bulbs dimming...

[bog]

Just wondering what programming ideas you guys have come up with that result in energy savings.

So far, I have focused on notifications that lights are on. I'm in a small 900 sqf. condo. In my bedroom and by my front door I set the bottom LED to red when any light in the house is on as a reminder: "hey dumb-ass something is on". So, before I leave or before I go to sleep I can easily tap to turn ll lights off. Remembering to turn lights off helps me to save energy by not having them on when not in use.

I just got a thermostat hat I haven't yet programmed it to go off during the night and during the day when I'm at work. Likewise, I'm about to tie in my motorized blinds so they will be closed when I'm not home to save on heating/cooling costs.

The next program I want to test is reducing the default light level. For example, when someone turns on the light I want it go to 80% or maybe 60%. Likewise, after sunset I may be able to further reduce the default light levels. I was thinking maybe even automatically reducing the light levels after a period of time (such as when light is turn on immediately start ramping it down over a 2hr period).

I can actually logon to my electric company website and see my overall usage on an hour-by-hour basis for the month. I can actually do some testing to see how much I'm able to reduce my electricity usage (my heating and cooling is separate and I have a gas stove and oven).

There's some lighting, thermostat and blind ideas. I'd love to hear what others may be doing.

[Naveris]

Energy management was one of the primary factors in my decision to invest in home automation (C4 being the preferred technology to so do). For me, the rollout of 'smart' meters and Time of Use (TOU) pricing for all residential customers (in Ontario) was the trigger that justified the investment last year. Having a TOU pricing structure makes it much easier to develop cost effective energy management strategies since you only have to work to a schedule rather than variable inputs such as dynamic pricing and real time electrical load.

I have 20 year history in energy management in commercial/institutional/industrial facilities, so I had greater familiarity with automation's role in energy management than most. To begin with, I focused on the largest electrical loads that could either be scheduled off or reduced during the higher price periods in our TOU structure. These included:

1) Setting maximum light levels on dimmable lighting circuits in accordance with the TOU period (i.e. 50% On Peak; 75% Mid Peak; 100% Off-Peak).

2) Locking out switched lighting circuits during On Peak periods

3) Locking out exterior lights when outside ambient light levels are above a specified minimum threshold

4) Scheduling pool pump to operate only during Off-Peak periods

5) Locking out hot tub heater during On Peak periods

6) Standard HVAC set back/set up strategies

7) "All Off" buttons near exit doors and master bedroom to make sure everything is powered down when we're gone or sleeping

The programming to accomplish these was a bit of a challenge since the various TOU periods change with the seasons and, being a cheapskate, I wanted to do it with as little hardware as possible. I also had to put in overrides for many of the strategies to reflect lifestyle needs (read Wife insisted). My dealer tackled the job enthusiastically and did a great job. Like all automation projects, the last 10-20% of the job can take 80% of the time to complete but they stuck it out and continue to provide excellent support. I would happily refer them to anyone in the Southern Ontario area looking for a quality dealer.

The results of this approach were sizable. I have lowered my overall electrical consumption by about 25% and reduced my On Peak consumption to only 12-15% of my total.

I plan on expanding the energy management functionality of the system to tackle some other opportunities:

* locking out refrigerators/freezers during On-Peak (with temperature overrides)

* fine tuning HVAC strategies based on outdoor temperature

I have considered integrating power meter data into the system but only for monitoring and logging rather than to dynamically control loads. If our rate structure changes to dynamic pricing I would probably reconsider this approach. Like one of the other posts mentioned, I can also get hourly load data through my utility web portal but the information is days/weeks old. I installed a TED to give me realtime load information and help me ferret out parasitic loads (i.e. if I see the load exceeding 2 kW during On Peak, I go checking for loads that may have been inadvertently left on). To those who haven't tried the TED, it works well once you get it working but it can be a nightmare finding a circuit that will give you a clean signal (powerline carrier sucks in my opinion).

In the longer term, I am considering solar water heating for pool and domestic hot water and ground source heat pump for home heating and cooling. Invariably these would be integrated into C4.

[ILoveC4]

^Great first post.

[WholeHomeControl]

Unfortunately, CFL's don't typically work well on electronic dimmers, even those that are 'dimmable'.

My energy savings are mostly along the lines of setting up programming that shows me the % of lights that are on for each floor, by the color of the LEDs on the left 3 buttons of my 6-button, and having one-button off for those floors, as well as two-tap restore if I accidentally turned someone off I shouldn't have.

RyanE

Ryan - would you mind summarizing the programming technique you use to keep track of this? Specifically, do you trap every light change event or do you use polling to calculate the % usage? And, for the restore function (love that, btw), do you have one variable track state for each light?

[WholeHomeControl]

Naveris - what an excellent post! What are your thoughts on incorporating window treatment control and presence detection in an overall energy management strategy?

[Naveris]

Naveris - what an excellent post! What are your thoughts on incorporating window treatment control and presence detection in an overall energy management strategy?

WholeHomeControl

Thanks. I did look into window treatment control (motorized blinds) but it was not cost justifiable given our relatively short cooling season in S. Ontario. If you are in a year round cooling climate, and have high electrical costs, it might be a different story. I am considering motion control as a stand alone control measure for lighting circuits that don't warrant inclusion in the C4 architecture - larger bathrooms and other non-social spaces where I always want the lights off if it's not being used.

Hope that helps

[RyanE]

My energy savings are mostly along the lines of setting up programming that shows me the % of lights that are on for each floor' date=' by the color of the LEDs on the left 3 buttons of my 6-button, and having one-button off for those floors, as well as two-tap restore if I accidentally turned someone off I shouldn't have.[/quote']

Ryan - would you mind summarizing the programming technique you use to keep track of this? Specifically, do you trap every light change event or do you use polling to calculate the % usage? And, for the restore function (love that, btw), do you have one variable track state for each light?

I cheated.

I created a DriverWorks driver that does all the heavy lifting, uses no polling, automatically updates attached button LEDs, and does the 'save / restore' functionality (as well as single / double / triple tap functionality).

RyanE

[crosen]

I cheated.

I created a DriverWorks driver that does all the heavy lifting, uses no polling, automatically updates attached button LEDs, and does the 'save / restore' functionality (as well as single / double / triple tap functionality).

RyanE

I think that's the inspiration I was looking for to finally dive into DriverWorks. Will it change significantly with 2.0, or will digging in now be a good long term investment? (Or, both.)

[Naveris]

Just wondering what programming ideas you guys have come up with that result in energy savings.

I've done what I can think of...but I know I have not thought of everything.

Also, I have a ridiculous amount of recessed lights (BR-40) and all are on dimmers.

What (if any) dimmable CFL's work in this scenario??

Best,

Hike

In addition to some of the cautions about dimmable CFL's (and other 'efficient' lighting technoligies) made by other contributors to this thread, let me add a couple more. There is a lot of concern in the commercial market place about dimmable flourescent lights injecting nasty harmonics into the electrical distribution system. No reason to believe you might not experience the same in your home (to the possible detriment of home electronics). Also, if you live in a climate that requires home heating for a signficant part of the year, the cost saving benefits of CFL's and LED's is diminished because the waste heat from the incandescents is useful during the heating months and reduces the load on your heating system (furnace, boiler, baseboard etc). The exact magnitude of this savings 'clawback' will depend on your relative cost of your heating source vs your electricity. Of course, the worst part of CFL's is that they are not as aesthetically pleasing as incandescent lights.

Naveris

[ILoveC4]

My energy savings are mostly along the lines of setting up programming that shows me the % of lights that are on for each floor' date=' by the color of the LEDs on the left 3 buttons of my 6-button, and having one-button off for those floors, as well as two-tap restore if I accidentally turned someone off I shouldn't have.[/quote']

Ryan - would you mind summarizing the programming technique you use to keep track of this? Specifically, do you trap every light change event or do you use polling to calculate the % usage? And, for the restore function (love that, btw), do you have one variable track state for each light?

I cheated.

I created a DriverWorks driver that does all the heavy lifting, uses no polling, automatically updates attached button LEDs, and does the 'save / restore' functionality (as well as single / double / triple tap functionality).

RyanE

Ryan, any chance we could get you to release that driver to the dealer base?

[RyanE]

Any dealer who would like a copy of the driver, just PM me in the Official Control4 forums (forums.control4.com).

RyanE