Future: DC yes, AC no?

I've always admired people who live off grid or who use minimal power. DC devices can be rugged since they are designed for maritime or mountain cabin use. Streams and compost piles can generate electricity and often inverters are not used.

Appliances were designed to use electricity not to use it wisely. Its time we changed the appliances.

Quote: Nareed

I pay 3.356 pesos

The average in the USA is 12.58 cents per kWh but it ranges from

Your rate of $0.177 per kWh is actually fairly high in the USA, comparable to California. Only 8 states have an average rate above 17 cents

27.35 Hawaii
20.84 Connecticut
20.06 Alaska
19.84 Massachusetts
19.07 Rhode Island
18.80 Maine
18.46 New Hampshire
17.66 California
17.11 Vermont
...
9.14 Louisiana

New England rates are very high, but they don't need air conditioning and almost nobody heats a home with electric as it is too cold.

23.96 Pacific Noncontiguous (Alaska and Hawaii)
19.68 New England
15.43 Middle Atlantic
14.16 Pacific Contiguous
12.94 East North Central
11.72 South Atlantic
11.30 Mountain
11.16 West North Central
10.68 East South Central
10.68 West South Central

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It sounds like you use ~500 kWh per month which is about half the typical American consumption. As you saw, Drich used 3100 kWh last month and possibly double that amount next month.

The most famous electric bill in America was since the release of "An Inconvenient Truth". Al Gore's energy consumption increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. Activists stole his bill from the trash.

Quote: kenarman

Most 12VDC electronics we use today are not designed for a larger capacity 12V service feed. They don't have the fusing or self limiting circuitry to protect themselves from anything but the limited output 'wall wart' they come with.

Other than some environmental activists, there seems to be no interest in this capability. The only standardized plug is designed to fit into the cigarette lighter of a car.


More and more people are installing these plugs, where the USB ports are .7 Amps and 5 volts.

USB 3.0 has multiple power delivery specifications:

10 W: 5 V, 2 A – used in most smartphones and tablets
36 W: 12 V, 3 A
60 W: 20 V, 3 A – used in Chromebook Pixel 2015
100 W: 20 V, 5 A

There is the plan to limit almost all monitors, computers, and stereo equipment to 100 Watts, so that power cords can be dispensed with.

I clicked on the Celilo convertor station near Dalles Oregon, I had to.

When I was in business I contracted and installed the take off tower at Celilo for the second DC line. I even see pictures of the big metal thing we erected. woot woot

Does everything in the house actually run on DC? I can only think of light bulbs at the moment that run right off of AC (no?), although I guess the number of things might surprise me. Plus maybe the various light bulbs run fine directly off DC.

But surely there are plenty of things operating on DC, now connected to AC, that would have to disable internal transformers to run directly off DC?

Quote: Pacomartin

Your rate of $0.177 per kWh is actually fairly high in the USA, comparable to California. Only 8 states have an average rate above 17 cents

To be "fair" I do know that in addition to the electricity I use, I also have to pay for the, oh, millions of illegal electric hook-ups all over everywhere, as well as part of the subsidized rates paid elsewhere.

It sucks.

Quote:

The most famous electric bill in America was since the release of "An Inconvenient Truth". Al Gore's energy consumption increased from an average of 16,200 kWh per month in 2005, to 18,400 kWh per month in 2006. Activists stole his bill from the trash.

But he buys indulgences! :)

This thread would be the perfect opportunity for someone to teach me just wtf electricity is. I've never been able to understand it, though granted I never took any official courses. What work I do with it now is little more than by rote learning. I'd love to actually understand it...

Quote: Face

This thread would be the perfect opportunity for someone to teach me just wtf electricity is.

The simple answer is too simple: loose electrons.

The complex answer is far too complex and I don't understand it myself. I couldn't tell a volt from a watt to save my life, but I think an amp is something like a measure of bandwidth or something. Then there are ohms, which sound as though they should be meditation aids but probably aren't (citation needed). I do know what a hertz is, but it has nothing much to do with electricity and too much to do with electromagnetic waves.

I know it's probably far too complex to ask, but with both kenarman and petro here, and of course the internet incarnate known as Paco, I figured I'd give it a shot.

AC v DC, Volt v watt v amp, I've never gotten my head around any of these. Why does a 10,000v taser just hurt but the 110v out of the wall kills you? Why can my cousin grab an electric fence and reach out to touch people and shock them, whereas I touch an electric fence and wake up 3 min later on the grass? If electricity is loose electrons, what, exactly, is losing them, and how come it doesn't become a different element?

These are questions that keep me up at night. Seriously.

Quote: Face

If electricity is loose electrons, what, exactly, is losing them,

Mostly atoms.

Quote:

and how come it doesn't become a different element?

This I do know. Because the defining aspect of an element is how many protons it has in its nucleus. No amount of adding or stripping electrons can change that. An atom with an extra electron has an electric charge of -1, whilst one with a missing electron has a charge of +1. Both are called ions.