ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Power Loss in Terminations

Ok, cleaning up connections will reduce voltage drop and power loss. Yet, taking the customer's power bill for the past year to establish a basis for comparisons will necessarily include motor starting loads...which disproportionately increase the overall yearly power consumption. So, even if there was just 1% improvement at the connections, based on the steady state "before and after" voltage and current measurements, that 1% savings would be applied (per contract) to the real world overall bill.

Assuming overall bill is 10% higher than the steady state measurements would predict...due to the disproportionate peak loading rates from heavy load startups, and the electrical steady state measurements don't consider that fact...then the "savings" would be inflated. The 1% savings would be multiplied by the starting load peak demand increased costs, so we end up with 1 X 10 = 10% apparent "savings".

Rather ingenious, I'd say..turning a steady state 1% into an inflated 10% figure for that portion of the bill attributed to heavier loads.

In simplified terms, lets say the steady state power consumption figures out to cost $100,000. But the yearly basis shows a power consumption that comes to $110,000 (because of the higher rates caused by heavy load demands ). Now I come along and clean up the connections and my measurements indicate that I have just decreased steady state estimated power consumption by 1%, a saving of $1,000. But, if I apply that 1% to the real world $110,000 figure, it results in $1,100. So, if I screen out the potential clients who have steady loads, and only work for those who have whopping big rate increases because they can't even out their energy consumption, then I can make it profitable to go through the effort to reconnect their terminations. Couple this with a good sales pitch so that other spin-off projects fall my way, it might turn out to be a pretty good business plan.


[This message has been edited by Elzappr (edited 04-19-2003).]

Once again, it almost looks like the return of DSpar.


[This message has been edited by electure (edited 04-20-2003).]

electure,
Who?

Just buy a bottle of Baby Oil add some cloves to give it that mechanical smell and there you go. This topic was better then Saturday Night Live.

Electro2> if you are still around, have you obtained or requested UL listing for your product? I'm not debating the merits of your product, but if it is legal to use. If i went and stuck peanut butter in all my electrical connections and one of them caught on fire, i'm pretty sure i'd be held responsible, since peanut butter is definately not UL listed for electrical work.
Now i am not compairing your product to peanut butter, or trying to poke fun at it, i'm just wondering

NOBODY is putting anything on my wires that isn't UL listed!!!!
So- where's the listing?

John
Excellant Point !!!!

Wm.Colt

John, I guess that means I can't bring one of my non-UL listed radios from home and plug it into a socket at your shop....

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 04-23-2003).]

A .01 ohm connection at 30 amps equates to a .3 volt drop dissipating 9 watts.

A .005 ohm connection at 30 amps equates to a .15 volt drop dissipating 4.5 watts.

If you could save 4.5 Watts on 100 connections, that would be 324 kilowatt hours per month saved. At $0.15 per KWH, it amounts to $49 per month saved. That's only at 30 amps. Double the current, and now you are talking 18 watts savings per connection, 1350 KWH and $202 saved at $0.15 per KWH.

Obviously, actual savings would depend on how bad the original connections and wiring were. I don't see this as a scam at all. Performance based contracting means you have to perform as claimed or not profit as desired (minus any shenanigans in the performance measurements). Do some calculations with resistance figures and electric rates you think are realistic. 0.05 ohms may be a little high for just a termination (without including wiring). There could be savings in prevented equipment damage as well. Think of how much safer homes would be if all household electrical connections got this kind of once-over by electricians vs installing AFCIs.

electech,
Can you save some money with better connections? Of course the answer is yes, but no where near the 15% to 20% that they are claiming. In your example with the 30 amp load and assuming that it is only a 120 volt circuit, the total load would be 3600 watts, you are saving 4.5 watts or 0.125%. That is a savings that is more than 100 times less than what is claimed for this product. I would also be surprised if a good connection had more resistance than a foot or two of the wire that is being connected. In this case, assuming a #10 conductor, I would expect that the connection resistance would be 0.001 to 0.002 ohms.
Don