Illinois electricity utility Commonwealth Edison Co. (ComEd) is offering a few tips about how to avoid a rare, but important problem reported by a few of its customers– people impersonating ComEd employees for personal gain.

There have been less than 30 reported incidents in which individuals have shown up at customers' homes or businesses claiming to be from ComEd but, in reality, are unaffiliated with the utility. The small number of impersonators have reportedly tried to assert their fake ComEd identities to get access to customers’ personal information, but ComEd says there are a few things to watch for, and a few things customers can double-check, that make it easy to avoid problems with ComEd impersonators:

• Customers should always ask to see a company photo ID before allowing any ComEd utility worker into their home or business
• ComEd employees never ask for cash payments or personal banking information, such as credit card numbers, so you should never pay on-site for services
• ComEd employees don’t engage in telemarketing activities or door-to-door sales activities
• If anyone comes to your home or business wearing clothing with old or defaced company logos, make sure to double-check their authenticity by asking to see a company photo ID — and if you have any doubt, don’t let the individuals into your home
• Customers can verify if a ComEd worker is in the neighborhood by calling toll-free 800-EDISON-1 (800-334-7661)

ComEd said that customers who believe they’ve had a run-in with an impersonator should call the police and report the incident.

Sources

“ComEd Warns Customers of Impersonation Scams,” Morton Grove Champion, March 26, 2012.

It’s May, which means it’s time to start thinking about things you can do to cut your energy use this summer and save money off utility bills. If you’re into energy-efficiency, then you probably already know about how you can save energy by installing energy-efficient lighting or washing your clothes in cold water. But there’s also something you can do to your roof that can have a big impact on your cooling costs, and we’re not talking about installing a radiant barrier.

We’re talking about cool roofs, those white-painted roofs you may have seen if you’ve ever been to the Mediterranean or watched a program about it on television. Cool roofs have been used to cool homes since ancient times in places like Greece and are becoming popular here in the U.S. in places like New York, California and Hawaii. Cool roofs offer several benefits:

• Reduce your monthly electric bills by decreasing the need to use your air conditioner to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature
• Improve the comfort of spaces in your home that aren’t air conditioned
• Extend the life of your roof by decreasing its average operating temperature

But making your roof cool isn’t just about painting it white. In fact, there are all sorts of ways to turn your home’s roof into a cool roof, as well as a few questions you should ask to make sure a cool roof is right for you.

For more information about whether you should upgrade to a cool roof and what your options are, contact a cool roof professional in your area.

Do you already have a cool roof? Drop us a line in the comments below and let us know what you did and how it’s working for you.

Sources

U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, “Cool Roofs.”

The Mean Green just got a bit nicer to owners of electric vehicles.

The University of North Texas campus is getting six new EV charging stations, thanks to the school’s We Mean Green Fund (WMGF), Office of Sustainability and partner ECOtality. The charging stations, each equipped with a 60-inch charger and a handicap-accessible charger, will be installed at the Radio, Television, and Film Building; the Murchison Performing Arts Center; and Wooten Hall.

UNT joins the University of Texas at Arlington; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Colorado, Boulder; and Vanderbilt University as the only colleges in the nation with EV-charging capabilities.

Helen Bailey is UNT’s director of facility management and construction, and the University’s facilities representative for the WMGF subcommittee that green-lit the project. Bailey said she hopes the charging stations will encourage more people in the Denton, Texas area to invest in more hybrid and EV automobiles.

Sources

“UNT to Add Six Electrical Vehicle Charging Stations,” North Texas Daily, March 29, 2012.

In terms of gadgets that can reduce your energy use and help you save money on monthly utility bills, the Nest Learning Thermostat is one of the coolest. And it just got cooler.

Nest Labs announced the release of what is essentially version 2.0 of its wireless smart thermostat’s software, which can be accessed by an Internet-connected Web browser or by apps on mobile devices using Apple’s iOS operating system or Google’s Android operating system.

The Nest thermostat uses a person’s temperature settings to “learn” about heating and cooling habits and preferences so it can “auto-program” itself. The software upgrade enables the thermostat to present history data over 10 days, generate monthly reports, communicate when heating and cooling systems are turned on and show if setting changes were cause by the weather, a manual adjustment or an auto-away setting.

According to Nest Labs, the software upgrade will help thermostat users better understand how changes to temperature settings affect energy use. One cool feature of the upgrade, called Airwave, keeps an air conditioner fan running, instead of both the fan and the compressor, to keep cool air circulating and reduce energy use. According to Nest Labs, the feature can reduce electricity use by 30 percent for people in dry climates.

An EPA study found that while programmable thermostats can result in energy savings of 20 percent to 30 percent, the study found that only about 10 percent of people who have programmable thermostats program them. In a Nest Labs survey, however, the company found that almost all users of its learning thermostat use its automatic setback feature. The company says that’s because the thermostat only has to be used manually for a few days before beginning to program its own setback based on user preferences.

Do you use a programmable thermostat? If so, do you program it? If not, why?

Sources

“Nest's Smart Thermostat Chills Out With New A/C Feature,” CNET, April 5, 2012.

Thanks to one UCLA scientist, the future of solar power may be more flexible than you had imagined.

Yang Yang, a researcher with the university’s School of Engineering, announced on Feb. 13 that he had set a new power-conversion world record for his signature brand of cheap, flexible organic polymer solar cells. After integrating a new infrared-absorbing material into the polymer, Yang was able to record a power-conversion efficiency of 10.6 percent. The new world record, which was certified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, eclipsed Yang’s previous organic polymer power-conversion efficiency world record of 8.62 percent set in July 2011.

Yang says that in five years, he fully expects to increase his solar cells’ efficiency to 15 or 20 percent, which would result in solar cells strong enough to power cars and cell phones. And since the organic polymer solar cells can be manufactured in thin, bendable sheets, the possibilities for use are almost endless. Not only could they be cut and pasted on an electric car’s roof or the back of a cell phone, but they could be hung in front of windows like roll-down shades or stuck on house rooftops.

Personally, we’re already looking forward to the rolled-up solar cell sheet that we can stick in the trunk of our car for instant battery power wherever we go. A few universal adapters that connect the sheet to the battery compartments or recharging ports in consumer electronics and the possibilities really will be endless.

Sources

“UCLA Scientists Invent Cheap, Bendy Solar Panels That Could Charge Your Car, Phone,” LA Weekly, Feb. 13, 2012.

“UCLA Engineers Create Tandem Polymer Solar Cells That Set Record For Energy-Conversion,” UCLA press release, Feb. 13, 2012.

Connecticut Light & Power (CL&P) has kicked off a campaign to trim trees in Greenwich, Conn. to help prevent power outages in the city from storm-related damage.

The electricity utility’s $600,000 tree trimming project began in March and is expected to be completed by the end of the year. The focus of the effort will be on trimming trees back to help prevent damage to power lines and other electrical equipment from falling tree limbs – the number one cause of power outages. The project will involve about a quarter of CL&P’s power lines in Greenwich. Trimming will take place primarily south of Route 1; in the Lake Avenue area between Round Hill Road and the Merritt Parkway; and in the Valley Road, Cat Rock Road and Cognewaugh Road neighborhoods.

Additional, or “enhanced,” tree trimming will also be conducted in areas that have experienced tree-related power outages in the past. The actual trimming will be performed by crews from Lewis Tree Service Inc.

For a list of affected streets, CL&P electricity customers can visit www.clpbringspower.com and click on the “Vegetation Management” link.

For more information or to ask questions, customers can call CL&P’s Doug Pistawka at 860.665.6146 or Lewis Tree Service’s Brian Fuegen at 860.818.3818.

Sources

“CL&P Trims Trees in Greenwich to Avert Outages,” The Daily Greenwich, March 27, 2012.

Imagine this scenario: You’re out and about around town when suddenly your cell phone beeps or vibrates in your pocket. Thinking you’ve got a call or a text, you grab your phone only to realize that it isn’t a friend trying to contact you. It’s your phone. Letting you know that its battery is running out of juice. You realize you’re not going to be anywhere near a charger anytime soon, and it becomes clear that your fate is sealed. Your phone is going to die. And there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

While such a bleak scenario may seem like a nightmare to you, it’s the stuff of dreams for a pair of Manhattan entrepreneurs. The duo invented Juicebox, a simple, public credit-card-operated phone charging station that could forever put an end to the dangers of hitting the town without a fully-charged phone.

For a flat fee of $2, you can charge your phone for an unlimited time in one of these cool-looking boxes, which are incredibly easy to use. Just swipe a credit card and one of several locked compartments pops open. Inside are various charging connections that are compatible with all major phone manufacturers. Plug your phone in, close the door, and your phone happily charges away, safe in its own little compartment, which stays locked until you come back and swipe your card again. Then the compartment pops back open and you grab your phone, empowered with a full bevy of social mobility that only a fully-charged battery can provide.

Juiceboxes can be installed anywhere: restaurants, movie theaters, malls, bowling alleys, you name it. To encourage venue owners to adopt the devices, the company behind Juicebox designed them to look more like good-looking pieces of furniture than out-of-place kiosks. The company also decided it would install them for free. Since no ultra-modern electronic device comes without its own ability to communicate, Juiceboxes are also equipped with 4G connections that alert headquarters when they need maintenance.

We can’t wait to see Juiceboxes start popping up at our favorite places. In our hyper-connected and always-on world, a couple of bucks seems like a small price to pay to stay up and running when your phone’s battery starts running out.

Sources

“Juicebox Wants to Be Your Phone Charger Away From Home,” Mashable, Jan. 27, 2012.

If you think the all-electric Nissan Leaf is a super fuel-efficient car (on account of the fact that it doesn’t actually use any gas) you’d be right. But if you think it’s the most fuel-efficient 2012 model you can buy, you’d be wrong. That designation goes to the diminutive 2012 Mitsubishi i-MiEV, a mighty mouse of an all-electric car that gets the equivalent of 112 miles to the gallon.

Miles to the what? You heard right. To make sure that its list is able to evaluate gas cars, hybrid cars, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) and electric vehicles (EV) equally, the Department of Energy compared fuel costs with the assumption that a gallon of gas is equivalent to 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity.

It’s no surprise that the top fuel-sippers of 2012 don’t actually sip any fuel at all, or that there are no gas-only cars on the list, but here’s a breakdown of the top 10 so you clearly see how the rest of the best stack up.

1. Mitsubishi i-MiEV

Engine: EV

Mileage: City 126 / Highway 99 / Combined 112

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: 90 cents

Annual Fuel Cost: $540

2. Nissan Leaf

Engine: EV

Mileage: City 106 / Highway 92 / Combined 99

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $1.02

Annual Fuel Cost: $612

3. Ford/Azure Dynamics Transit Connect Van/Wagon

Engine: EV

Mileage: City 62 / Highway 62 / Combined 62

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $1.62

Annual Fuel Cost: $972

4. Chevy Volt*

Engine: PHEV

Mileage: City 58 / Highway 62 / Combined 60

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $1.08 (elec. only), $2.54 (gas only)

Annual Fuel Cost: $648 (elec. only), $1,524 (gas only)

* Individual driving habits, especially range, make it difficult to determine average fuel costs. As a result, the DOE has separated electricity and gas costs for the Volt.

5. Toyota Prius c

Engine: Hybrid

Mileage: City 53 / Highway 46 / Combined 50

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $1.74

Annual Fuel Cost: $1,044

6. Toyota Prius

Engine: Hybrid

Mileage: City 51 / Highway 48 / Combined 50

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $1.74

Annual Fuel Cost: $1,044

7. Honda Civic Hybrid

Engine: Hybrid

Mileage: City 44 / Highway 44 / Combined 44

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $1.98

Annual Fuel Cost: $1,186

8. Toyota Prius V

Engine: Hybrid

Mileage: City 44 / Highway 40 / Combined 42

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $2.07

Annual Fuel Cost: $1,243

9. Lexus CT 200h

Engine: Hybrid

Mileage: City 43 / Highway 40 / Combined 42

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $2.07

Annual Fuel Cost: $1,243

10. Honda Insight

Engine: Hybrid

Mileage: City 41 / Highway 44 / Combined 42

Cost to Drive 25 Miles: $2.07

Annual Fuel Cost: $1,243

Do you drive one of the cars on this list? Let us know what kind of gas mileage you really get.

Sources

U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Transportation & Air Quality, “Fueleconomy.gov’s Top Ten.”

If one company’s vision of the future comes to pass, all of the electronic devices we use in our lives — from cell phones to computers to televisions to electric cars — will be powered or charged without having to use a single wire, power cord or plug.

What’s cooler than that, you ask? Well, you know those wireless cell phone chargers that simply have you rest your phone on top of them to transfer electricity? How about the ability to power and charge electronic devices without having to make any physical contact at all?

That’s the goal shared by the folks at WiTricity, a Massachusetts–based startup that has developed a pretty cutting edge way of transmitting electricity from a power source to an electronic device over short distances. The technology uses magnetic fields to transfer electricity between two points in a process called resonance. While you can’t use WiTricity’s technology to transfer electricity over long distances, electricity can be transferred from far enough away to do away with wires, cords and plugs.

The technology is so promising that WiTricity has already reached agreements with two significant companies, MediaTek and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation, to jointly develop power and charging technologies for wireless communications, digital multimedia and electric vehicles.

We really like the idea of being able to park electric vehicles in normal-looking parking spaces and recharge them from a device hidden under the ground; not having to worry about big, anaconda-like vehicle recharging cords is definitely a plus. According to Mitsubishi, WiTricity’s magnetic resonance wireless charging system can already deliver up to 3.3 kilowatts of charging power over 20 centimeters, or about eight inches, with an efficiency of more than 90 percent. While that’s actually a pretty impressive first step, we can only imagine where this technology might be after a few years of development in collaboration with major tech players.

We also really like the idea of being able to hang our widescreen LCD TV in the middle of our wall without having to drill a lot of holes or run power cords down the wall like some sort of robotic vine forest. What’s the next step? Being able to dump all our audio and video cables and cords when somebody develops streaming capabilities for all of our audio, video and data. Now that would be wireless.

Sources

“MediaTek Inc. Signs Technology Transfer and License Agreement with WiTricity Corp. for Wireless Charging,” MediaTek press release, July 11, 2011.

“WiTricity Corporation, IHI Corporation, and Mitsubishi Motors Corporation Combine to Develop Easily Deployable Wireless Charging Systems for Electric Vehicles,” Mitsubishi Motors Corporation press release, Sept. 27, 2011.

WiTricity, “WiTricity Technology: The Basics.”

Did you know that when you use hot water in your home, you’re wasting 80–90 percent of the energy used to heat that water? Your water heater spends natural gas or electricity — and you spend money — heating water that shoots right out of a shower or a faucet and right down the drain, taking most of its heat energy with it. But, with the right drain-water heat recovery system, you can put that used hot water right back to work for you.

What is a Drain-Water Heat Recovery System?

Drain-water, or greywater, heat recovery systems capture the energy of hot water as it’s discarded down drains and use that captured energy to heat incoming cold water so your water heater doesn’t have to work as hard. That’s why drain-water heat recovery systems help you save money on energy costs.

How does a Drain-Water Heat Recovery System work?

Drain-water heat recovery systems work well with all kinds of water heaters but especially with tankless on-demand and solar water heaters. There are two kinds of drain-water heat recovery systems: storage-type systems and non-storage systems.

Storage-type systems typically have three parts: 1) a tank containing a reservoir of clean water, 2) a drain water coil at the bottom of the tank and 3) a water heater intake coil at the top of the tank. As hot drain water flows through the spiral tube at the bottom of the reservoir tank it warms the tank’s water. The warmed water rises to the top of the tank, which contains a preheating coil. The preheating coil feeds intake water from your house’s main line to your water heater. Before cold water in your main line reaches your water heater, it passes through the coil at the top of the tank, where it’s preheated. As a result, whenever you use hot water in your home, your water heater uses less energy to bring new intake water up to the desired temperature.

Non-storage systems typically replace a section of your main waste drain with a copper heat exchanger. As hot water flows down the waste drain, it passes through the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is wrapped around the main water intake line prior to your water heater and warms the cold intake water before it reaches your water heater. And since the water is partially preheated by the time it reaches your water heater, just as it is with a storage-type system, your water reaches your desired temperature while using less energy.

Drain-water heat recovery systems also have the added benefit of extending water heating capacity, which can be a big improvement if you have an undersized water heater or several family members tend to take back-to-back showers.

What’s the Payback Period?

Based on information from the U.S. Department of Energy, prices for drain-water heat recovery systems range from about $300 to $500. Add the cost of professional installation by a qualified plumbing and heating contractor, and you’re looking at a payback period from about 2.5 to 7 years, depending on how much you use the system.

Sources

U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, “Drain-Water Heat Recovery.”