Heat!!!!!

[PinHead]

Ouch, I may have to move to Alaska and fold there.

[Jesse_V]

Ouch, I may have to move to Alaska and fold there.

Trust me, cooling your system is easy here, even during the summer. Outdoor temperatures range between -35F during the winter to 75F in the summer. Of course the downside is that you have to fend off all the roaming moose and grizzlie bears.

[k1wi]

Yeah, I guess that is the upside of my location - no need for expensive AC and no moose and bears roaming around. What I pay in higher power prices I save to a degree in AC costs, which I guess if you're relying on to dump heat would go some way to reducing the difference. As to the security from a lack of dangerous wildlife - how do you price a sense of safety?

[bruce]

In my part of the country, the power company has changed how they calculate on_peal/off_peak several times over the past few years. My neighbor can't even sign up for the rate plan that I have which considers 10am to 6pm on-peak except on weekends or holidays. Rates also change depending on summer vs. winter. Overall, the increase or decrease isn't that big a percentage depending on time-of-day or season but there are still large variations based on total monthly usage.

The rates that folks can sign up for today have larger variations based on time-of-day. As you might expect, rates keep going up, too. THe people who sell solar panels to homeowners have to add in an estimate for the inflation factor when they explain how long it will take you to pay off their installation. The bottom line, though, is that they do not sell you a system which will zero out your power bill, but rather one that gets you out of the highest rate tiers if your total power usage is high.

[k1wi]

THe people who sell solar panels to homeowners have to add in an estimate for the inflation factor when they explain how long it will take you to pay off their installation. The bottom line, though, is that they do not sell you a system which will zero out your power bill, but rather one that gets you out of the highest rate tiers if your total power usage is high.

I am quite interested in combining battery backed solar with grid tie in, the idea being that you use a battery management system to store power (instead of selling it back to the grid) and then run it down during peak times. I don't think it's fiscally viable yet as each 50% battery cycle* would need to save 50c in power to cover the costs of the batteries alone in order to take that route (add to that whatever would have otherwise been sold back at the lower rate). At the moment I calculate the cost of 50c for an optimum 50% battery cycle (0.5 kWh) vs. a cost of 11c purchased/sold off the grid at a peak variable rate.

Such a system would have additional benefits in terms of providing reserve power for blackouts, (even when the batteries are 'empty' @ 50% by allowing an 80% cycle for essential appliances), and allow a dedicated Direct Current network (for LED lighting and picoPSUs). In areas of high non-renewable generation, it'd also be more eco-friendly, depending on the amount of CO2 of the products lifecycle. So perhaps if back-up storage was desired then such a system could offset some of the costs...

*Optimum draw down for long term use.

[jrweiss]

If you run the GPU client, first finish off any GPU WUs, then shift to an SMP WU if you don't have one running. The heavy-duty GPUs that garner all those points use a LOT of electricity and generate a LOT of heat -- upwards of 400 Watts! CPUs generally top out at 135 Watts, and can use as little as half that. My new 17-3770S Ivy Bridge uses only 66 Watts max...

[bruce]

If you run the GPU client, first finish off any GPU WUs, then shift to an SMP WU if you don't have one running. The heavy-duty GPUs that garner all those points use a LOT of electricity and generate a LOT of heat -- upwards of 400 Watts! CPUs generally top out at 135 Watts, and can use as little as half that. My new 17-3770S Ivy Bridge uses only 66 Watts max...

Good suggestion

Where I live (Southern California, near enough to the Ocean that it rarely stays hot at night) in the summer I open all the windows at dusk and close them early in the morning (Older house with no Air Conditioner). On those few nights per year when it's too hot to sleep, the FIRST thing I do is shut down my GPUs, saving both excess heat and electricity. My SMP WUs keep running except in really exceptional cases. YMMV.