IDT Energy - Affordable Clean Energy » energy

Department of Energy Awards Money for Energy Research Projects

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 09:17:02 +0000

In recent exciting energy news, the Department of Energy has just awarded $92 million for groundbreaking energy research projects. These awards will accelerate innovation in clean energy technologies, increase America’s competitiveness and create new jobs. The funding will help 43 cutting-edge research projects to improve how the U.S. uses and produces energy. Learn more about these projects and the money that they have just been awarded.

Five Fast Tips for Energy Savings

admin — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 08:17:31 +0000

Certainly, you can look into saving energy by selecting a new energy supplier. This is true if you live in areas that have become deregulated like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Here, we list five other ideas to quickly and easily help you to save on your home energy costs.

1. Turn down that thermostat. Reducing your room temperature by as little as 1 degree Celsius can cut your heating bills by as much as 10%. If you have a programmer, make sure to only set your heating and hot water to come on when you need them to be one, rather than having them on all the time.

2. Keep your water cylinder thermostat to 60 degrees Celsius or 140 degrees Fahrenheit or less.

3. Purchase curtains, if you don’t have them already, and close them in the evening to keep heat from escaping through the windows. Check for draughts around your windows and doors and get them sealed.

4. Get in the habit of turning off the lights when you exit a room. This can really make a difference over the long term.

5. Appliances take up electricity, even when you aren’t using them. Turn off computers, mobile phones and other appliances when they aren’t in use, rather than leaving them on standby.

SERIES/PARALLEL VS. BUSS

admin — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:41:39 +0000

It’s almost common knowledge that the more batteries you have in parallel, the more difficult it is to evenly charge them. This is why we prefer the buss bar method of connecting batteries instead of the ol’ series-parallel method. Using buss bars distributes what I like to call, charge/discharge impact over more batteries so that they all are treated as equally and fairly as possible. Charge/discharge impact is the extra use and abuse of the batteries that the leads connect to for inputting and outputting power. The thing to understand here is that the batteries connected to the leads do most of the work, they cycle deeper and more frequently, while the interior batteries just replace what was consumed from the battery ahead of it. See the diagram below for a demonstration of this idea.