Talk:Negawatt market

Lighting efficiency inconsistencies

The incandescent light bulb article has different efficiency numbers. On that page, LEDs have 8-15% efficiency (not 80-90%), incandescents 2-4% (not 10%), xenon arc lamps 4-22%. These numbers are obtained by dividing the lumens/watt with the maximum 683 lm/W possible. Of course almost lamps are near 100% efficient at heating a room, via thermal conduction+radiation - what doesn't get converted into visible light, gets converted into heat, and even visible light ultimately gets absorbed and converted into heat.

Why is the lighting the only hard data given, but then when I go look to see where the 80-90% LED numbers are obtained from, I can't find a reference? Can you point me to a reference for those numbers? Same data shown on the electrical_efficiency page. And what's that electric kettle remark doing there. Sillybilly 16:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• Please see the talk:electrical efficiency page for more on this. I found the user who came up with these numbers. Sillybilly 21:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Basic definition

In the first paragraph, it is stated that Amory Lovins coined the term negawatt to describe electricity that wasn't created due to energy efficiency. I don't know if that is an exact quotation from Lovins, but it doesn't seem very accurate to me. I propose the phrase: electricity that wasn't consumed due to energy efficience measures that reduce demand. Texteditor (talk) 18:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I Don't "Get" the Concept

I don't understand what the real market difference is between the negawatt practice on the one hand and the everyday practice that exists now where consumer A invests in efficiencies in order to save on her electric bill, which frees up more capacity for consumer B to buy. The negawatt concept seems to be the same thing, just with extra red tape and transaction costs. Only if the overall supply of electricity is artificially capped is there any real difference, but to do so is to discriminate against "new" consumers to the advantage of "existing" consumers. i.e. consumer A moves into the state, but has to buy capacity from consumer B who was already living there. The latter approach would involve just tranferring wealth from one group of people to another and creating artificial scarcity. Anharmyenone 17:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

You have spotted the idea. It depends on the selling price of electricity being held below the marginal cost of additional supply, often combined with a regulatory system which restricts potential expansion of capacity. In such circumstances it may be cheaper for some consumers to pay other consumers not to consume. But if it has the potential to work in a particular situation then it is a clear indication of regulatory failure. --Henrygb 00:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

> Trying to understand the concept myself. Referring to Anharmyenone's comment, isn't the point of difference the fact that, in a constrained system, consumer A potentially receives an explicit 'benefit' from a supplier for freeing up capacity? If this is the case, then wouldn't there be an incentive to continue to invest in energy efficiencies until the MC of doing so = the marginal benefit to the supplier of freeing capacity?

If A can get B to use less,and thus keep down the price, then yippee for A. But this principle doesn't explain how it deals with Jevon's paradox. If A uses less energy and gets B to use less, and the cost of energy is kept low, then everyone knows they can use more (think gas prices, getting people to switch from SUVs to Civics, price goes down a bit, everyone drives more with a sigh of relief). Also, I came here to add the history of the word, and found that my reference is the only one (there are some external links and PDFs already). Gaviidae 14:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

Moved text from articles

The following text belongs on a page about energy efficiency generally; it is more strongly tied to that than to negawatts. PRRfan (talk) 16:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Extended content

Technology or installation limitations Compact fluorescent light bulbs Main article: Compact fluorescent light bulb § Design compromises and challenges While Compact fluorescent light bulbs can fit into any socket designed for traditional incandescent bulbs, some lighting fixtures tuck the socket into spaces too compact for CF bulbs, which are still slightly larger than traditional lights. In an initial house construction, this issue can be completely avoided by taking caution when purchasing or designing light fixtures. Also, most CF bulbs require additional electronics in order to work with standard dimmer switches or timers. Geothermal Heat Pumps The single greatest issue for GHPs are the installation requirements. They are as follows: Available land for installation: Vertical bore systems avoid this as they only need 20ft between wells/columns. Horizontal systems require substantially more space. Structure size: As the house or business increases in size substantially, there is a diminishing return on investment (ROI) as there is the probability that the installed system will require 2 or more main system units as well as additional/duplicate system management implements such as thermostats. Heat source/Cooling sink: Impacted mostly by climate, but occasionally by geologic conditions. The ground must have a reasonable constant temperature and there needs to be as high a surface contact as possible for heat exchange to actually take place. This is usually facilitated by constantly introducing water into the horizontal field or in vertical systems by using a desiccant like montmorillonite that absorbs naturally present/flowing water during the early life of the installation. Lighting Type : Energy to Lighting Efficiency Incandescent light bulb: 5%-10% (including halogen lamps). Fluorescent light bulb: 20%-40% (depending on the exact type). LED lamp: 15%-45% (depending on the exact type). Heating/Cooling/Hot water Geothermal exchange heat pump: From 250% to 350% and higher in some experimental designs. Smart control Includes: Motion sensor light switches and outdoor lights Timer Light Switches Fully programmable thermostats Whole home computer controlled intelligent device management/automation. See Home automation Geothermal exchange heat pump (GHP) In theory, Heat Pumps (the category also includes air conditioners) are producing heat (or removing heat and placing it elsewhere) at a rate in excess of 100%. This means that there is more heat energy moved around than it would take to produce the same heat energy with an electric element. The reference to the electric element is important as electric heat is accepted as 100% efficient. Due to the laws of thermodynamics, the greater the extreme in temperature, the faster the movement of heat energy. With this in mind, GHPs are always working with a reasonable to excellent difference in temperature between the coolant and the ground. GHPs that are based on direct expansion technology are usually the most efficient due to the nature of a device that has fewer transitional stages. The previous link shows that a DX heatpump can, in ideal conditions, achieve a COP (Coefficient of Performance) as high as 3.8 or 380% efficient. In a more fundamental form, this means that if you were to compare electric to a DX GHP, you would only have to spend, in ideal conditions, 26% of what you would have to spend to heat with electric baseboards. Depending on when one installs a GHP (during initial construction or in a retrofit), you will experience a different ROI. Additional sources of variability are: The cost of electricity, local tax rates, the heating and cooling needs based on geographic location and the variability of installation costs from the contractor. Initial installations can experience a ROI as short as three years and as long as seven years. As an example, the cost of power in the province of New Brunswick, Canada has risen so high that the ROI is easily achieved in less than five years. An additional note on initial installation, the cost to be factored against the reduced energy costs is the difference in cost between the systems that are being considered as a heating/cooling solution. A retrofit installation typically has a larger cost of implementation and therefore will have a longer ROI. The cost of such an endeavor is too variable to post extensive or even expected ROIs for every situation, proceed knowing that the closer a house or structure is to modern forced air standards, the closer to initial construction the ROI will be. Beyond DX technology, classical closed loop liquid coolant GHPs are easily capable of reaching the same efficiencies. The only detractor is the restrictions on construction that may present themselves using this subform of heat transfer.

References

School project edits

In the next few days this page will soon get a significant revision and subsequent editing from students participating in the Public Policy Initiative. This article was chosen because it is missing content or sourcing and has been relatively innactive. Their draft articles are being formed in their user space and will be transfered here. Links to the drafts can be found at Wikipedia:WikiProject United States Public Policy/Courses/Political Economy of Technology and Science fall 2010. I will not be allowing students to that first initial transfer unless their article has been significantly improved in references and content. Please provide comments on the significant revisions and help the students improve the Wikipedia formatting. However, I would greatly appreciate that any major content changes be suggested to the students on the talk page so that they get the experience editing collaboratively and through consensus and feedback. The final date for the project is Friday December 10, expect significant editing from now until then. Thank you.

If you have any questions feel free to raise them here or on my talk page, Myself and other WP:Online Ambassadors will be monitoring their edits, so we will also be able to help fix issues on the pages, Sadads (talk) 01:19, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Expansion

Almost all of the recent expansion fails WP:NPOV, being written from the point of view that this is better than anything else that can be done. It's also, at least in part, inaccurate, as it isn't a "unit" of power. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 10:39, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Could you provide examples of sources which uses that other POV? As far as I can tell, no one has really attacked it in a reliable forum. how would you suggest redefining the concept in the lead? Sadads (talk) 17:48, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

I added "theoretical" to the definition. Although negawatts are not a unit of power themselves, they are a theoretical unit of measurement (of power) saved. Do you have any specific sections in mind that need improvements to accomplish the WP:NPOV? Mulforel (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:19, 7 December 2010 (UTC).

Strongly POV

"The reduction of the amount of energy that a region emits can slowly separate a nation from a high energy consumption of oil."

In reality not one single country on earth has so little grasp of the real world consequences to want or try to do this. Its only the aim of a strongly political element of society.

"The desire to become a less energy dependent country may promote behavioral changes and a different societal outlook on energy usage. These potential societal perspective changes could lead to an overall more sustainable country."

Very POV

"The reduced consumption of energy would also produce less Greenhouse gases, which could have positive outcomes on the economy,"

In reality the reduced consumption of energy has strong negative outcomes on a nation's economy. The indirect putative possible consequences on the economy of greenhouse gas changes are miniscule in comparison, as well as far from certain. Tabby (talk) 10:37, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Incoherent units

This article (and/or possibly the original concept itself) repeatedly confuses energy and power. The first sentence reads "Negawatt power is a theoretical unit of power representing an amount of energy (measured in watts) saved" - so which is it, power or energy? It is nonsense to call it a theoretical unit of power and then say that it represents an amount of energy; it is even worse to then compound the error by saying that this "amount of energy" is measured in watts. There are many other examples throughout the article.

If this confusion is present in the original work that introduced 'negawatts' to the world, then this article should highlight the problem and explain the difference between power and energy. If the confusion only exists in this article, then it needs to be thoroughly reviewed and updated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.36.138 (talk) 09:17, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, it is hopelessly confused. I did change some instances of such confusion. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The mostly highly cited paper on this topic: "What does a negawatt really cost? Evidence from utility conservation programs" see preprint, explains that the term "negawatt" is commonly used to refer to both electric capacity and energy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lmatt (talk • contribs) 13:06, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

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date for origin of 'negawatt'

The text says "Lovins saw a typo — "negawatt" instead of "megawatt" — in a Colorado Public Utilities Commission report in 1989."

"Saving Gigabucks with Negawatts" came out in 1985.

He could not have gotten the title of his 1985 book after reading a CO PUC in 1989. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.248.192.122 (talk) 12:15, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

I have added the link to the source. 1989 is when Lovins stated that he popularized the typo. The PUC report - and the popularization - was definitely earlier than that. Викидим (talk) 03:39, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

Neologism?

Is the term 'negawatt' a neologism?

I will add link to sources that use the term below to help make a decision:

• [4]
• [5]
• [6]
• [7]
• [8]
• [https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-real-life-example-of-a-single-point-beneficial-mutation-in-typography/
• [9]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Lmatt (talk • contribs)

Demand response

The term usually associated with the most of the material in this article is "demand response". An explicit link in the first sentence is needed. Perhaps, the text can be trimmed somewhat to eliminate the obvious duplication. Викидим (talk) 03:44, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

If my proposal to merge to Demand response had been accepted I think it would have been likely someone would have trimmed after merging - I sometimes do that myself after merging Chidgk1 (talk) 14:29, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Could you point me to the merge proposal? TIA, Викидим (talk) 21:08, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Demand response#Merge Negawatt market into here? It seems the opposition was mostly due to the amount of duplication or rubbish here. If you would like to drastically shorten this article beforehand I will be happy to propose again and trim more after the merge Chidgk1 (talk) 12:14, 5 January 2023 (UTC)