Legend Power Blog

Legend Power: Real World Energy Saving Solutions
By Jonathan T. Orr
MidasLetter.com
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

In the case of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, radically changing our energy consumption patterns and improving efficiencies, the answer is obvious.

Use less power.

The question, in particular for companies involved in manufacturing and other power intensive industries, is how to accomplish this without sacrificing efficiency, increasing costs, or investing in whole new infrastructures that may take years to show clear results and significant savings. Increasingly, whether due to tougher emissions regulations, company vision or simple bottom line, companies will need to greatly reduce their carbon footprints.

There are many ways to do this.

Legend Power Systems Inc. (TSX.V: LPS) has a solution that will make practical sense to anyone: with their own-patented technology they can reduce a company’s energy costs by simply optimizing voltage use. Refreshingly understandable even to a non-expert the process is beautiful in its elegance.

The Electrical Harmonizer-AVR uses a transformer with a set of taps to set the degree of voltage optimization for the incoming power supply. The AVR component enables the taps to automatically change, under load, in response to fluctuations of the power grid. By optimizing the voltage level the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR allows customers to reduce energy consumption, peak demand, greenhouse gas emissions and maintenance costs while improving overall power quality issues.

The fundamental concept of Legend Power’s technology is based on “Conservation Voltage Regulation” (CVR) or Voltage Optimization, which makes the best use of voltage by providing it when you need it and by limiting it when you don’t.

Most companies don’t know that they are consuming, and paying for, electricity that they don’t need. Plus, using operating machinery and lights at their pre-set highest voltage capacity prematurely wears them out, which means shorter lifespans for machinery and more bulb changes for lights.

Legend Power’s Electrical Harmonizer-AVR results have been proven to reduce electricity consumption by 7% to 10% and the findings have been independently verified by BC Hydro.

Unlike many other energy efficiency measures such as lighting retrofits and installing variable frequency drives, the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR has a comprehensive measurement & verification process. After completing an installation, the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR takes energy measurements in bypass mode and in a 6% tap mode. This process allows the customers to see how much energy has actually been saved as a result of using Legend Power for voltage optimization.

Read the full article.

Dave Orton, Vice President of Sales & Marketing at Legend Power, explains the problems with the power grid, including line loss, peak demand and power fluctuation. These three problems come together to create a buffer of unnecessary energy, which results in economic and environmental waste for commercial buildings. Legend Power has developed a solution to the problems of the power grid, the Harmonizer-AVR.

Dr. William Dunford is Legend Power’s Chief Technology Officer and developer of the automatic voltage regulator and an Associate Professor in Electrical Engineering & Power Electronics at UBC.

Dr. Dunford has a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Imperial College, London and a PhD from the University of Toronto. He has also been a faculty member at both institutions. Dr. Dunford’s industrial experience includes periods in the aerospace industry at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (now Qinetiq) and Alcatel Espace. He was also a field engineer for Schlumberger in various locations in the Middle East.

Dr. Dunford has been involved with many research projects in conjunction with companies and government agencies, including a teaching company scheme in the UK. Several of these projects have been related to energy conversion and alternative energy, such as a photovoltaic powered pumping system for African villages and a similar system for watering cattle in British Columbia. Others have involved the design of hardware for industrial and traction applications, such as a drive system for a mining locomotive.

Dr. Dunford has been on Legend Power’s board since 2006 and he was Legend Power’s first webinar speaker on The Effects of Voltage Optimization.

As we mentioned in an earlier blog post, going green isn’t as expensive as we often think.

Results released in November 2009 by Gregory Kats from a two-year independently funded study, (and published in the book Greening Our Built World) provides detailed findings on the costs and financial benefits of building green. According to the study, green buildings cost roughly 2% more to build than conventional buildings. In addition, green buildings reduce energy use by an average of 33%, resulting in significant cost savings.

Similarly, greening your office often means saving money. Last spring, Joel Makower wrote a post in Scientific American, Three Ways to Green Up Your Office on the Cheap, and focused on office improvements “with the biggest bang for the buck.” We agree that these are the areas you should be focusing on.

Paper Use
Our dependence on paper affects the environment more than most of us think. In his post Joel Makower noted that:

A study by the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and Citigroup estimated that the real  price tag of a $2 ream of office paper is 31 times that—$62—when you add in the costs of paper storage, printing, copying, recycling, disposal and postage. So, saving paper has a multiplier effect—and not just financially: The pulp and paper industry is the second-largest consumer of energy in the U.S. and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry.

The good news is that cutting down on paper use is simple — print less, print doubled-sided and recycle.

Travel and Commuting
Travel and commuting still remains one of the most damaging work habits to the environment.

Despite predictions that we would all be telecommuting in the new millennium, most of us are still traveling to the office everyday. But having employees work from home just 1 or 2 days a week can significantly cut down on carbon emissions. Find out how much money you can save your employees and how you can improve the planet with the telecommuting savings calculator.

Business travel is also very damaging and, unfortunately, we don’t seem to be changing our habits. According to a study done last summer, a majority of business travellers (59%) say that environmental concerns have no impact on their travel.

Webinars and online conferences are a great alternative to business travel. Or, if you have to travel, try to combine your trips to lessen the amount of times you travel in a year or buy carbon offsets — this is what Legend Power’s Dave Orton and Erik Wolfe did when they flew to Toronto last month.

Energy and Lighting
Energy use is the largest operating expense for commercial office buildings.

Simply turning off your lights, computers, printers and fax machines can make a huge difference in your energy consumption. A study released last spring reported that:

U.S. workers waste $2.8 billion annually in energy costs by failing to shut off their PCs at the end of the work day. What’s more, machines left on during off hours may emit up to 20 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) this year alone, roughly the equivalent impact of four million cars.

While energy is the largest operating expense, 1/3 of all the energy used in commercial buildings is wasted, which is where energy efficiency measures come in.

Although LEED Lighting retrofits is a popular energy efficiency option, a better option is Legend Power’s Harmonizer-AVR. The Legend Power Harmonizer-AVR adjusts a commercial buildings’ incoming voltage to the optimum operating level for each facility, creating a significant reduction in energy consumption and peak demand.

Have a look at our corporate video to hear what IKEA, Science World, and BC Hydro say firsthand about how effective the Legend Power system is for them.

Watch out for upcoming posts about how we’re staying green at our Legend Power offices and what we’re doing to improve the planet.

As facility managers and electrical engineers in commercial and industrial facilities, we are often asked to consider power conservation. We are used to thinking of this issue in terms of lights, air conditioning motors, industrial motors and other devices that consume electricity running at 120 volts (or a multiple of that). However, all of these devices are built to withstand a range of fluctuation in the public power grid that can lead to higher and lower voltages being delivered to the customer’s facility.

In reality, there is an optimal minimum voltage range below 120 volts where lights, motors, and other electrical equipment will operate with no perceptible effect on their practical performance. For example, at 114 volts the electrical loads mentioned above will generally operate with less waste, less heat, longer life, and a lower carbon footprint. Plus, since they are using 114 volts instead of 120 volts, they also consume less energy.

There are two key factors stopping us from delivering the minimum optimal voltage and consistently achieving maximum electrical energy efficiency in commercial and industrial facilities:

1. The physics of the power grid
A substation feeds electrical power to a number of facilities. Since there are inherent inefficiencies or “leaks” (line loss) along any length of cable run, the power company must deliver more voltage than is required to the buildings closest to the substation, so that facilities furthest from the substation will receive at least the minimum rated voltage. As a result, it is impossible for the power company to deliver the same, consistent and efficient voltage level to each facility.

2. The fluctuations in the power grid
Power supply is like DSL High speed internet – the more users on a line, and the more power each user wants, the greater the effect those users have on the actual power delivered to each individual. In other words, at peak use times the voltage to your facility drops, just like the speed of your internet drops during peak times. Since the power company must always deliver enough electricity to allow for “peak demand,” the voltage being delivered at non-peak times to your facility can rise well beyond what is efficiently required.

If a commercial or industrial facility measured their incoming voltage and found that it was quite high, they could install a transformer that would step down the incoming voltage by a certain percentage. This “fixed tap” transformer solution has been available for decades.

However, if the grid power fluctuated down, as detailed in point two above, the percentage reduction is “fixed” and the voltage can drop too low, causing a brown out, which has a visible impact to lighting and which can damage motors and other electrical devices. For this reason, in most cases in North America, fixed tap voltage reduction cannot achieve the best efficiencies while maintaining operational integrity.

The factor that most building owners and facility managers do not realize is that these inherent weaknesses in the general power grid mean that the power company must force feed some of its clients electricity they neither need nor want … but then you, the client, must still pay for that unnecessary power. In short, even though the electrical items in our buildings do not need the higher voltage, and, in fact, that higher voltage reduces the service life of electrical items and creates wasted energy through excess heat, the facility is STILL BILLED FOR THE EXTRA ENERGY.

Legend Power Systems Corp. provides a simple and effective solution that allows qualified commercial and industrial facilities to reduce their voltage to the optimal minimum level, without any worry about going too low when the power grid fluctuated down at peak times.

About Legend Power’s Electrical Harmonizer-AVR for Commercial-Sized Buildings

Legend Power’s Electrical Harmonizer-AVR is a patented and approved commercial/industrial power conservation unit that:

• Saves 6-10% on your facility power bill
• Lowers maintenance costs
• Reduces your facility’s carbon foot print
• Delivers an ROI in 3 years with available incentive funding
• And, can be up and running within a week with no interruption to the building or workers, and absolutely no changes to their work process or environment.

Ask us about ensuring that your facility is no longer receiving, or paying for, voltage that you just do not require.

David Orton
sales@legendpower.com
604.420.1500

Legend Power will complete a detailed audit, at no charge, ahead of the proposal to give you a clear savings figure.

Other Resources
* Have a look at our corporate video to hear what IKEA, Science World, and BC Hydro say firsthand about how effective the Legend Power system is for them.

What are the most innovative ideas and companies that you have discovered in the green space?

At Legend Power, we see some breakthrough ideas in the green and clean tech space that are noteworthy, in particular deals in algae, geothermal, biodiesels, PV, wind, tidal and hydro.

Here are 5 Canadian companies providing great power conservation solutions:

1. Pulse™ Energy. Energy Management Software

Pulse Energy’s software collects, analyzes and communicates real-time energy intelligence for building operators and management, enabling savings of 5-25% with improved operating efficiency.

2. PowerKure™
PowerKure™ is an integrated modular system that is custom engineered for each facility to effectively and economically optimize power quality, providing guaranteed energy savings, through reductions in power demand and power consumption. (KVA/KW and KWH)

3. REGEN Energy
REGEN provides commercial, industrial, institutional, and multi-unit residential facilities with the ability to reduce their electrical demand charges by at least 25-30% using a practical, cost effective approach!

4. Fifth Light
Fifth Light offers advanced Lighting Solutions that conserve energy, improve lighting quality and simplify facility management while generating an attractive return on investment.

5. Legend Power
Legend Power is an electrical energy conservation company that uses a patented device to achieve significant energy conservation results through voltage optimization. Installation results have yielded clearly measurable reductions in electric bills, maintenance costs and greenhouse gases. Legend Power helps utilities and facilities reduce their environmental footprint while increasing their competitiveness through cost effective and sustainable investments in energy efficiency. View “Legend Power Corporate Video.”