Legend Power Blog

The heatwave affecting Ontario has made one thing clear – Ontario’s power grid is aging. Since the heatwave began air conditioners all over the city have been running on high and putting stress on the +100 year-old electrical grid.

As CBC’s The National noted in their July 6th story, Canada’s Aging Power Grid, Torontonians felt the affects of the aging grid on July 5th when there was widespread blackout throughout the city. The old grid isn’t able to handle the demand for things like air conditioners running full blast throughout the city, so it becomes overloaded and crashes.

According to a CBC News July 2010 report, cold winters and hot summers are to blame for Canada’s position as world’s third highest per capita energy user. Demand continues to rise. Ontario needs to spend $150 – $220 billion over the next two decades just to keep the grid infrastructure up-to-date with demand or else Canadians will need to get used to blackouts.

Conservation voltage regulation (CVR) is one option to ease the stress put on the grid when demand is high, like during periods of extreme hot or cold weather. CVR regulates buildings’ incoming voltages to optimal levels through a transformer and a tap changer, thereby reducing power wastage and saving the grid electricity.

For example, Legend Power’s conservation voltage regulation technology, the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR, reduces a building’s energy consumption by 6-10% by:

• Reducing energy consumption: kWh
• Reducing real power: kW
• Reducing reactive power: kVar

Read more information about energy conservation through conservation voltage regulation.

Ontario is also in a prime position to take advantage of CVR technologies because, as of April 14th, the Ontario Power Authority substantially increased conservation incentive funding, The Electricity Retrofit Incentive Program (ERIP) increased incentive funding to $800/kW from $250/kW for non-lighting measures. Read more about the increase in Ontario’s incentive funding increase.

Legend Power is featured in Alternative Energy eMagazine’s June/July 2010 issue. The article profiles our case study of how we helped Honda Canada save 6% of their power costs:

In 2007, Legend Power completed a beta installation of a 500 amp Electrical Harmonizer-AVR to help reduce Honda Canada’s electrical energy consumption.  After completing the installation, initial measurement and verification found Honda Canada had successfully saved electrical energy.  In 2009, Legend Power completed a technical review of this project to verify that the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR installed in 2007 is still effectively saving electrical energy…

As a result of installing an Electrical Harmonizer-AVR, Honda Canada has achieved the following results:

Annual kWh Savings: 76,271
Average kW Reduction: 8.73
Percent Savings: 5.98%
Dollar Savings: $4,400

The savings achieved through voltage optimization is expected to persist over the life of the Electrical Harmonizer-AVR.  After 10 years, Honda Canada will have saved an estimated 762,710 kWh of electrical energy and $44,000.

Read the full article.

The problem of force consumption in terms of energy conservation is that of line loss resistance.

Facilities near the beginning of the grid receive voltage at a higher level than needed and waste energy. Over $1 billion is wasted per year by commercial buildings due to forced grid consumption.

Voltage optimization reduces electrical energy consumption by up to 10%, which also reduces the facility’s energy cost and greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s a technical explanation of how voltage optimization is used for power reduction and power savings.

If a 5Ω load resistor is connected to a 100V source it will draw 20A and consume 2kW. If we now put a transformer between the source and the load to reduce the load voltage by 5% to 95V, the load current will be reduced to 19A, with a power consumption of 1805W. This is also the power drawn from the source, which will now be supplying 18.05A. It can be seen that both the load and source currents are lower than they were without the transformer, but at the transformer the voltage has been stepped down (0.95:1) and the current up (1:0.95), so that the power into the transformer is the same as the power out.

As far as the load is concerned a similar reduction could be obtained by adding another resistor in series instead of the transformer.  We would have to pick a value of 0.263Ω to achieve the same result. Now both the load and source currents will be 19A. The load power has still been reduced to 1805W, but the source power has only been reduced to 1900W. This is because, unlike the transformer, the extra resistor is also consuming power (95W).

The Legend Power Harmonizer-AVR system is effectively a low loss transformer with a variable ratio. Both source and load powers are reduced at the same time and the power can be measured either at the source or the load. As in any real connection there will be some losses and in the above example this would be less than 10W. Although the system could be set up to reduce power consumption at any voltage, it is normally used where the line voltage is too high. This means that the consumer is using and paying for more electrical power than needed and the Harmonizer-AVR reduces this consumption to normal levels.

For resistive loads the percentage change in power consumption is approximately twice the percentage change in voltage, for small changes. If we take a per unit approach to the example above a 5% reduction in voltage means the new load voltage is 1 – 0.05. The new power is (1 – 0.05)², which is 1² – 2 x 1 x 0.05 + 0.05². This is approximately 1 – 0.10 = 0.9 per unit, a 10% reduction, or 1800W.

Mike Harcourt is the former premier of British Columbia (1991 -1996), mayor of Vancouver (1980 – 1986) and city councilor.

Between 1996 and 2004, he was appointed by the Prime Minister to serve as a member of the National Round Table on the Environment and Economy and Chaired the Urban Sustainability Program. Mike is an Honorary Chair of the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, and Co-Chair of the International Panel of Advisors.

Mike received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service in 2005 and was awarded the Canadian Urban Institute’s Jane Jacobs Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006.

In addition to his achievements, Mike has also written 3 books: Mark Harcourt: A Measure of Defiance; Plan B: One Man’s Journey from Tragedy to Triumph (with John Lekich); and City Making in Paradise: Nine Decisions that Saved Greater Vancouver’s Livability (with Ken Cameron and Sean Rossiter).

Mike is an active advocate for sustainability and has been a member of Legend Power’s board for 8 years.

At Legend Power we are noticing an interesting shift in attitudes about energy efficiency. Instead of choosing energy efficiency for environmental reasons only, companies are now talking about the financial benefits of doing so.

In fact, newspapers are now covering this angle more easily given the industry data available that reinforces the financial sense of going green. The Wall Street Journal reported on January 6 that, according to a new study from venture capital firm Good Energies Inc., half of non-residential buildings will be green by 2015.

In particular, WSJ is referring to results released in November 2009 by Gregory Kats, managing director of Good Energies. The results of Kats’ two-year independently funded study are available in a book called Greening Our Built World.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

Kats and his partners interviewed 100 architects working on 170 green non-residential buildings, mostly located throughout the U.S. He also obtained information from the USGBC, the American Institute of Architects, the American Public Health Association, the National Association of Realtors, BOMA International, the Federation of American Scientists, the Real Estate Roundtable, the National Association of State Energy Officials, Enterprise Community Partners and the World Green Building Council.

The interesting shift in attitude here is that “Green Buildings”–buildings that use fewer resources to build and to sustain—are commonly thought to be too expensive to attract builders and buyers. But the costs are not as high as expected.

Kats’ study 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—far less than previously assumed—and provide a wide range of financial, health and social benefits. In addition, green buildings reduce energy use by an average of 33%, resulting in significant cost savings.

The study provides a large enough, detailed enough body of data to say that green building is very cost-effective and “it reduces risk in a number of areas including health, exposure to energy and water prices and obsolescence,” says Kats.

In addition for real estate investors, energy efficiency measures, whether introduced at the building stage or in retrofits, enhance real estate portfolios

A new report, “Energy Efficiency in Real Estate Portfolios: Opportunities for Investors” (PDF), was commissioned by Ceres and authored by the responsible investment group of the investment consulting business Mercer.

The report draws on key industry and academic research on building efficiency’s economic impacts. It also shows that “proven, existing efficiency technologies — in everything from lighting to climate control and more — can unlock the untapped reserves of efficiency gains buried in many real estate holdings” (Source: GreenerBuildings, December 24, 2009)

Those gains would be a boon to real estate investors’ bottom lines—both direct property owners like large pension funds and smaller investors who primarily hold real estate securities.

So whether it’s making a new building less power-hungry or conserving energy in an existing building, both efforts combat climate change and leverage efficiency to achieve cost and risk reductions.

For more information, see our case studies from industry leaders showing the positive impacts of voltage optimization on power and electrical costs.

Read Case Studies

• IKEA Richmond Saves 7% on Electricity
• Honda Canada reduces power costs by 6%
• Science World’s Energy Conservation Efforts Reduce in Electricity Costs by 8.5%

The Legend Power Harmonizer has received the 2005 Canadian Energy Efficiency Grand Prix Award and been recognized under the Energy Star Partner program.

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.