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Where does the power go when I save it?

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Perry Mowbray:
btw, also check out this website. 8)

• Saving Electricity and Power Consumption.
-lanux128 (June 08, 2008, 06:49 AM)
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Thanks: laughed when I read his page about computers! I was amazed when my desktop's screensaver came on: the power usage actually went up! I'm using Picasa's at the moment that pulls graphics from my NAS, and I guess there's a bit of computing going on scaling and panning the image.  :o

tomos:
Tomos: I've been looking at where my power disappears to lately, and I was a little shocked to find out that my computer uses 11W even when it is turned off and powered down!! Not sure when the term Vampire Power was crated, but I was shocked to find some lurking in my home! But one whole power plant seems a lot?? I now turn my stuff off at the wall.
-Perry Mowbray (June 08, 2008, 06:52 AM)
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well there's a lot of people here :) (80 million+ and it is a gadgetland!)
I didnt know that about "vampire power"
I've taken to plugging out the power supply here lately cause it's thunderstorm season (getting more like rainy season the last few years as opposed to summer) and I still havent invested in a UPS thingy - which probably also uses up a lot of electricity :(

lanux128:
as you are in Australia, i think the term should be "minimum reserve level". so maybe you'll have better luck with this link: http://www.google.com/search?q=federal+"minimum+reserve+level"

also as tomos mentioned, pulling the plug is the best way. that's why i wonder why the electrician place the power socket so low in the wall? (rant)

cranioscopical:
Where does the power go when I save it?
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Well, currently, according to the label on the thing into which I plug various hardware, mine goes and hangs out in a bar!

A lot of the power plugs on computer items that I use are out of sight and thus relatively inaccessible.
I saw somewhere that Belkin (iir) has/will have a remotely controlled power strip.
While doubtless that in itself will be a vampire it'll probably be a better solution than every single item playing Dracula.
I haven't yet found where to buy one.

@Tomos: Unplug! Just had the USB input to one of my printers fried in a thunder storm round here.

Perry Mowbray:
as you are in Australia, i think the term should be "minimum reserve level". so maybe you'll have better luck with this link: http://www.google.com/search?q=federal+"minimum+reserve+level"
-lanux128 (June 08, 2008, 07:08 AM)
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Hey, brilliant Lanux!!

But reading one of the documents referenced, defines reserve as:
The reserves are determined by adding the installed generation to any generation ‘equivalent’ such as interruptible load and subtracting the peak load.  This yields the MW installed reserve.  The reserve margin is the reserve divided by the peak load expressed as a percentage.
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So, from that, I'd be assuming that the Reserve is not stored, but planned to be wasted  :huh: The whole aim of the document I read was to prove that brownouts were "guaranteed" to be less than 0.002% or something: that is having the power on tap when required:

The utilities and regional power systems of the developed nations in North America and Europe have identical patterns in developing installed generation reliability criteria.  Each begins with a sophisticated probabilistic analysis of the existing and planned future generation system
together with forecasted customer load.  The result of this analysis is a minimum requirement for generation to be installed to meet customer load while providing the level of reliability consistent with the selected probabilistic reliability measure.

In North America the measure is usually related to the probability of generation not being able to meet demand—loss of load expectation (LOLE) or loss of load probability (LOLP).  In Europe the measure may also include the probable amount of energy that cannot be supplied in a given year relative to the total amount of customer energy—expected unserved energy expressed in “system minutes.”
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