May 2008 Meeting Announcement
Topic: Myth, Magic or Great Engineering?
Energy Saving Devices that Defy Your Expectations
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Meeting Details
Entry Fee: $20 for chapter members, $25 for non-members
Reminders: Chapter sessions generally carry Continuing Education Unit (certification at the meeting).
With increasing attention paid to energy efficiency and reliability, and as well as to the financial costs and environmental impacts of energy use, innovative devices and designs are popping up throughout the energy sector. This AEE chapter session will highlight several interesting innovations, in the areas of novel equipment design, vehicle efficiency, and controls technologies. We will explore the technical underpinnings and ramifications of magnetic bearings for efficient chilling compressors, fuel catalyzation, and widely dispersed power factor correction capacitors. The engineering behind these products might challenge your intuition, but the actual results and explanations you hear may open your eyes to important new opportunities.
Don Heimstaedt, a Partner with Tower Enterprises of NY & NJ, will describe the innovative SMARDT Water and Air Cooled Chillers with Turbocor Compressors. Since earning his degree in engineering at Lehigh University, Don has spent his career in the energy sector, including 20 years with the Trane Company, 8 years with McQuay International, and currently is with Tower Enterprises.
Michael H. Best, CEO of Advanced Power Systems International, Inc., earned his Engineering degree in Energy Conversion from Columbia University. After working at JP Morgan in utility and municipal finance he co-founded Catalyst Energy, an Independent Power Producer. In 2000 he joined Advanced Power Systems International, manufacturer of The Fitch Fuel Catalyst. This device is plumbed into fuel lines of oil, diesel, or gasoline systems, and induces changes to molecular structure of fuels that help improve fuel economy and lower emissions.
Richard Ellenbogen, Allied Converters, Inc., will speak
about his experience with and proposals regarding power factor correction in the Con Edison service territory. He spent 3 years with Bell Laboratories in the Power Systems Laboratory where he was lead engineer in the Automated Testing Group. He holds a BS and MEE in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and has helped develop a 60 kW CHP plus 50 kW PV array in New Rochelle.
April Meeting Summary
Dave Westman
New technologies have emerged on the market for home and commercial users that can conserve energy, decrease the environment impact of energy use, while also maintaining high comfort levels for inhabitants. In April's AEENY meeting, we discussed examples of these new technologies. Theo Breitenstein , President, Emacx Systems, presented a model for creating intelligent load control in buildings. Tom Reed , Chairman, Climate Energy , introduced Climate Energy's Freewatt microcogeneration technology for residential applications. Finally, Thomas Mills, Jr. , Chief Operating Officer, Pace Controls presented applications for their intelligent building control systems.
Theo Breitenstein began the evening with his presentation on Automated Demand Control technologies, and his company's specialty in serving large-facility buildings with automatic, regular demand reduction technologies. Emacx's uniqueness lies in its ability to automatically regulate energy demand growth within a facility via a centralized computer, whereby an algorithm monitors, predicts, and controls load growth in 15-minute intervals. According to Breitenstein, a 5-10% reduction in peak demand can consistently and regularly be achieved without any decrease in building performance. The system can work in cooperation or override BMS controls; so depending on the season, time of day, or in the event of a Demand Response event, greater emphasis can be put on efficiency over comfort, or vice versa.
Tom Reed then discussed Climate Energy's microturbine combined heat and power (MCHP) product for residential users. Microturbines, in general, behave like large scale CHP co-generation facilities, but Climate Energy's product is small enough to fit any residential basement or outdoor utility space. The MCHP can be run on natural gas or propane, and can consistently deliver 1.2 kW and 12,000+ Btu/hr. MCHP is also better for the environment. Whereas a typical power plant is only 30% efficient at converting fossil energy to usable energy, the MCHP is over 85% efficient, this means less CO2 and smokestack pollutants are being emitted to provide an equivalent amount of heat and power to the home. Reed estimates that with a projected cost of $14,000 per residential installation (price includes MCHP and Energy Star auxiliary boiler), a Climate Energy microturbine unit can provide 80% of the energy and environmental benefit of residential solar electric power at 30% of the cost. In an environmentally-conscious world, that just makes good, green, and thrifty $ense.
Lastly, Tim Mills explained how Pace had succeeded at improving efficiency of boilers and chillers by optimizing the run-time of the on/off cycle for individual and unique systems. For the Pace Controls system to work, only a simple, low-cost retrofit installation need be installed. Once the technology is installed and functioning, a typical commercial system using the Pace Controls technology can expect to see 12-22% savings in energy bills.
The speakers at April's AEENY meeting presented a compelling vision of what building energy systems may look like some day in the future. However, with new markets, strong government incentives, and expansion of utility rebates for these energy efficient, green products, it may be true that that day is sooner than we expect.
2008 AEE-NY Advance Planning Calendar (Third Tuesdays)
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AEE-NY is pleased to present this program in cooperation with the Environmental Business Association of New York and the EBA Energy Task Force.