David Roden wrote: > Incandescents that are used daily burn out fast, and get replaced with > modern CF or LED retrofits.
My experience is that if you are in the habit of turning a light on when you enter a room and off when you leave, that CFLs will die *faster* than incandescents. If you leave a CFL on continuously, it will last much longer than if it is switched on and off frequently. I don't yet know if LED bulbs will outlast CFLs or incandscents when they are switched on and off frequently. (See, for instance, <http://wavelengthlighting.com/blog/2013/12/2/lights-out-the-practical-life-expectancy-of-leds>.) > For something like this argument to hit home and get them off their > duffs, they have to able to nod and think, "Sure, that makes sense for > us." > Whether it's accurate or not, does "LEDs pay for the EV's energy" really > do that, do you think? When I was trying to convince my strata corporation to allow me to charge my EV (a conversion), what I found was that many people cannot understand the amount of energy that an EV consumes. They see an extremely large "appliance" and assume that it will consume so much electricity that the lights in the building will dim when it is plugged in, and the electric bill will go through the roof, etc. So, I think the challenge will be in making them understand/appreciate that the energy savings associated with a few lightbulbs can really save enough energy to allow an EV to drive some miles each day. As to the "accurate or not", I think it is not trivial to get an accurate idea of the possible savings. Due to the difficulty buying household incandescents now, I tried a couple of apples-to-apples comparisons using Home Depot (Canada)'s online catalog: 50W GU10 halogen vs 5W LED: - halogen $15.97/6, so $31.94/12; LED $107.88/12. - LEDs cost $75.94 more; at $0.10/kWh, this is the cost of 759.4kWh of electricity - LEDs save 540W/h of use; so it will take 1406.29h, or 281.25 days (0.77yr) at 5h/day with all 12 LEDs on before any saved electricity is available for the EV. - after the breakeven point, each LED bulb used 5h/day will save 225Wh/day, or about 1mi of range 23W CFL vs 14W LED (both 100W equivalent): - CFL $15.97/4, LED $12.97/2, so $25.94/4 - LEDs cost $9.97 more; at $0.10/kWh, this is the cost of 99.7kWh of electricity - LEDs save 36W/h of use; so it will take 2769.4h, or 553.8 days (1.5yr) at 5h/day with all 4 LEDs on before any saved electricity is available for the EV. - after the breakeven point, each LED bulb used 5h/day will save 45Wh/day, or about 1/5mi of range While it is fairly unarguable that *any* amount of electricity saved in our everyday non-EV use lives will allow us to drive an EV *some* distance without increasing our utility bill, I think it is still unclear that there is an economic benefit, which is unfortunate since more people understand dollars than watt-hours or miles of range ;^> Cheers, Roger. _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
