Electricity Efficiency & Folding..

[kelliegang]

So, I got slapped with a $950 energy bill for the last quarter [and in reality should have been slapped with more for being such a ridiculous consumer of electricity] and it got me to thinking about the way I fold.. 60gig release PS3[the heavy hitter in Wattage], 2xlaptops for the heat put out I am assuming at least one of my laptops is supplied by its own nuclear power source.. in fact if I could convert the heat energy it produces combined with the Ps3 I think I could run my 1600W microwave long enough to cook a whole pig, 2x Oldschool desktops 375W PSUs.

I've been looking into green power here in Australia and it doesn't seem like much of a hit in $ as a percentage, most suppliers charge a flat $1 a day or $435 a year to purchase 20-100% of your power every year through "Greenpower". Now I did a bit of further research and found out that a good deal of the "Greenpower" is supplied by biofuel combustion like this Macadamia Nut Plant, which doesn't seem all that green to me... replacing coal with corn seems like merely swapping say cigarettes for coffee, although at least this plant isn't wasting useful food during the world food shortage like most biofuels.

So ... in the end, I guess I'm interested in knowing how green is your folding?

A) How energy efficient is your rig? PPD/w and Total daily draw. [Please, try to give kil-a-watt measurements taken from the wall over a 24hr period]
B) How do you source your electricity? (0% , 10% , 20% , 50% , 100% Green energy?)
C) Do you supply your OWN electricity and if so, what %age? (If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd get the $65,000 installation of solar panels I need to supply my energy usage)

D) For those more in the know than I , or the cool kids out there , how much more or less carbon is produced in an EFFICIENT coal power plant compared to a Biofuel power generator per Megawatt Hour?


NB:
- In order to keep the readings more valid, please use PPD from one of the third party stat websites rather than ppd from fahmon on a cherry picked work unit ;

- If you want to throw in % of daily power draw where you are actually using the computer yourself [as well as folding, for those with multiple GPUs per computer or who mainly produce through uniprocessor clients] feel free, just be realistic, take your usage over a week and then average it out, not your usage on your heaviest day , try to keep the figures as statistically valid as possible

[kelliegang]

I'll try to keep a summary going of ppd/w and total power draw per day for different configurations, as such, please specify what you are using to fold in each rig that you're giving stats for [AMD/Intel CPU | NVidia/ATI GPU | XP/Vista/Linux/Windows7 | Anything else that might be pertinent | FoldingMachine/General Use + Folding?]

Cheers Guys.

[MtM]

Ahh and I just moved from greenchoiche which was 100% green energy to Nuon which is only 80% so I lost on being 'green'

If you want ppd/w I need to shut rigs down and check them seperate I'll edit that in later, good idea for a thread!

[kelliegang]

I think to be honest MtM you'll be the only one on any green power at all

Its ironic, in Australia it's a flat rate per year to "go green" on top of your normal costs... about $4.40 per week.... meaning that the MORE energy you use, the more viable the switch is?

[MtM]

I'm still not really awake sorry, but I had a .25c discount per kwH when I was with greenchoiche, given by the goverment to subsidize green energy. That should show abit what the tarifs are like here, but now oil has dropped so much, and gas prices follow with a delay of a couple of months, and we're seeing providers offering 25% annual discounts right now. I'm still figuring out where to go next, I got a 3 month trail period in which I can switch to anyone without having to pay more fees.

[Christopher N. Lewis]

Interesting thread.

Here in the UK, I've just switched to an electricity company that claims to supply 100% renewably sourced power. I'm expecting it to be a little bit more expensive. BUT, they will pay me for the power generated from my planned roof-top PV system (installing this summer if all goes well).

I've still not worked out how to usefully use the heat generated by my folding machines, other than using them as space heaters, which will mean silencing them somehow. As we move into summer I'll probably have to turn some of them off as the house gets hot enough naturally without any extra source of heat. It's a shame that the PV system will produce the most power when I need the least! Ideas welcomed.

I mostly do Nvidia GPU folding. I've tried recording energy use so as to work out PPD/Watt for my own machines (and, yes, I've read the threads disputing this as a real measure). It isn't simple, there's a variation of about +/- 10% watts depending on the mix of units used for the more traditional units, and the 590x units give wild fluctuations in the at-the-wall reading. I've noticed that the WUs downloaded are not random, sometimes all of my machines are running the same type, then a couple of days later they may be running a mix. In the end I decided to pause WUs so I could measure one at a time, tracking watts used for each WU type, on each of my cards. Even so, the +/- 10% masks any difference between differently clocked 8800GTs, with the 'eye-of-faith' the 9800GTX+ pulls slightly ahead, but perhaps unsurprisingly, the machine with 4 9800GX2 gives the best PPD/W. I don't run my machines 24/7 so my PPD at third party sites varies tremendously.

Hope this rather qualitative answer is useful to you.
Christopher

[kelliegang]

It's a shame that the PV system will produce the most power when I need the least! Ideas welcomed.

Chris, this should be good for you actually, if your grid-feed is subsidised at all like it is here in Australia, when you produce more than you use and feed it into the grid, it is worth 2-3x the cost of your electricity that you draw from the grid. It may pay to turn off during the day and run at night. [your output to the grid is measured the same way your draw from the grid is measured and you get 44c per kwh you send to the grid and get charged 19c per kwh you draw from the grid here in Queensland, Australia]

One would imagine in "sunny" England, the only solar power fed into the grid would come from domestic residences [average maximum sun exposure per day in England is less than 4hrs over the whole year, probably far less than this even] and thus logic would dictate that the energy providers would pay more than the ones in Australia do .... but logic isn't a word usually associated with power supply

[bruce]

I think to be honest MtM you'll be the only one on any green power at all

Not true.

For several years, I watched my power bills go up and up as I added more rigs to FAH. I finally decided to invest in rooftop Photo-Voltaic panels. On sunny days, I make almost all of my own power. Since I'm billed more between 10:00 and 16:00 than between 16:00 and 08:00 my daily costs hover on either side of zero but certainly close to zero. On overcast days, I buy most of my power (The normal commercial mix is Gas/Hydroelectric/Nuclear/etc. in some proportion).

Something i learned recently: The California State Water Project pumps water up into a reservoir at night and generates power during the day, saving the SWP quite a bit of money on their power bill using those same Time-Of-Day rates. Hydroelectric generators can be reversed and work reasonably well as pumps, just like a hybrid car generates almost enough power from (non-panic) stops to get it moving again.

[MtM]

Bruce, I'm very interested in what photo-Voltaic panels you have and how many, and how much power they can provide. And mostly, if they are economicly viable ( why buy them otherwise ) and if so in what timeframe?

Btw, if there are Dutch folders watching this thread ( come on there must be some ) what providers are you with, and what are your tarrifs?

[kelliegang]

In the northern half of Australia, we average 8 peak sun hours per day during the summer and 4 during winter, I'd imagine that your peak sun hours are pretty darned low in holland?

You might be interested in these links:
Australian National University, Solar Cells
Australian Business Council for Sustainable EnergyBackground info/sales pitch
Global Solar Maps
European Solar Maps [This doesn't look good for your solar power production potential]



I used one of the calculators I found to calculate the power generation capabilities of solar panels in or near Amsterdam [assuming no shadows and south facing solar panels]... The usage shown is for 2x350watt computers running 24/7 [16.8kwh per day]

1kw system = 16.65% of your computer power usage per year [$~12,000 AUD installation costs]
5kw system = 83.25% of your computer power usage per year [$~50,000 AUD installation costs]

[bruce]

Bruce, I'm very interested in what photo-Voltaic panels you have and how many, and how much power they can provide. And mostly, if they are economicly viable ( why buy them otherwise ) and if so in what timeframe?

Btw, if there are Dutch folders watching this thread ( come on there must be some ) what providers are you with, and what are your tarrifs?

Economic viability depends on a reasonably long list of assumptions but the real question is timeframe. Eventually the system will pay for itself (as long as the power you create is worth more than the interest rate on your investment). My numbers won't match yours because of geography, as kelliegang has already said. Also things like tax rebates and other incentives are a rather large factor here. Latitude, weather patterns, and temperature ranges are large factors, too. You also have to guess how much power prices will go up during the life of the system.

There are many sources of technical information on the web. My inverter is from PVPowered and I found their "string calculator" and other engineering data to be a very valuable resource in sizing my system. See the right-hand side of http://pvpowered.com/installation_support.php (I'd answer your question about the model number of the panels if I were at home, but I'm away this week.) I have three strings of 11 panels pushing a PV-4800.

[MoneyGuyBK]

bruce;
Thanx for posting that..... is the link you posted where you also purchased or had your panels installed through?
I might actually looking into this, as my electricity rates have increased, to the point that it is starting to inflict some pain







Peace

[bruce]

bruce;
Thanx for posting that..... is the link you posted where you also purchased or had your panels installed through?
I might actually looking into this, as my electricity rates have increased, to the point that it is starting to inflict some pain
Peace

No, I had a local contractor install everything. They selected the equipment, but since my mind works like an engineer, I had to double-check everything and I was pleased to find this very useful site. . . . but we're getting farther and farther off-topic.

[mephistopheles]

I was kind of curious about power consumption and efficiency myself, so I actually went out and bought an energy meter. 24 hour measuring would take ages , so I took the shortcut. But I'm fairly sure the numbers are accurate within 5-10%.
PPDs from third-party websites are not very useful for this purpose, at least the sites I have seen give just the user total, not the PPD per client or computer. So the PPD is from FahMon. I haven't cherry-picked units, but I guess you'll just have to take my word on that

So here's the list. All of these currently run 24/7, so total daily draw is power consumption while folding times 24 hours (ex. PS3: 100W * 24h = 2400 Wh = 2.4 kWh/day).

PS3 80 GB:
* 9 W off
* 92 W idle
* 100 W folding
* 900 PPD (by definition, appears to be correct)
* System efficiency: 9 PPD/W
* My efficiency: 9.9 PPD/W. (The PS3 would be 'soft off' if it wasn't folding, so here I count only the 91 W extra for folding.)

Mac mini, next-to-last version:
* 11 W off
* ~23 W idle
* ~50 W folding
* 1500 PPD (stable across last 3 WUs)
* System efficiency: 30 PPD/W
* My efficiency: 55.5 PPD/W. (The mini doubles as an HTPC, and is on 24/7 in any case, giving 27 W extra for folding.)

Elderly Dell desktop (ca. 2003) w/Pentium 4 2.66 GHz (Northwood):
* 10 W off
* 100 W idle
* 150 W folding
* 170 PPD (depending on the core, this seems to be an average score with Gromacs)
* System efficiency: 1.1 PPD/W
* My efficiency: Same as system. (The Dell was retired and unplugged until I dragged it out for folding.)

So the old Dell is the bad boy here, consuming 9 times more energy per point than the PS3. I am seriously considering putting it back in the mothball bag.
The Mac mini is the clear winner using just 1/3 of the PS3. (And in my particular usage scenario, where it is running 24/7 in any case, it's even better )

Out of curiosity, I also measured my AV equipment: When playing a movie loudly on 5 speakers + subwoofer, the equipment draws close to 600 W combined, with the 42" plasma TV (old model) taking 300 W alone. Of course, I rarely play movies 24/7... but the stuff draws 85 W combined even when not in use. (The box from the cable TV provider was worst in class, using 26 W while "off".)

The power around here is 90% hydro-electric, so I suppose I am somewhat greenish But I didn't do anything to make it so, that's a result of natural resources and politics.
And I do nothing to supply my own electricity, which would be somewhat impractical in a 1-bedroom apartment in any case

[jrweiss]

So ... in the end, I guess I'm interested in knowing how green is your folding?

A) How energy efficient is your rig? PPD/w and Total daily draw. [Please, try to give kil-a-watt measurements taken from the wall over a 24hr period]
B) How do you source your electricity? (0% , 10% , 20% , 50% , 100% Green energy?)
C) Do you supply your OWN electricity and if so, what %age? (If I won the lottery tomorrow I'd get the $65,000 installation of solar panels I need to supply my energy usage)

- In order to keep the readings more valid, please use PPD from one of the third party stat websites rather than ppd from fahmon on a cherry picked work unit

My Folding output is actually relatively consistent, so no cherry-picking is needed:

E6850/HD4670, SMP+GPU: 2400 PPD, 180W (less 40W when I'm not at the monitor) ==> 3.7 KWh/day

Q9450, 4 x CPU: 1800 PPD, 155W ==> 3.7 KWh/day

T9400 laptop, 2 x CPU: 900 PPD, ~40W ==> 0.9 KWh/day

PM 745 laptop, CPU: 250 PPD, ~30W ==> 0.7 KWh/day

Total: 5350PPD / 9.2 KWh/day ==> 581 points/KWh (or 13.2 PPD/Watt)

In Seattle, it may be difficult to define "green" power. The state doesn't consider hydroelectric power as "green" for some reason, but that's where we get about 70% of our power. By law at least 10% has to be "green," but I don't know what the breakdown is.