Progress Report: July 1998
Comparative Summer Peak Performance
On June 4, 1998, the new PVRES owners, Nancy and Harry Adam, moved into their new home.
Nancy Adam's only initial complaint-- the interior was too cold at night! Two days later, we reset the programmable thermostat so that it would pre-cool the building to 74oF between 11 AM and 5 PM and then 76oF during the rest of the day in an attempt to shift the load away from the utility peak coincident hours 5 - 7 PM. Meanwhile, the Control house down the street was unoccupied for the entire month, but cooled to a constant 76oF thermostat setting.
Monthly comparative performance showed a 72% lower air conditioning use
in the occupied PVRES home vs. the vacant control home. Even when total power
was considered, the Adam's home used 50% less electricity than the air conditioning
consumption in the control!
On the Lakeland utilities' peak day (June 18,1998) the outside air temperature reached 101oF. The Adam's home used 70% less air conditioning on this day as well as maintaining better comfort conditions inside. With the PV power included, the total net energy demand of the PVRES home was 95% less than the air conditioning alone in the control house during the utility peak hour.
Details of the monitored performance during June's heat wave in Central Florida are shown in the two links below:
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