Talk:Negawatt power

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[edit] Lighting efficiency inconsistencies

The incandescent light bulb article has different efficiency numbers. On that page, LEDs have 8-15% efficiency (not 80-90%), incandescents 2-4% (not 10%), xenon arc lamps 4-22%. These numbers are obtained by dividing the lumens/watt with the maximum 683 lm/W possible. Of course almost lamps are near 100% efficient at heating a room, via thermal conduction+radiation - what doesn't get converted into visible light, gets converted into heat, and even visible light ultimately gets absorbed and converted into heat.

Why is the lighting the only hard data given, but then when I go look to see where the 80-90% LED numbers are obtained from, I can't find a reference? Can you point me to a reference for those numbers? Same data shown on the electrical_efficiency page. And what's that electric kettle remark doing there. Sillybilly 16:25, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

• Please see the talk:electrical efficiency page for more on this. I found the user who came up with these numbers. Sillybilly 21:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sorry, I Don't "Get" the Concept

I don't understand what the real market difference is between the negawatt practice on the one hand and the everyday practice that exists now where consumer A invests in efficiencies in order to save on her electric bill, which frees up more capacity for consumer B to buy. The negawatt concept seems to be the same thing, just with extra red tape and transaction costs. Only if the overall supply of electricity is artificially capped is there any real difference, but to do so is to discriminate against "new" consumers to the advantage of "existing" consumers. i.e. consumer A moves into the state, but has to buy capacity from consumer B who was already living there. The latter approach would involve just tranferring wealth from one group of people to another and creating artificial scarcity. Anharmyenone 17:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

You have spotted the idea. It depends on the selling price of electricity being held below the marginal cost of additional supply, often combined with a regulatory system which restricts potential expansion of capacity. In such circumstances it may be cheaper for some consumers to pay other consumers not to consume. But if it has the potential to work in a particular situation then it is a clear indication of regulatory failure. --Henrygb 00:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

> Trying to understand the concept myself. Referring to Anharmyenone's comment, isn't the point of difference the fact that, in a constrained system, consumer A potentially receives an explicit 'benefit' from a supplier for freeing up capacity? If this is the case, then wouldn't there be an incentive to continue to invest in energy efficiencies until the MC of doing so = the marginal benefit to the supplier of freeing capacity?

If A can get B to use less,and thus keep down the price, then yippee for A. But this principle doesn't explain how it deals with Jevon's paradox. If A uses less energy and gets B to use less, and the cost of energy is kept low, then everyone knows they can use more (think gas prices, getting people to switch from SUVs to Civics, price goes down a bit, everyone drives more with a sigh of relief). Also, I came here to add the history of the word, and found that my reference is the only one (there are some external links and PDFs already). Gaviidae 14:27, 3 February 2007 (UTC)