Use the Data Harvester to create a similar data section for a summer month. Use Excel or your graphing calculator to enter and manipulate data. Repeat worksheet steps. Make observations.(At the moment we would have to provide data tables for this, since building data aren’t on the web. How important is this?)
Try the exercise using the data for another period of time, such as an entire season or a year. Use Data Harvester for archival Solar Incidence data. (At the moment we would have to provide data tables for this, since building data aren’t on the web. How important is this?)
On an Excel graph, plot both Solar Incidence on the SEC and Total Electricity used by the SEC against day of the month of February. Discuss your observations. Is Solar Incidence always bigger than Electricity Used, or vice versa? What are the implications?
Graph the electricity usage for both series (GHP and non-GHP) for the building, and devise a method to find what percent of total power is used for each.
Do the exercise for your school building. Measure the land area Footprint of the building and convert to square meters. Ask the Plant Manager for the monthly electricity bills and note the kWh used for each month. Divide to find the kWh per m2 that the building consumes in a month per square meter. Use the worksheet procedure to find the radius of land that could collect an equivalent amount of sunlight in kWh. How many times the Footprint is this number? What are the implications?
Con Edison anticipated a peak amount of approximately 10,000 megawatts of energy used during the summer of 2001for New York City. For July 25, 2001, a very hot day, Con Edison reported that the city used a high of 11,800 Mw. What radius of land is needed to collect the equivalent of this amount of power in solar radiation?
Explore Black Rock's other Real Time data. Look at the Real Time data for SEC power use (kWh) and the Ridgetop temperature (C degrees). Compare day and night; hot days and cool days. Make conjectures for the observed relationships.
Our Ecological Footprint is another very interesting method of comparing energy use to area of productive land and water available on the planet. Eco-Footprint represents the land area necessary to sustain a certain level of resource consumption. The Eco-Footprint allows you to calculate the amount of productive land equal to your energy consumption. The worksheet is found at the website listed in the Resource section of this document.