Monday, December 1, 2008

Watt Stopper and Vending Miser: Promising Products

Unnecessary draws of electrical energy or unneeded plug load are a significant energy drain for corporations. One Fortune 500 firm with an yearly electricity spend of over $90mm estimates that 40% of this electricity is due to plug load from employees and has implemented programs to reduce employee plug load.

I really like solutions which reduce electricity use but cause no or very little disruption to daily operations and require very little human behavior change. Two promising products are:

Watt Stopper by Isole

Per the vendor's website, firms are realizing promising savings. Adobe Systems claims $15,000 in savings in one month and 3Com estimates savings of $88,000 per year.















Vending Miser

This is a simple device which uses a motion detector to shut off the electricity to vending machines when there is no movement in front of them. The average vending machine uses $200-300 a year in electricity (depending on cost of local electricity) and this tool can reduce energy use by 40-50%. Over 300,000 units have been installed in North America.


1 comment:

Aaron Husak said...

Just to add to your post about VendingMisers. Average savings are 1612 kWh per year, for a device that costs only $180. Compare that to the cost of generating this amount of energy with solar, a 1 kW system may produce 1500kWh per yr and cost $8,000! There are other applications for devices similar to VendingMiser. Visit our website for more info and product studies, http://www.anchorsenergy.com/vendingmiser
Keep up the good work!