Here's a novel idea to ponder: One day, your car could be the power source for your home electrical work. That's right, electric cars are being primed to send electricity from their batteries back into the home and even to the electric grid. They aren't full-time power sources, of course, but cars do have the potential to get you through a power outage and even help you save money on your electric bills. Read on to find out how.

Upending the Human-Car Relationship

The typical relationship between electric cars and our home electrical work is a one-way street – you fill up the car's battery from a home charging station, a process that takes hours. However, new fast-charging technology that is becoming available has a second intriguing function: it also allows the car to discharge electricity into the home. Nissan has already developed a system that would allow the car to hook up to home electrical work and keep it running in an emergency.

The battery in the Nissan Leaf holds enough energy to power a typical home for about 24 hours, longer if you take energy conservation measures. It won't keep the power on forever, but it's enough to keep the lights on and the fridge cold for a while during an outage. Even more impressive, since cars are, after all, mobile, the autos could be driven to areas in need of power in the event of a black-out to help with emergency services.

Smoothing Out Demand

The next step would be to use cars to actually sell electricity back to the grid. In a twist on time-of-day pricing, in which electricity costs more during the day and less at night, manufacturers envision a day when our cars are used as giant storage batteries, soaking up electricity at night when it's cheap and then discharging it back to the grid during the day to help even out demand and reduce bills at the same time.

With the right technology in place, utility companies could control exactly how much electricity comes and goes from plugged-in cars. This could reduce expenses dramatically, because it costs a bundle to bring on incremental power sources to meet extra demand during the day.

A Vision of the Future

This futuristic vision of the electrical grid isn't here yet, but the technology already exists. As more and more electric cars hit the road, we get closer to realizing their potential as mobile power storage devices as well as human transportation vehicles.

To find out if your home is suitable for an electric car charging station, call a local electrician today.

An automatic transfer switch consists of an electrical power control device that reroutes electricity under certain power conditions. It enables the safe switching of power from one source to another. Consequently, this ensures a safe and reliable transfer of power while minimizing the risks of fire, damage, or back feeding of power to the utility lines.

An ATS ensures continuity of power to the load. However, the time between loss of power in the utility line and the time the load is connected to the alternative power source remains critical in some applications. For example, a power loss for a few seconds is unacceptable in some hospitals or with emergency equipment. In some of these installations, an intermediate power supply is utilized. These include the battery-based inverter or UPS power to fill the gap between the loss of power and connection to the generator power.

Advanced ATS devices may have the ability to detect the voltage dips characteristic of power failures and automatically start the generator before the utility power goes off completely.

Consumers need to ensure that the ATS will have adequate capacity to handle the generator power. Things to consider include the voltage rating, continuous current rating, and type of load. In addition, consider the mode of transfer, desired transfer time delay, ATS style, and more.

The four main categories of ATS devices are defined by the following transition modes.

Open-transition: The open transaction mode of operation disconnects the primary power before connecting the power from the secondary source. This break-before-make operation means a short duration when there is no connection to either of the power sources.

Fast closed-transition: The ATS is based on the make-before-break switching operation. It parallels the two supplies for about 100 milliseconds after which it disconnects one of the sources. This operation ensures that the load is never disconnected from power.

Soft closed-transition: The soft closed-transition transfer synchronizes generator power with the utility line and then transfers the load from the utility to the generator. When transferring the load back to the utility, follow a similar process.  In this case, the generator output slowly decreases until completely off.

Sub-cycle transfer: These are based on semiconductor switches and are the fastest automatic transfer switches. Upon detecting a power failure, the ATS transfers the load to the other source within the first one-quarter of the electrical cycle. This ensures no power interruption to the load. Sub-cycle ATS devices are the most complex and expensive compared to those using mechanical switches.

Since consumers may not have all the necessary technical knowledge to choose the correct application, it can be a good idea to hire a qualified electrical contractor to select the correct sizing and installation.

In the 30 years I’ve been an electrician, I’ve had a lot of time to think about what qualities make the best Dallas Electrician the best.  Obviously, there are a whole lot of factors that go into something like that:  quality of service, friendliness, willingness to help.  But let’s face it; at the end of the day, the best electrician is the one who can save you money.  So, I’d like to share some money saving tips with you.  And I‘m going to start with the biggest, most effective tip of all.  Ready?  Here it comes.

Turn your stuff off

That’s it!  Turning your electrical devices off when you’re not using them is the best way to lower your home electric bill now, I know what you’re thinking:  “That’s not a very fun answer.”  Well, you’re right:  there are certainly more interesting ways to save money on your electric bill (and I’m going to share a few of them with you right now), but it’s important to start with the basics.  So, what can you do to save money without turning things off?

As a business owner, it is important to reduce your energy emissions as much as possible. You can easily make a conscious effort to do this by reducing packaging, using sleep mode on all your electronic devices and shutting down everything at the end of the business day. Another good way to reduce your emissions and your electricity bills is to use LED fixtures in your buildings, offices, and even parking lots.

Here’s how businesses around the world are taking a step towards reducing their environmental impact using commercial LED lighting.

There are a number of reasons why LED lights make a better choice for the environment and sustainability. The lifespan of a LED bulb is up to 80,000 hours, whilst halogen bulbs are only estimated to last between 2000-6000 hours. The bulbs also gradually lose lumen output at a rate which is almost undetectable to the human eye, in comparison to a metal halide or halogen bulb which fluorescent strip lights to LED tubes, the first thing they will notice is that there is no waste disposal required. Due to the chemicals in fluorescent lights, waste disposal or Light Supplier in the UK. Leila is a Public Relations graduate from Sheffield Hallam University.

Having power throughout your home isn’t something that you think about on a regular basis. In fact, when you flip the switch, you anticipate the light coming on. However, there may be a day when the power doesn’t work as expected. More precisely, you may find that the power in one room isn’t working while all other rooms are fine. What do you do when you don’t have power in one of your rooms?

The electricity that flows through your home powering the myriad of electronic devices your family owns is a system. There are numerous problems that can happen that could interfere in how the system works. Fortunately, when you have only one room without power, you can isolate the problem to that particular room.

Although there are many reasons you may not have power in one of your rooms, most of the problems will originate in the room since other rooms have power. The following are a few things you should consider when you are trying to isolate the problem.

Your breaker box is the point in your home in which you can safely interact with your electrical system. Within your breaker box are switches you can turn on and off to control the flow of electricity. When you have no power in one room, you may need to simply switch the breaker connected to that room off and then on again.

Many homeowners paint on occasion. In order to get a complete look for their rooms, they may take off the covers for their outlets and switches. If you have painted recently, then your switch or outlet may be the culprit.

Your covers hide all the wires running to your switches. If one of these wires were loosened while you were removing the cover, it could have caused the power outage.