Residents asked to switch off appliances this afternoon due to heat [AU]

[ZeTeX]

What did people do before A/Cs where invented... Almost 50C without A/C is not fun.

[Kleinstein]

Before AC people build different houses in hot ares. The old style houses in New Mexico (US) where with thick (like 50 cm) clay walls (adobe) - so the inside temperature was essentially the same (near average) all day and would not even change much from a few hot days.

In the hot ares like southern Spain, they have the siesta - so you are inside in a not so hot room and sleep when it is hottest. Of cause this works best with a heavy, slow reacting house.

With low humidity even 50 C are likely not that bad - just drink a little more water.  I have not seen 50 C, but 42 C and low humidity without AC - not bad at all. Having 25 C and 90% humidity was way worse.

The peaks in the demand curves look really bad - I have not expected people to be so much synchronized. No wonder the get trafic jams and problems with grid stability. Maybe they should add a few more time zones 15 min apart or just don't start and stop working all at the same time.

For AC it would help a lot to have a little more insulation so they can run the AC more continuous and not just turn on when coming home. It might be a good Idea to have time dependent electricity price for residential users too - at least those who need more. It was not practical in past, but with modern meters it should be. On the production side the costs are just so different.

[med6753]

I have trouble appreciating temps of 40+ degrees C until I convert it to F and go "Yikes!"  Rarely see temps approaching 38 C (100 F) here in Summer but when we do it's almost always with high humidity. Damn uncomfortable. As with you folks our peak electrical usage is in Summer as opposed to the UK where it seems to be in Winter. As an example running my A/C almost doubles my electrical usage/month if we are having a hot spell.

Current conditions here. Got a foot of snow this past Thursday. Another inch or two last night. Prediction is another 3 to 6 inches Sunday night. Current temp of -3 degrees C.  I'll gladly send some your way.   


 

[Inflex]

Surprised that it isn't mandated (since Aussie politicians love that) to have at least 2kW solar + 7~10kWh storage in all new homes.  In our region, solar will directly power the aircons (though I'd want 5~10kW here!) and the storage softens peak demand as well as provides some stop-gap if the network goes down.

If I had the money, up here I'd install at least 5kW on the roof (likely room for 8~10kW) and 20kWh storage.   Have R3.5 roof insulation but need to also clad the solid block house so the heat-soak is minimised.  Already have 4 whirly birds on top as well.

[johansen]

Per capita, electrical usage is 3 times higher today than it was in the 70's. in America.

Are you sure?  According to Wikipedia (and roughly cross checked to a number of other sources), US consumption has been roughly constant or slightly declining since the 70s.  You are saying Australia has caught up and gone ahead by a factor of three since we were noted as the most wasteful folks on earth?  Seems likely that somebodies numbers are off.

I said nothing about Australia.
But you do have to go back to 1962 to find the per capita usage a third of what it is now, and its been about the same since 1995, but our population has grown since then.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=US

Australia numbers have grown faster than the usa, and have been flat for about the same years.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=AU

[hendorog]

Surprised that it isn't mandated (since Aussie politicians love that) to have at least 2kW solar + 7~10kWh storage in all new homes.  In our region, solar will directly power the aircons (though I'd want 5~10kW here!) and the storage softens peak demand as well as provides some stop-gap if the network goes down.

If I had the money, up here I'd install at least 5kW on the roof (likely room for 8~10kW) and 20kWh storage.   Have R3.5 roof insulation but need to also clad the solid block house so the heat-soak is minimised.  Already have 4 whirly birds on top as well.

I'm on spot priced power (www.flick.co.nz) - which means there is a financial carrot for me to install solar and storage to reduce usage when the price is high.

Are there any power companies who offer spot pricing in Oz?

[CatalinaWOW]

Per capita, electrical usage is 3 times higher today than it was in the 70's. in America.

Are you sure?  According to Wikipedia (and roughly cross checked to a number of other sources), US consumption has been roughly constant or slightly declining since the 70s.  You are saying Australia has caught up and gone ahead by a factor of three since we were noted as the most wasteful folks on earth?  Seems likely that somebodies numbers are off.

I said nothing about Australia.
But you do have to go back to 1962 to find the per capita usage a third of what it is now, and its been about the same since 1995, but our population has grown since then.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=US

Australia numbers have grown faster than the usa, and have been flat for about the same years.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.USE.ELEC.KH.PC?locations=AU

I misinterpreted your words.  Thanks for the links.  Much easier to access than other sources of data I have found.  Interesting that Australia had almost no electrical generation from fossil fuels in the 1960s, and has used steadily more since then.  Don't take that as a dig, just an observation on how different natural resources and economics lead to different results.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Interesting that Australia had almost no electrical generation from fossil fuels in the 1960s, and has used steadily more since then. 

I doubt that is true. Where does it say that? All I can see is 86% fossil in 1960.

[CatalinaWOW]

Interesting that Australia had almost no electrical generation from fossil fuels in the 1960s, and has used steadily more since then. 

I doubt that is true. Where does it say that? All I can see is 86% fossil in 1960.

Now I am not sure I like those links.  When I clicked earlier it showed about 2% in 1960.  I was trying to imagine how Australia got by on so little fossil fuel (low consumption?  Hydro?  Nuclear?).  There must be a bug in the HTML somewhere, since when I click it now I get the same thing you reference, but I am less confident that either answer is correct.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Probably the 86% is correct, we built a big hydro scheme post wwII which could account for the renewables of about 14%. The rest could only have come from fossil fuel.

[mtdoc]

What did people do before A/Cs where invented... Almost 50C without A/C is not fun.

In the southern US it was shade trees, open porches, swamp coolers and sweet tea (when they had ice).

I spent a few of days in Seville, Spain about 30 years ago in August when it was getting up to 49 C in the afternoons. Very few places I was at had air conditioning (I was a very low budget traveler then).

We've become very spoiled...

[xrunner]

What did people do before A/Cs where invented... Almost 50C without A/C is not fun.

They lived, as they always have, since before written history. They had no idea of the possible comfort that any technology un-invented could have provided, so they simply existed without the knowledge of anything better. They accepted existence as it was. You (and I) can not imagine life in the summer without A/C, because our minds are corrupted with the knowledge of that technology.

[Brumby]

Another factor is along the lines of "ignorance is bliss".

I have seen a friend of mine look at the 7 day forecast and start panicking about how hot is has been predicted to be in 4 or 5 days' time.  Such a lot of energy wasted - and, of course, when the hot weather does come around, they have already prepared themselves to suffer.

I would rather not know what the temperature is.

OK - so it's hot.  Dress accordingly, keep hydrated and don't do any heavy work unless it is necessary - and if you have to, do so sensibly.

[SeanB]

Welcome to South Africa, where it can be hot in places, and then you go to the hot places, where it really is hot. There is a town here called Hotashel, which funny enough, is not the place with the highest recorded temperatures, but is close. I lived in a town where summer would, every day, have a peak of 42C, and winter it would also reach 42C every day. Winter was the time of year the low was under 20C, a very cold winter was 12C, with us wearing jerseys, moaning about the cold, and watching the upcountry visitors that came for the weekend dropping dead from heatstroke.

Currently I live where I was brought up, on the coast, and it is up to 32C ( 34C with the urban heat island effect) and 75% plus humidity, though there soon will be Berg winds, 40C plus, but low humidity, as this is caused by dry cold air flow from the Drakensberg coming down the slopes and being heated by adiabatic compression. Hot, dry and a massive danger of runaway fires, and every year massive fires that occur. As mt neighbour said "die wereld brand hier" time.

[Brumby]

Off grid air con:

[mtdoc]

Off grid air con:

But you need ice for that!

How about an evaporative (aka Swamp) cooler:

[rrinker]

 Summer's a killer for me, too - not only the AC but also the pool filter. Double? My electric bill si triple in summer vs winter (I have gas heat). Now the gas bill - in Summer it is usually the minimum amount they bill you, in winter it is 10x higher. That's still less than the peak electric bill though.
 Years ago the local electrical utilities gave incentives for people to build all-electric houses - basically exempting them from rate increases. So I had this house, which I never wanted to buy in the first place, that had forced hot air electric heat - yes, a resistor grid in the air flow just like the coils in an AC unit. As I wasn't the original owner, I did not get those special electric rates. Instead, I had electric bills > $600/mo. And it was never warm, the air it blew out was slightly warm at best. When we were looking at the house I saw this right away and knew it would totally suck. However, my ex and her parents both chose to take the word of the previous owners (who DID get that special rate) that the worst electric bill they ever had was $200. No, I am not an HVAC repairman, but, umm, science? 14 years later, all involved STILL refuse to acknowledge that maybe I was right about it.

[R005T3r]

Off grid air con:

Do not use dry ice on that. you will kill yourself

[Halcyon]

Do not use dry ice on that. you will kill yourself [/b]

Why? Dry ice isn't nearly as dangerous as people seem to think. As long as you use it in a ventilated environment and avoid prolonged skin exposure, there are very little risks. Most countries don't consider it a "dangerous substance".

[edpalmer42]

What did people do before A/Cs where invented... Almost 50C without A/C is not fun.

In the southern US it was shade trees, open porches, swamp coolers and sweet tea (when they had ice).

I spent a few of days in Seville, Spain about 30 years ago in August when it was getting up to 49 C in the afternoons. Very few places I was at had air conditioning (I was a very low budget traveler then).

We've become very spoiled...

One trick that I've heard was used back in the late 1800s and early 1900s in rich houses in the southern parts of the States was to have a large, open, very impressive entrance into the house with a grand staircase and an even higher 'turret' with windows to let in the air.  At the base of the turret, above the level of the staircase and the second floor, they had gas lamps around the entire inside of the turret.  The resulting heat created an updraft that guaranteed that there would be a nice breeze throughout the house!  Wasteful by today's standards, but still ingenious.

[nctnico]

Do not use dry ice on that. you will kill yourself [/b]

Why? Dry ice isn't nearly as dangerous as people seem to think. As long as you use it in a ventilated environment and avoid prolonged skin exposure, there are very little risks. Most countries don't consider it a "dangerous substance".

The problem is the ventilated environment which is unlikely to happen when it is hot outside. Dry ice is frozen CO2 and CO2 is harmfull even in low concentrations (a few percent).

[Red Squirrel]

I'll take our cold Canadian winters over the crazy hot temps some places get.   Can't imagine regular >25C weather non stop.  40C is just insane.   I've witnessed that temp once when I was down south in Toronto area and thought I was going to die.

[digsys]

... Can't imagine regular >25C weather non stop. 40C is just insane.  I've witnessed that temp once ... and thought I was going to die.

PPFFTTT 40C babies :-)  Last week, we had a run of 45C +es, with one town hitting 49C, one dam degree shy of our record !! SUCKS !! Runs of 45C these days are "normal".

[Red Squirrel]

That's brutal.  I've had the odd temperature alarm at some of our sites where it hits that high when the AC fails, the techs usually open the door and put fans to let it air out before they even go in.  I imagine anything metal like rack equipment is going to be very hot to the touch too.

I can just imagine how hot it must get inside a car when it's 50C out.    You can probably reflow circuit boards on the dash. 

[Halcyon]

I can just imagine how hot it must get inside a car when it's 50C out.    You can probably reflow circuit boards on the dash. 

You're not wrong. Thankfully I have one of those cars where if you hold down the 'unlock doors' button on the remote, it drops all the windows down.