My Experience with Electric car

I have been riding an All electric Nissan Leaf for the past 25 months. It has been an amazing journey and a personal pride for me. We went from leasing the car to owning the car now.

It really feels good to walk lightly on this planet. Power is so cheap in Georgia and it is very affordable if one chooses to charge at the regular wall outlet in the house.

Georgia state gave a fantastic tax credit for all Electric cars and Nissan leaf sales or leases zoomed in the past 3 years. But the tax credits have been withdrawn now and we made the decision to buy out the car. It came with a reasonable price tag.

Pros of All electric car
- No trips to gas station
- Little to no maintenance, no oil change
- With permit, you can use the HOV lane even with single occupancy
-  Preferential parking in airport
- Meets 90% of a suburban family's driving needs

Cons of All electric car
- Need to plan trips. Cannot randomly decide to go to additional places
- Need to have the discipline to charge every day when returning home
- Heating and cooling system drains the battery faster and not a good option on cold days
- Can be a good second car but not the primary car for a family with 2 drivers

Solar Thermal Power in Daily life

Ever since I moved to India in May 2009, leading news papers like Business Line and The Hindu have been regularly publishing articles about promoting Solar power usage in India and the world trends in this direction.

Today I was reading an interesting article about the world Solar Thermal Energy increased by 19GW in the last 10 years.

It seems that, India receives 270 days of full sunshine and what a lot of power that is. Wow!!

If you happen to be in Bangalore, almost every 5th rooftop has a Solar Thermal water heater. Do all those people effectively use Solar water heater ? I doubt .. because one big house that we visited recently , the people were proud when they showed us their Solar water heater. But also added that, they have a Geycer and use it when it is cloudy and rainy.

In this hurry burry world, when everyone in the household has to get out before 8.30am in the morning for School, work or other things, it is difficult to rely on Solar water heater to supply the needed hot water. They would eventually turn on the geycer and hence I feel that Solar water heaters are not effectively used.. This may not be the case just in India but all over the world.

But it is still a big improvement over no solar heater at all. It would definitely prove useful when used in Hostels and large establishments where more people use water.

And how nice it would be , if hot water is supplied allover the house , kitchen , bathroom sinks etc. in one of the taps..and not just for bathing..
I hope the construction industry learns this tip for atleast the newer constructions.

If anyone has more ideas of Solar thermal usage in daily lives please send your comments and we can discuss it further.

More in next post.

E < Re < C ( Courtesy :- Google )

I am logging into my blog after quiet sometime.. Ever since I read the google paper on E <>

Having moved to India recently, I am stuck by how little an average middle class family in India use energy compared to a similar family in US.

I can list quiet a few aspects where the energy efficiency is already practised in India as compared to US.

1. Dishwashers are a novelty in India. If one needs domestic help, it is a general practice to employ a house-maid for a very small fee.

2. Centralised Heaters are unheard of in India ( except 5* hotels or some high profile areas). Whether it is a cool Bangalore or the coldest kashmir in winters, people just cover up in woollen blankets and stay warm. At the most, I have seen some small size radiators where one can warm up their feet and hands for a few mins.

3. Clothes driers are again a novelty in India. People generally dry clothes under the sun. When it rains, someone rushes to take clothes back inside the house. Personally, I am in favour of buying one since I feel that, hanging clothes on a cloudy day does not dry clothes even after 1 day and the clothes start smelling weird..

4.Car pool is a given in most households.. If both spouses go to work, the husband drops the wife and goes to work or atleast drops the child at school and so on.. A second vehicle in a middle class house hold is usually a 2 wheeler ( motorcycle) and used only for shorter commutes.

5.Since distances are near , meaning houses are small and shopping complexes are within walking distance in well-developed communities, many people usually walk to nearby areas or at the most take their 2 wheeler for quick shopping..

Going back to life in US, the system in a person's life is built such that, one has to spend plenty of energy to meet minimum needs for a day. So the question of energy efficiency is very relevant.

The big houses that people live in , definitely is a big energy guzzler.. And an SUV or a mini-van that households have once they have a child is another energy gobbler..Centralized heating and air-conditioning is a given which mounts to huge energy consumption. So one has to think twice about improving those systems at home.

With Cap & Trade bill being passed, it wont be long before energy companies start charging their customers exhorbitant rates so that one will be forced to look at E and then possibly Re.

I am thrilled that finally , all these noble ideas which were preached in small pockets is coming mainstream and affecting every household and person.

More later.

Large Scale Solar Thermal power generation

After reading for years about Solar Energy generation and different ways to generate tap the solar energy , I am somewhat convinced that, Solar Thermal power plants using "Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar collector" holds the future. Installing PV cells roof by roof will not only take much longer but also, we are expecting the end consumer who is used to getting electricity @ the click of a switch to spend time & money to get a PV installer home and install it on their roof top.

Needless to say, if the customer is located remotely, where Govt...is unlikely to pull a transmission line to their premises , it makes most sense to install a PV system on their rooftop.

For grid-connected areas , we need to stop augmenting power generation with Coal or other Fossil fuel based generation techniques. Instead, we must encourage (or force by means of a law:-) and make all private and govt.. players starting to build new plants with Solar Thermal technology..

If we could build Solar Thermal plants across the whole of Thar Desert in Rajasthan , all our Northern states which are reeling with 10s of hours of power cut a day would get the much needed relief . It can generate employment for millions of farmers who can be turn into support industries... And by the way, we could also save the planet by avoid millions of tons of carbon-di-oxide emissions into the earth's atmosphere..

I have been watching this company called "Ausra" who have commoditized building solar thermal power plants and I would approach them to help us set up a plant in Thar desert which we can then replicate to other Desert areas..

Would anyone who read this blog agree with me ?

Solar, the new Oil

I got up this morning with an inspiring article by Mohan Murti in Business about how "Solar could be our new Oil" in the coming decades. He has drawn an anology with how Germany has transformed their Energy portfolio with several Solar and Wind installations.

It is just common sense to think that, for a developing country like India, Solar Thermal power plants should be the way forward. I have followed a few initiatives taken up in Thar Desert to set up a Solar Thermal power plant but they never gone beyond the drawing board.. Is it the huge upfront cost, or is it the notorious government support that stopped these projects, God only knows..

We all think of Solar power a few panels on Street lights, traffic lights or some remote off-grid sites or the poorly maintained and installed Solar heaters in thousands of roofs we see these days in Bangalore..

To make Solar power a common place thing, it is not enough to just (poorly!!) install a Solar heater on your roof and wait for dust to accumulate, but we must go head start into Solar thermal power plants in a large scale.. For which our Renewable energy ministry should provide whole-hearted support and bring in experienced personnel from Germany or Australia or Israel to share the technical know-how and slowly build knowledge base within the Indian group that supports..

More emphasis need to be given in the myriads of Engineering colleges to offer courses in Energy management with special emphasis to Solar Thermal power.. Then we would have aquired both human, capital resources to build multi-thousand-megawatt power plants and feed the energy appetite of growing India.

To read that the common man in New Delhi is going through 12 hours of powercut when we have a such reservoir of solar power in Delhi itslef or in Rajasthan is an irony..

Some random thoughts on Electric cars and its future

I recently moved to Bangalore and was keen on buying my most favourite electric car REVA for my daily commutes. However, I could not convince even my husband since he kept asking me whether one should always be concerned about the range that a car could take us. Besides the car seems quiet expensive given the size of the car. Are we getting close to the era when there will be better technology available for battery storage and hence we can rely on Electric cars as much as we do on gas-based cars ?

Thinking about taking REVA on a mass scale, I was wondering, what would it take to convert all Autorickshaws ( The yellow colored Bajaj 3 seaters ) into battery powered vehicles There are several benefits in doing so.. May be , we could start taking Bangalore back to its original Garden city. days.. Carbon emissions are cut down and people on the road can breathe much better..

May be Reva owners should consider this option and talk to Bajaj company and take this idea to reality.. The smarter way to make Indian cities clean..

Since the current size of Reva can only accomodate only 2 adults and 2 children which is almost the same seating space and the Indian Auto, this thought just came to make Reva concept more popular..

More in my next post.

My Favourite Electric car

My favourite car right now is an Electric car called Reva-i, manufactured from Bangalore , India. The company is run by enterpreneurs from Maini family .An ideal car for urban city commute in countries like India where traffic is maddening.

If you own a Reva car, your user experience is most welcome..