Paradigm Paralysis

Now here’s that conundrum again… how can you save more energy than is actually being wasted?

Remember that statement often bandied around by some ‘techies’, especially in online forums; “you can only save part of the energy that is being wasted”… I have referred to this in the past but now I would like to provide the technical proof and, equally importantly, try to explain why some people just can’t accept that it IS possible. The difficulty some techie people have in understanding this phenomenon is that they are unable to think outside the box. They often focus purely on what goes on inside the windings of a motor for example, and miss the bigger picture.

Let’s look at how it could be possible to save more energy than an appliance is consuming in isolation, by analysing the simple example of a 100-watt light bulb in a closed air conditioned system.

In a thermodynamically closed system (theoretically speaking), any energy input into the system that is being maintained at a set temperature (which is a standard mode of operation for modern air conditioners) requires that the energy removal rate from the air conditioner must increase. This increase has the effect that for each unit of energy input into the system (say to power a light bulb in the closed system) requires the air conditioner to remove that energy. In order to do that the air conditioner must increase its consumption by the inverse of its efficiency, times the input unit of energy.

Now to our example… presume that inside the closed system a 100-watt light bulb is activated, and the air conditioner has an efficiency of 200%*. The air conditioners energy consumption will increase by 50 watts to compensate for this, thus making the 100-watt light bulb (indirectly) demand a total of 150 W of energy. Hence in this hypothetical situation by LESS (Enigin’s light energy savings system) turning off this 100-watt light bulb when it is not needed you save not 100 but 150 watts! While one light bulb in isolation may be immaterial, some offices and hotels have thousands. Many other appliances generate unnecessary heat, especially motor driven facilities and the same principles can apply.

(*Note: A heat pump cooler operating at Coefficient Of Performance 2.0 removes 2 units of heat for each unit of energy consumed e.g. such an air conditioner consuming 1 kW would remove heat from a building’s air at a rate of 2 kW).

The benefit of an installation of an Enigin Eniscope is that it looks at the whole site in a ‘holistic’ way, measuring the total benefits derived from a given energy management initiative in terms of a reduction in total energy usage. Yes, it seems you can sometimes save more energy than is actually being wasted by an appliance in isolation.

So… why is it that many techies cannot see the wood for the trees? Put simply it is because of a problem called “paradigm paralysis”. They are unfortunately locked into a mindset which dictates that they view everything with a pre-determined set of parameters and values, through a very narrow tunnel of vision. We all know it is possible to look at the same picture and draw a completely different conclusion – consider the well known picture below… do you see a rabbit or a duck?

Some time ago one of Enigin’s Directors wrote a response to a technical ‘white paper’ (still in circulation today) written by a Mr Empson which concluded that end-users would be better off putting their money in the bank than investing in fixed speed, variable voltage motor controllers. The paper was being used in reply to questions relating to a specific fixed speed, variable voltage motor controller which our Director was promoting at the time. Incredibly, in a one-to-one conversation, Mr. Empson had to admit that he had never tested the product about which he was offering so much advice (even the Apple ‘App’ Store now requires that you buy the application before you can write a review). Sadly many prefer to assume that ‘once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all’. This is like being asked to test the performance of a Porsche 911 Turbo and responding by saving: “It’s the same as a VW Beetle – it has four wheels, an engine in the back and in any case Porsche is a major shareholder of the company that makes it so it must be the same”… Utterly ludicrous!

The response to Mr. Empson’s technical paper demonstrated that the figures used in his payback calculations were misleading with regards to the hours of operation, the cost of electricity and the cost of the product. Why? Paradigm paralysis. Individuals start out with a pre-determined agenda based on what they want to believe and then make the figures fit their mindset – that is the definition of a paradigm (Mr. Empson subsequently made adjustments to his paper in response to these criticisms).

Significantly, the response from our Director focussed on two of the most important questions to address when assessing energy saving technology. Firstly, can you consistently deliver a two-year payback for a client on suitable applications? And secondly, is there a big market for his kind of solution? The proof was irrefutable!

Interestingly, the product in question is now being branded by Hitachi because they are so impressed with its performance.

One of the greatest known barriers to progress from within a specialist sector is paradigm paralysis… the inability or refusal to see beyond the current models of thinking. A good example of this is evidenced in Galileo’s theory of a heliocentric universe, the discovery of electrostatic photography, and the quartz timepiece, originally reviled by the Swiss watchmakers.

Enigin are at the leading edge of technological development and along the way we expect to ruffle a few feathers!