Category Archives: Solar Energy

Saving Electricity with LED Lights from Costco – Modesto

 

a lightbulbs 2

How many surgeons does it take to…

It might take 6 years to recoup my costs of LED lights

But I think it will be worth it – just for the chance to live greener.

$19.99 for 3 pack. Modesto tax rate 7.625%
This comes out to $21.51 for each pack of 3 LED light bulbs.

I previous had lights that were 45 watts. The new LED ones that I got are now 7.5 watts

Details on the LED light bulbs:

Feit Electric / Conserv Energy LED Dimmable, Mercury Free, 3000K light appearance, lasts 22.8 years. 3 years warrantee. Order No BPCEAG/500/3.  3000K light appearance (on the warm side).

The way I use it, I did some quick math on it. I think it will take me about 3-6 years before I get my return on investment on the purchase from Costco in Modesto, CA.

The package did say that they are anticipating 0.90 cents cost of yearly energy cost per LED light bulb based on 3hrs/day at 11 cents per KWh.

But there are so many other factors when it comes to savings, such as will the light bulb live out 22 years?  Will we move.  Will the next owners use them.  Will they be broken – ie some one breaking them.  Do they use up a lot more resources to make than a regular light bulb?  I’m not sure of these things.

The Design of the LED Light Bulbs here might not be exactly the most efficient for canned lighting.

I think it’s an opportunity me to be kinder to mother earth. I don’t know for sure if it takes more resources to make an LED bulb. But if anyone knows. I’d love to hear. I’m just thinking about the design of the LED bulbs that I got. They’re probably just trying to make the light more diffuse, but unfortunately I don’t need diffuse light – they are up in a can – canned lights, but it’s still more efficient than the regular incandescent bulbs though. I know LED lights are directional – that would be good in a canned light, but there’s probably some sort of diffuser inside these bulbs. I’m just thinking just from the way it’s shaped. Oh well. I bet I could get some sort of flood light shaped with LED technology in it and get the same about of light in the room below with fewer wattage. Costco sold those too, but I didn’t get those. Now I’m started to understand the difference. Some lighting situations need diffuse light and others, directional light is king when using a recessed can light application – and LED is made for directional lighting, except when a diffuser of sorts is stuck in there – absorbing some of the light. But not all lost, because otherwise, I’d have a spot light on the floor.

Well, it would be great if we could retrofit a lot of the bulbs at our Plastic Surgery office with these bulbs.  The rest of the office could benefit from a greener adjustment as well.

 

Here’s a little digression:

Q: How many surgeons does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: “Why don’t you just let us remove the entire socket – you don’t need it, and it’ll just give you trouble later.”

dr-wu-and-dr-lee

 

 

 

Cleaning Solar Panels Adds At Least 10% More Electricity

personal solar farm in Modesto, CA

Solar Panels in Modesto, CA

How much improvement do we get from Cleaning Solar Panels, in Modesto, CA?

Let’s see, here’s a graph from the day before cleaning to the day after cleaning:
(May 7, 2013)

washed solar panel graph between one day and the next

You see a nice difference between these two days, but perhaps it might be unfair it might have been a cloudy day before cleaning.

So let’s take a look at several days before and several days after cleaning of the solar panels

This is a graph showing 4 days before and 4 days after

energy produced

Four days before cleaning and 4 days after cleaning

Dirty vs. Clean Solar Panels.  4 days before and 4 days after washing. There is a 26.7% difference in my case here with washing!! 

But I think there’s a better way to measure, taking the two best days of the 4 days before and the two best days of the 4 days afterwards, the difference comes out to 13.3% difference. I think two days before washing the solar panels, the skies were a bit cloudy. My conclusion so far is that washing the solar panels will increase output by 10% or more.

How much electricity does my solar panels produce in one day?

Let’s take one day in the solar energy/electricity graph above.  Thursday, May 9th.  They produced 61.3 kWh’s of electricity.

Let’s see 61.3 kWh’s = 61,300 watts hours so in terms of 100 watt light bulbs, you could run 613 of them for 1 hour. How does that sound?? Or I did another calculation… You could drive a TESLA electric sports car at 55 miles per hour for about 240 miles with that kind of electricity. Or if I did the calculation properly, you could run a 1200 watt hair dryer for 51 hours.  Disclaimer:  My calculations are approximate, not exact.  Plus I don’t do calculations like this professionally.

I think it’s worthwhile to have the extra 10%+ of electricity especially on the higher producing electricity days.

How is this relevant to Plastic Surgery / Cosmetic Surgery

This very important to plastic surgery!  We use energy based devices such as lasers for aesthetic purposes.  Understanding power, electricity, kWh, Joules, are all important aspects of understanding how to work with lasers.

  • kWh = kilowatt hour = a unit of energy equal to 1000 watt hours or 3.6 megajoules.
  • 1 kWh = 3600 kJ
  • J = Joule is a unit of energy.  It is equal to the energy expended in applying a force of one newton through a distance of 21 meter.
  • 1 Watt = a measure of power = 1 Joule per second. (W = J/s)

Lasers At Surgical Artistry

  • At Surgical Artistry, we have the Dornier 940 diode laser from Germany for spider veins and for endoluminal ablation of refluxing veins, it does measurements in Joules/cm2.  Meaning about of energy applied to a square cm2 area.  I’m always looking at these settings carefully when performing vein procedures.
  • I’ve always enjoyed physics, not just these formulas.  Perhaps it runs in my family, as there are several physics professionals in my family.  But there’s a whole field on the physics of electricity, energy, and lasers.  And all this info is worth reviewing for physicians who work with lasers and other energy sources.
  • We may consider consider getting other lasers at Surgical Artistry in the future.  Stay tuned.  Contact us for more info if needed (209) 551-1888.  www.SurgeryToday.com 

Conclusions

  • Conclusion from the above experiment of cleaning the solar panels and measuring output before and afterwards?  We have confounding issues of weather conditions ie. clouds.  I think it is safe to say that there would be at least a 10% improvement.  My measurements show 26% improvement by comparing 4 days before washing and 4 days after washing the solar panels.  Then my comparison showed a 13% improvement taking the 2 best days of the 4 days before and comparing with the 2 best days 4 days after washing.
  • And yes, doing experiments like this is useful for me in my continued medical education.
Dr. Calvin Lee using power from the Sun

Picture of me harnessing the power of the sun