Incremental Cost of Electricity Used as Backup for Passive Heated Homes PDF Download

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Book Description
The impact of passive technologies on a north-central US utility has been studied. A method of utility cost and fuel use analysis, developed at Brookhaven National Laboratory, was used to compute the long run incremental costs and incremental fuel use required for supplementary electricity to houses with Trombe walls or with direct gain features. For comparison, a reference house with no passive features and a house with an energy conservation design were also analyzed. The results show that the total long run incremental cost to the utility of providing supplementary power to the passive houses costs no more than the cost to supply electricity to heat the reference house or the conservation house. An analysis of the annual homeowner costs for the various types of heating systems suggests that the Trombe wall technology is not promising for use in this climate. The passive technologies, as modelled in this study reduced the requirements for conventional energy by about 10% (7 to 10 kilojoules/year). For all of the house types studied, the use of electricity for heating, instead of oil or gas, reduced the overall (utility plus residential) use of oil or gas by only about 30 to 40% even out through the 1990's.