Energy Manager Quiz Results | Global Capacity Update

Quiz Results

It’s been a month since we posted the popular energy manager quiz, so we thought we’d report on aggregate results. But it’s not too late to take the quiz if you would like to.

So far, our pool of quiz-takers is passing, but barely. The average score was only 62%.

Out of the 15 questions, the easiest question was the one about smart meters and the power of interval data. Ninety-two percent of you got that one right.

The toughest of the questions was the one about which home heating option (electricity or gas) would result in the fewest carbon emissions. The correct answer (“It’s hard to say.”) was selected by only one in five of the respondents. But let’s face it. Regardless of the efficiency of the electricity generating plant, if it’s a wind farm, emissions are going to be really, really low. Coal is another matter. And besides, the electrical grid pools energy from all connected vendors, so just because you are paying a premium for green energy on your electric bill doesn’t mean that the electrons you actually get are the green ones!

Four out of five quiz-takers knew the heat equivalent of a therm of natural gas (I confess that I was not one of them). But less than half (48 percent) could calculate the load factor using kWh and peak demand from the utility bill. Since load factor can be an important indicator of building operating performance, let’s review that calculation: First, check the peak demand reading (in kW) from your utility bill, and then determine the maximum possible kWh consumption for the month by multiplying that kW demand value by 24 hours in a day times the total number of days in the billing period. That number is the equivalent of a load factor of 100. The actual load factor is the actual kWh use from the bill, divided by the theoretical maximum.

So if you had a 30-day utility bill with a peak demand reading of 50, and your kWh use for the month was 26,000, the load factor would be 26,000/(50*24*30) = 26,000/36,000 = 72.2%

Thanks to a number of donors (including several of our blog readers), the Global Capacity fund drive is at about 87 percent of goal ($10,000). Online donations totaled more than $7,200, and mail-in donations added nearly $1,500 more.

There is still an urgent need for more than $1,000 for anticipated medical expenses for Jeanette, one of our supported students who was born with HIV and became pregnant in 2012. Her infant son, Matthew Peter, remains free of the disease, but Jeanette had to be hospitalized, which in Africa generally means that the disease has nearly run its course and it would take a miracle to save her.

Thanks for caring, praying, and donating if you feel led to do so.