A Comparison of Energy Consumption in American Homes by Climate Region

The present research analyzes the impact of nine factors related to household demographics, building equipment, and building characteristics towards a home’s total energy consumption while controlling for climate. To do this, we have surveyed single-family owned houses from the 2015 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) dataset and controlled the analysis by Building America climate zones. Our findings are based on descriptive statistics and multiple regression models, and show that for a median-sized home in three of the five climate zones, heating equipment is still the main contributor to a household’s total energy consumed, followed by home size. Social-economic factors and building age were found relevant for some regions, but often contributed less than size and heating equipment towards total energy consumption. Water heater and education were not found to be statistically relevant in any of the regions. Finally, solar power was only found to be a significant factor in one of the regions, positively contributing to a home’s total energy consumed. These findings are helpful for policymakers to evaluate the specificities of climate regions in their jurisdiction, especially guiding homeowners towards more energy-efficient heating equipment and home configurations, such as reduced size.

Productivity Enhancement of Solar Water Desalination Unit Using a Solar Electric Water Heater

The biggest problem faced by the world these days is pure drinkable water, and in a few years pure drinkable water will not be easily available, as it is becoming brackish and saline due to pollution. By using solar energy, a solar still can produce pure water which can be used for drinking, cooking, and also for industrial purposes. In this research, a solar still based on clean technology using solar energy to drive the system is used. It can be operated easily and with an approximately negligible maintenance cost. A pyramid solar water desalination unit with modification of the solar electric water heater (used to increase water temperature) is developed to increase the water yield per day. A theoretical model of the solar still unit with and without an electric water heater is developed and performance is compared. Based on this theoretical design, fabrication is carried out and experiments are performed to predict the overall output. It is observed that the output distilled water has a TDS (total dissolved salts) value much lower than the TDS of groundwater. Additionally, the average output of a solar water desalination unit with an electric water heater is found to be enhanced compared with the unit without an electric water heater.

Toward an IoT based Software Defined Plumbing Network System with fault tolerance

in this paper we will see the application of computer science algorithms to the plumbing system. We propose a fault tolerant tap water system which is impossible without Internet of things and algorithms . We will show that the problem is a mutual exclusion group problem and we propose an adapted algorithm version from the literature as a solution . Coupling algorithms with the configurable plumbing network we believe that this will open new field of research on IoT we called it software defined plumbing Network where components that have been traditionally implemented in hardware (e.g. water mixers, spring faucets ,flow sensors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software . This way we can solve other problem like instantaneous hot water,automatic cleaning of the water heater..etc since due to computer algorithms the systems can be easily smart, extensible and adaptive.