Energy & Power
"in the home"
Intro
In this activity, students will explore power and energy usage in the home. Power comes from a power plant to your home through a system of power lines, power sub-stations, and transformers that make up the "power grid."
This game shows power flowing through the transformer, the meter, and into the home circuit breaker. From there, it powers various appliances. Students can open or close switches to turn appliances on and off, track power usage, and learn concepts such as power conservation, network flows, and the relationship between power and energy. An appliance's energy use and cost depend both on the amount of power needed for its use and the amount of time the appliance is used, or powered on. Some appliances require a lot of power, but we don't use them often, so they don't use much energy over time. Other appliances may not need as much power, but are used for more time. For example, a toaster needs a lot more power than an air conditioner does, but most people use a toaster very little throughout the day.
Click the button below to access the game. This game will be opened in a new window so that you can switch back and fourth to access the challenge questions below.
This game shows power flowing through the transformer, the meter, and into the home circuit breaker. From there, it powers various appliances. Students can open or close switches to turn appliances on and off, track power usage, and learn concepts such as power conservation, network flows, and the relationship between power and energy. An appliance's energy use and cost depend both on the amount of power needed for its use and the amount of time the appliance is used, or powered on. Some appliances require a lot of power, but we don't use them often, so they don't use much energy over time. Other appliances may not need as much power, but are used for more time. For example, a toaster needs a lot more power than an air conditioner does, but most people use a toaster very little throughout the day.
Click the button below to access the game. This game will be opened in a new window so that you can switch back and fourth to access the challenge questions below.
Challenges
IMPORTANT: Set the cost of electricity (near the bottom of the screen) to 7.8¢ per kWh (kilowatt hour)!
- Set the blue switches so that only the Energy Star (E-Star) refrigerator is powered on. What is the current power consumed (It's the green number near the top of the screen)? Now switch to the normal refrigerator and look at the current power consumed. Compare the two, about how much more power does the standard refrigerator use?
- Which of the three video game systems uses the least amount of energy?
- If your XBOX 360 and 40" LCD TV are on for 6 hours, how much energy is used? How much does this energy cost?
- Set the blue switches so that only the toaster is powered on. What is the current power consumed? Click: Pause Time and the Reset Time buttons -- You should see the energy use and energy cost reset on the kWh meter, as well as the time of day (up top). If you use the toaster for 10 minutes, how much energy do you use and how much does it cost? Now change the cost of electricity to is 15.4¢ per kWh, how much do you pay to use the toaster for ten minutes then?
- Switch the cost of electricity to 9.3¢ per kWh. Now set the switches so that only the "Solar Module" is connected and watch what happens? Power on the LCD TV and now watch what happens. Which appliances need less power than the solar module can supply? If there were twenty of these solar modules producing electricity, how much power could they supply? Hint: current power multiplied by 20 & turn it positive.
- Energy is sold by the kilowatt hour (kWh). A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. If you use the 1,000-watt hair dryer for one hour, you will use 1 kWh (one kilowatt hour) of energy. How much energy is used if you dry your hair for 15 minutes? Hint: 15 minutes is 1/4 hour.
- Although not on the list, describe what attaching a wind turbine would do to the flow of electricity? Why?
- Compare the incandescent light bulb with the fluorescent light bulb (CFL). If a lamp is on for 8 hours, how much energy is saved by using the CFL bulb? How much money is saved?
- Estimate the amount of light bulbs in your house. How many hours are each of these light bulbs on per day (estimate)? How much energy could your home save per day if they were all replaced to CFL bulbs? How much per month?
Tutorial
Click the link below to download a tutorial file that explains the features of the game.