feedback: the next evolution in energy

in the afternoon during the CLICC Conference, Stina Wessman of the Interactive Institute of Sweden gave a very interesting presentation about feedback focused on sustainability.  though the entire presentation was in Swedish and the slides were rich with text (also in Swedish), I did manage to get the gist of some of what she was saying.  I also used this thing called "the google" to look up some of what she was talking about to learn more.

Stina Wessman, from the Interactive Institute of Sweden, talking about feedback and energy awareness at the CLICC Conference at Malmomassan in Hyllie

the Interactive Institute of Sweden is an experimental company that combines Information Technology, design, and research together and applies this learning and knowledge to a wide variety of fields and applications.  as usual, their website describes themselves better than I can:

Interactive Institute is a Swedish experimental IT & design research institute that conducts applied research and innovation through creative and participatory processes.

the Interactive Institute works ons lots of stuff, more than I can even get into in this post, so I will focus on what I gleaned from Stina's presentation and from reading a little on their website.  the Institute has a focus on sustainability (among other topics) and has engaged in many research projects and experiments about behavior and feedback, which ties in perfectly to the idea of CLICC, which is all about engaging city inhabitants on the issue of carbon footprint and helping people living in the city understand their own individual role(s) as a part of the citywide effort to become carbon neutral in the next 20 years.  yes.  I said it.  the city of Malmo would like to be carbon neutral in the next 20 years.  and the city is actively aiming toward that goal.

Stina talked about projects that are geared toward helping people see (and therefore better understand) their energy use and consumption.  she cited some very cool examples that are prototypes and/ or soon to be marketed and sold ideas that connect people and energy use.  much of what she talked about reminded me of the thinking and initiatives that were undertaken as part of the 2009 Solar Decathlon competition that I worked on through the BAC and Tufts.  our project, entitled curio, focused on sustainable living and awareness as much (if not more) than designing and constructing an 800 square foot zero energy house.

here are a couple that were neat.  there are many more on the website.

"The Power Aware Cord is designed to visualize the energy of the current use of electricity of the appliances connected with it through glowing pulses, flow, and intensity of light."  this picture is from the Interactive Institute website 

the Flower Lamp is another example of innovative thinking around energy use and visualization.  the lamp changes form and becomes dimmer/ brighter based on energy use.  the lamp is an attractive and interactive monitor of energy consumption that can, in turn, affect behavior.

the Element is an attempt to change energy from an unseen source to a visible source.  in this case the energy is heat, as evidenced in a radiator.  the experiment is to showcase the amount of heat being emitted from a radiator in a new form, light.  the light emission is directly matched to the heat emission, thus the brightness of the "radiator" tells you how hot it is.  from the flikr site:

It is usually hard to tell whether radiators are on or off except by laying a hand upon them.  This prototype is made out of glass, metal, and enough light bulbs to reach the same efficiency as an electric radiator, and the current energy level is visible at all times.

I will tell you about two more, but I recommend if you are interested to read up on the Interactive Institute.  they are doing some amazing work in the field of interaction, sustainability, and energy.

the Energy AWARE Clock is an electricity meter that resembles an ordinary kitchen clock.  it measures your energy consumption and tells you the time simultaneously while also allowing you to compare previous energy use to today's consumption, thus you become aware and notice improvements and changes in consumption.

lastly, BoEL is a chance to compare your energy use to your neighbors.  a web based interface and simple glowing orb in your window shows how much energy you are consuming.  red, green, and yellow are comparative measurements that allow each user as well as the neighbors to see how one unit performs.  this could lead to healthy competition, shared knowledge and team building, or even a little pang of guilt, all of which have been shown to affect behavior.  according to the website:

BoEL is an experimental social ambient interface and web service that presents daily consumption figures to home owners and neighbors to promote joint savings and foster competitive energy saving bahaviors.  The service includes an ambient lamp that provides feedback on the energy consumption in the household and these interfaces are installed so that the neighbors can observe each others energy status.

check out the Interactive Institute of Sweden's website for more cool strategies about using interaction and communication to affect behavior and sustainable living.

food scraps = energy in Malmo: the food grinder

it's 6.30pm and you just arrived home from work.  it's time to make dinner.  it is a simple meal.  pasta with veggies and sauce.  you pull out the cutting board and your favorite knife.  you scrub all of the terrible pesticides and toxins off your vegetables, hoping that this shiny red pepper is not the one that puts one nano gram too much of whatever you don't want in your body.  you chop and cut and chop and suddenly you are sauteing it all in a pan.  the water is boiling for the pasta and voila! you have dinner.  it's delicious, by the way.

cleanup in this kitchen is almost as easy as making the mess.  you finished the pasta sauce so you splash some water around in the jar and dump it down the drain.  you open the door under the sink and deposit the jar into the clear glass recycling bin.  the scraps of vegetables go into the food grinder (what we used to call the garbage disposal).  you splash a little water on the plates and silverware and put it all in the dishwasher.  you always win the clean plate award so there are no scraps on the plate, but if there were any scraps or anything else that could be ground in the food grinder, you'd dump them into the sink and wash them "away" as well.

kitchen sink in the apartment.  pretty "normal" looking.  the silver button on the upper left turns on the food grinder.

then the magic starts.  you turn on the water and press the little silver button.  a loud gurgling sound emits from inside the sink drain, gradually getting more uniform and higher pitched.  when the last of the food remnants are gone, you press the silver button again and it's done.  your "wasted" food is on it's way to becoming energy.

it's a titan.  food grinder.

a separate piping system takes the water and ground food waste to a nearby storage tank.  it's surprisingly simple.  sedimentation allows the liquid to skim off the top inside the tank and join the rest of the waste water on it's way to a treatment plant in the harbor.  what settles at the bottom of the tank is pumped away to a nearby plant where they tank it all back together in a specific method that turns this "waste" into something called biogas.

pipes from both sink drains joining to go separately out of the building to a sediment and storage tank where the food waste separates and is pumped offsite for transformation from food waste to biogas

biogas, as you can imagine, is just like other gases that you know.  it can be burned like natural gas to heat your home boiler or hot water.  it can be refined into fuel to power your car.  it is basically like oil except we didn't have to dig for it or destroy anything like forests or water supplies or the environment to get it.  it is a natural byproduct of human consumption.  oh, and in case you are wondering (which I am sure you are) it is:

• "clean" (meaning that the stuff that goes into the food grinder is food, not plastic or other undesirable items that dilute or destroy the biogas process)
• hygienic for the inhabitant (what you put into the grinder is what you have already touched)
• natural (no cleaning products, chemicals, or other stuff needs to be added)
• simple (press a button and it's done)
• cleaner burning (biogas is much lower emission and cleaner burning than many other fuels, especially oil based fuels such as gasoline and diesel)

if you are looking for an alternative to oil to power cars, buses, and other transportation, biogas could be a very successful option.  we've all seen how much food goes down the drain (which is, in itself, an area that needs some improvement).  the city of Malmo is making great strides to use food waste to produce energy and hopes to have the entire city bus fleet on biogas within ten years.  there is also a campaign to collect compost style food waste in all neighborhoods of the city as well as using the new grinder method.

want more info?
a company called vasyd is a main stakeholder in this process.  their (vasyd) website is also very informative (and has english translations).  I met with Mimmi Bissmont from the vasyd Malmo office.  she was extremely helpful and supportive.  thanks Mimmi!  her work focuses on connecting action, behavior, and sustainable efforts.  for more info on improved use of energy through behavior, check out this post on the psychology of energy reduction or this post about energy reduction through feedback loops.

the washer and dryer... I figured it out!

the bathroom in this apartment has baffled me since day one and I am still trying to figure some parts of it out, but each day it makes a little more sense.  the building is "passive" which basically means that there is no heating or cooling in the apartment.  there is a thermostat that you can turn up and it will simply supply you with clean air that has been pre (or re) heated by the heat produced by building inhabitants.  there are no air conditioners, no radiators, no nothing.  just these little things on the wall that spit out clean air and other ones that suck away the dirty air.  more on that as I figure it out.

front load washer (right) and dryer (left) in the apartment

meanwhile, I figured out the washer dryer situation.  the washer is a pretty normal eco front loader, but the dryer had been baffling me for a couple of days.  I had been talking with Tamara about how to use the dryer and she explained that after every use you need to open up a little compartment on the bottom to wring out a filter and empty a little water compartment.

bottom of dryer

we both agreed that the system adds a little extra work each time you run the dryer and that it was a little annoying.  I could not explain why you'd need to empty water out of the dryer because clearly the washer has a drain so the dryer could too.

after opening the front panel at the bottom of the dryer you can see where the fan operates (on the right) and where the filter can be removed (on the left) as well as the water compartment (bottom)

then it hit me.  its so simple I don't know why I didn't figure it out immediately.  you need to wring out the filter and empty the water compartment because there is no vent for the dryer.  whatever water is taken from the air inside the dryer has to go somewhere, so they suck it through a filter and deposit it into a compartment at the bottom.  because the apartment is passive and the heat created by the inhabitants is reused, they don't want to waste all of that heat venting outside so they vent inside.  in fact, the bathroom actually heats up during the dryer cycle because it is venting into the room!

filter (top left, grey) slides out after the cover (bottom right, grey) that holds it in place is removed

so simple.  or so complicated?

water compartment (white, left), filter (grey, middle), and cover plate (grey, right) are the removable pieces of the bottom of the dryer that allow for the dryer to vent directly into the bathroom