We shine a little light on misconceptions about electricity.

True or False?
Using portable electric heaters can reduce your home heating bill.

TRUE. The savings come from turning down the thermostat for your central heating system, which more than offsets the cost of running the electric heater. Sometimes called the “warm room concept,” the idea is to only heat the room or rooms you use most, thereby saving the cost of heating rooms you don’t use. If you only heat two rooms of a 10-room house to 70 degrees, leaving the rest at, say, 55 degrees, you’ll save money.

So all the ads you see in newspapers and magazines (including this one) that promise to cut your heating bills in half are essentially correct, depending on the size of your house, the area you heat with portable heaters, and how much you reduce the need for your central heating system to run.

Some heaters are more sophisticated than others, but all electric space heaters provide pretty much the same amount of heat for every watt they use. One kilowatt hour of electricity will produce 3,413 Btu’s of heat, no more, no less. So, you get much the same effect whether the heater costs $50 or $500. Some space heaters are filled with oil so the heat radiates longer, have ceramic disks, are cool to the touch, generate heat from lamps, or operate like toasters. But all will do the job. Just make sure they have tip-over protection and are safe for children if you have any in the house. And, get rid of any old heaters with frayed cords, as they are fire hazards.

True or False?
Fluorescent lights go dim with use.

FALSE. Technically, they do dim with use, but the change is so slight that you really shouldn’t notice. The first compact fluorescent bulbs flickered when they were turned on because it took a few seconds for the ballast to produce enough electricity to excite the gas inside the bulb. In newer fluorescent bulbs there is no significant flicker (less than 1 second). However, these bulbs do require a short warmup period before they reach full brightness, which is why they may appear dim when first turned on.

Until now, compact fluorescent light bulbs weren’t recommended for enclosed fixtures because they create temperatures higher than the bulbs could tolerate. Similarly, running a compact fluorescent lamp base-up will result in hotter electronics and shorter average life.

Now, however, a number of reflector compact fluorescent bulbs have been rated by the U.S. Department of Energy as suitable for use in down-light or recessed applications. You can find more about these lights at www.pnl.gov/rlamps/

Fluorescent lamps are more efficient than incandescent light bulbs of an equivalent brightness. This is because more of the consumed energy is converted to usable light and less is converted to heat, allowing fluorescent lamps to run cooler. An incandescent lamp may convert only 10 percent of its power input to visible light. A fluorescent lamp producing as much useful visible light may require only one-third to one-quarter as much electricity input. Typically, a fluorescent lamp will last between 10 and 20 times as long as an equivalent incandescent lamp.

The higher initial cost of a fluorescent lamp is more than compensated for by lower energy consumption over its life. And they’re getting cheaper. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., announced in late November that it has set a goal of selling 100 million compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) at its Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores by the end of 2007. The company estimates that selling 100 million CFLs will save its customers $3 billion in electricity costs while avoiding the emission of 20 million tons of greenhouse gases.

True or False?
If you generate electricity with a windmill, you can sell back what you don’t use to your utility at the same price you pay them.

FALSE. It might seem like selling electricity back to the utility should be a straight-up trade, but the utility is on the hook for providing and maintaining the poles, wires and other infrastructure required to make the transfer of electricity possible. Since the cost of that infrastructure is part of the retail price of the electricity, anyone using the facilities to move electricity should pay their fair share. And that’s what generally happens. The rules vary by state, but usually they call for the seller of electricity to the utility to be paid what is called the “avoided cost,” which is the retail price of electricity minus the cost of providing the infrastructure that is bundled into the retail rate. If co-ops paid sellers more than the avoided cost, all members of the co-op would be subsidizing the windmill owner.

Some people would like to see the utilities buy back electricity for the same price they sell it for, also called “net metering,” because that would encourage the development of alternative generation. They also think utilities should not charge wind generators to tie into the electric grid, even though that can be a huge cost. But the co-ops believe those are societal goals and should not be subsidized by the other members of the cooperative.

True or False?
Geothermal heating systems need a backup.

FALSE. Geothermal systems, which transfer heat from the earth to your home, don’t require any more backup than any other heating system. A properly designed geothermal system will include supplemental electric heat to provide a burst of heat during extremely cold temperatures. But that’s done to make sure the system is sized for peak efficiency, not because geothermal systems can’t do the job alone.