Appropedia Page Review
This page seems to a compilation of articles with brief explanations of what the reader will find if they follow the links. It should be set up as a summarization and explanation of the page topic.
There is lots of good sourced information, but very little of it has been summarized on the page itself.
I recommend more of an executive summary be written for each article so all the immediate necessary knowledge, data and theory is available to the reader. If the reader feels the need to find more information on the subject, then they could access the links.
The Peer Reviewed and Published Literature Section is an unnecessary section of the page, all literature should be referenced at the end of the page and associated to the page section it pertains to with an endnote.
Overall, the Appropedia Page needs major restructuring and more information directly on the page.
ECM Review
Corrections for "Phantom Power Consumption - Replace When Needed"
- Spelling error, cell C40 of Savings Projections sheet. "Cash" - Formatting error, cell A1 & A2 of the Input Devices sheet cannot be read with current formatting.
(Same corrections to second worksheet Phantom Power Consumption - Immediate Replacement)
It is very unclear the difference between the two different ECM excel worksheets. The only difference found is a new cost for the power bars which could just be made an Input and then allow both worksheets to be combined into one. The difference between "Additional Cost per Power Bar ($)" and "Cost per Power Bar ($)" is not stated an therefore is not understood. Some explanation is required.
The worksheet is very well organized sheets with explanations and equations very obvious. All of the information is well laid out.
Very little work is required for the ECM with the exception of making it a single worksheet or explaining thoroughly the reason for the second one.
--Ken MacDougall 23:22, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Hello Gang,
Your layout is very clean and easy to follow. In general I was able to grasp the concept of your savings model quickly and for each input I altered, I was able to track the changes in savings. The simplicity of your sheet adds tremendously to its effectiveness. In particular, it was nice to see each formula spelled out in the savings projections. Very useful.
Cosmetically, I have a few minor suggestions. In the name of causality, your Input Suggestions sheet should perhaps be placed ahead of the Savings Projections so as to eliminate any chance that a user would be confused when ‘following along’ and mistakenly think that inputs were to be entered directly in to the savings projection.
Secondly, I’m still struggling a bit to understand why you need two spreadsheets. The two descriptions you have linked to the sheets in your article seem to say the same thing, and the only difference between the two seems to be the cost of the power bars. Couldn’t this be accounted for by having some sort of toggle in the input between their different options? I’m sure there is strong reasoning behind your choices here, but to someone who stumbles across this tool, it might cause confusion.
You should probably try to give some references for the phantom power consumptions consumed by each device you provide an input for – whether you used your Kill-a-Watt meters or averaged data from several sources, it’s only fair to let us know where you got the numbers.
Thinking about your model, there was no explanation given anywhere in the spreadsheet about how many devices would share one power bar. In the Savings Projection you have assumed that each power bar has 6 plugs and that 4/6 are in use. Obviously full use can be achieved in a desktop setting if you had six devices to plug in, but there are many scenarios I can imagine where either the office layout or number of devices will vary significantly. Although this complicates matters thoroughly, rearranging the sheet to allow the average use of power bars as an input would provide a more accurate cost savings estimate.
The only other feature I can think of that would be useful is a space for an advanced or savvy user to add additional devices in to the calculations – an easy way would be to add a few lines at the bottom. Your article, while informative, could be fleshed out a bit more. Many people do not have the time or attention span to peruse your sources and if someone were to arrive on your page, they might be frustrated to find a literature review more than an actual summary of what’s going on.
Cheers,
John
Introduction
- I found the introduction awkward. "Phantom power is the power consumed by electrical appliances when they are switched off or not in use, but remain plugged in to an electrical socket" is a great definition, but "Although the phantom power consumption of one individual appliance may be trivial, many appliances within a home or business draw power when not in use, and this power consumption can accumulate" seems redundant and misleading. You don't need to restate that appliances draw power when not in use; just end up with how these loses accumulate.
- I really liked the vampire diagram; it was simple and informative.
Example
- This sub-section mentions that replacing current power bars with energy-saving bars would result in a payback time of 4.16 years. The math is there for how much energy is saved, but how do these special power bars do this? How do they go about cutting down phantom power use? "How to Reduce Phantom Power" in you "Overview Articles" section and the summaries in the "Device Options" section touch on it, but I need a simple explanation more readily available - preferably right beside the claim on how much they can save.
Device Options
- "Device Options" should have a more informative title. Also, since one of your device options is not a power bar and your wiki page title is "Phantom power reducing power bars", your title should reflect that some of the devices aren't power bars (i.e. "Watt's Up?").
Overall a nice wiki page. A lot of referenced material and helpful links, but more of said material on the actual page rather than just linked to would be better.
--SVickers 23:23, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Hey guys,
APPROPEDIA REVIEW
A very concise and efficient example is summarized in the intro to help someone understand the basis of your ECM and impact of your technology. Clear results and excellent figure are provided, good job! The difference in the titles between your 2 ECM spreadsheets is not very clear. Although I am sure you have a reason for the two separate files, you must explain it a little better in the Appropedia page if so. As to my understanding, can’t this all be merged into one spreadsheet with an added input for the additional cost of the power bar? (which seems to be the only difference between the 2 spreadsheets)
Very good articles provided under the Overview section. However, I feel that not enough information is actually provided for a reader to become knowledgeable on this topic just by reading your Appropedia page. Perhaps expand on the information a little bit, and just add the link to the actual article under the Sources section at the bottom.
Under the power data section, a good summary is provided to inform the reader of what they can find in these linked articles. Perhaps try and include a summary within the Appropedia page as to the varying power consumption for the most common appliances, the use of a diagram or table would have more impact on the reader.
Sufficient options are provided for purchasing consumption-reducing devices. However, perhaps standardized information should be given for each device, such as price, power savings, and payback. You have provided this information for only some devices and it is scattered. A table would be a great way of condensing all this info.
I may be wrong here, but perhaps you could the one article listed under your Published Literature section as part of the references, rather than having it under a separate section?
Overall, I feel that you may have linked too many articles from the Appropedia page, whereas ideally you should be summarizing the information found in the articles, and writing them up on the Appropedia page. Although you guys have done a great job of getting all the information here on the page, it needs to be presented in a better fashion.
ECM REVIEW
Excellent job on the introduction page, very clear information and presented nicely. Just a minor suggestion, make your savings projections stand out a little more as that is that what the company would be looking for.
Also, add axis titles to the graphs? (This applies to all the graphs in your spreadsheet)
Again, on the projected savings page, just maybe highlight the information that you want to emphasize to the company. Try and provide hyperlinks within the documents to make it easier to navigate between tabs and inform the reader as to which tabs are useful for clarifying presented information. Summary on input devices is fantastic. Not much to say there, except make it clear how you found your stand-by consumption numbers. As for the electricity prices, do you have them sourced? It might be a good idea to provide a link right next to the table as to which reference this is related to. Overall, great job on the ECM, very easy to follow and no major kinks. Just some minor touch-ups here and there.
--Rohan Murti 23:43, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
Appropedia Page Review
I like the organization of your page - very easy to follow and neatly broken down. Your example, although very good, clearly states numbers taken from your ECM - I think a reference here would add more credibility to your data. As well, I agree with Rohan - great articles in the Overview Articles section, but not quite enough information for a casual reader to become familiar with the topic. The Peer Reviewed and Published Literature section is also quite lean and should also be expanded on. Lots of sources, although many different citation methods have been used and some time should be taken to consolidate your citation methods.
This review is quite exacting as you've done a great job overall. Just a couple of improvements can make this page brilliant.
ECM Review
You might want to include links to your references in your Introduction worksheet. Again, although a great example, without referencing where the numbers come from the results are questionable. I see in the Assumptions and Sources worksheet you have codes for your sources: providing a link from your Introduction to your Sources worksheet would increase the reliability of your results. The font size seems to change between your Introduction and all your other worksheets - this needs to be fixed as it brings the reader's focus away from your results and the crux of your ECM. As well, you might want to include a note on the possibility of electricity prices rising in the future to explain the length of your current payback period.
Your Savings Projection worksheet is good overall, but could use some clarification. I looked at your first values (Cpw) and your equation states that these were obtained using simple multiplication; however, I was unable to find N or C anywhere. If an extra column is included perhaps the symbol or equation can be put there with the last column being used as a further explanation of what the symbol represents or of what data are being used to calculate that value. I could follow how you obtained your numbers, although I'm wondering why you summed cells P5 through P999 if you're only using up to P40. I can only assume that you're taking into account expansion in the future, which is very well thought out.
Your Input Devices worksheet is impeccable, although I can only wonder what company currently uses 200 CRT's and 400 cordless phones with answering machines.
The Electricity Prices worksheet is very bare bones, perhaps you can expand on the breakdown of energy costs in Ontario (i.e. commodity charges and transmission network charges). As well, providing a link to your Sources worksheet would be great as the reader will not know where you obtained your electricity charges (i.e. are they in Canadian dollars or US dollars?).
Finally, your Assumptions and Sources worksheet is also good, but can use a couple of impropvements. First, Assumption A1 can be rewritten to take into account Assumption A6: the power drawn by commercial air conditioning units is massive and the amperage is much higher than the fuses connected to regular outlets. As well, a reference could be provided for Assumption A12, right in its cell.
All in all, quite good but a few minor changes can really make your ECM shine.
Cheers,
Alex
4ak25 03:06 AM 12 Feb 2010 (UTC)