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IIRC, my Dell laptop has a BIOS option to automatically stop charging at certain times of the day, even if it's plugged into the charger. So that's another oppo
by cesarb 7y ago
IIRC, my Dell laptop has a BIOS option to automatically stop charging at certain times of the day, even if it's plugged into the charger. So that's another opportunity: many people seem to use their laptop plugged into the AC most of the time (and into an extra monitor, and into an external keyboard/mouse, etc). With current laptops lasting several hours while unplugged, running them from the internal battery for an hour in times of high demand is viable.
- H8crilA 7y agoLet's take optimistic assumptions: 50 watts used by a laptop, ~4 hours a day, plugged in and used every day of the year, one laptop per an American, 300M people. All of that multiplies up to 4 * 365 * 50 * 3e+8 = 2.19e+13 watt hours = 2.19e+10 kilowatt hours affected per year. United States uses about 4.1e+12 kilowatt hours per year, that would have an impact of ~1%. Realistically it would probably be 10-100x less. Although it does seem easy to deploy at scale, at least in the future models.
- yummypaint 7y agoThere is a tradeoff here since involving the battery will increase the overall power consumption. Cycling the battery also shortens its lifespan, and obtaining a replacement costs more energy. I think some degree of centralized control may be needed for this to pay off. That being said, i wonder if there are any existing programs that look at local electricity demand and adjust things accordingly.