Software simulates energy management

Energy Ed lays out options for meeting power-consumption needs of consumers.

By TISH WILLIAMS
Register Staff Writer
11/05/2002

When you get your first huge winter power bill in the coming months, don't turn your thermostat down to the "meat locker" setting. Just fire up your computer and solve the state's energy dilemmas yourself.

Wisconsin-based Blue Spark is an educational-software company with a nifty program called Energy Ed. A takeoff of the computer game SimCity - in which participants build up a community's infrastructure and face the consequences of their development decisions - Energy Ed lays out Iowa's energy options for consumers.

Blue Spark spokesperson Debora Jackson Still explains that while many Iowans think they are conserving energy, the state is consuming more and more

"When you ask people, they think they're using as much if not less energy than they did five years ago, when we're using so much more," she said. "Everything we bring back from the store has a plug in it, from a Glade plug-in air freshener to a coffee grinder."

Not only will Energy Ed help explain why turning off lights occasionally won't erase our power-consumption problems, it will let users plan the state's response to energy needs.

The program illustrates the tangled dilemmas of power management. Possible power sources include wind, hydroelectric, biomass, coal, clean coal, solar and nuclear power. Select an expensive one, and the charted price of monthly bills rises dramatically. Pick a cheaper option, and pollution levels skyrocket.

Choose the recommended growth rate - a 2.5 percent increase in consumption each year - for the 15-year window of the demonstration, and a flashing red signal will alert users that today's resources won't come close to meeting power requirements.

Environmentalists, regulators and power companies have put Energy Ed through its paces in focus groups.

After attending Ed's unveiling at a Wisconsin conference, power provider Alliant Energy signed on to sponsor its introduction in Iowa. Iowans will get their first glimpse of Energy Ed in town-hall meetings tentatively set for January.

Also, Blue Spark will put together a pilot program for Iowa schools similar to one being used in Wisconsin.