Guidelines for fair usage of power at Climate Camp 2008

Climate Camp runs on renewables. These are a combination of solar panels and wind generators that generate energy that is stored in batteries. There is only a limited capacity in the batteries and hence only a certain amount of electricity can realistically be used for only a certain amount of time each day. The energy store in the batteries is replenished using the solar panels and the wind generators. If we have lots of sun and wind, then we can restore the energy as we go; but if it's overcast with no wind, then we'll have less ability to restore the power we have used and more likelihood of running out of it.

So as a general policy for the camp: there are a number of peak days where there will be many more people on site and when communications will be essential (during the two main days of action) and we should try to be as sparing as possible leading up to these days to enable us to have a flying chance of meeting the power requirements on the peak days.

The camp and power

The following chart is of the days of the camp and whether we should expect / permit light, medium or heavy usage:

Day	Usage	Max power	Num hours	Kwh
Sunday 3rd	Light	200w	4h	0.8
Monday 4th	Light
Tuesday 5th	Medium	500w	6h	3.0
Wednesday 6th	Heavy	600w
Thursday 7th	Light/Medium
Friday 8th	Medium
Saturday 9th	Heavy
Sunday 10th	Medium
Monday 11th	Light

Fair usage

Power is a scare and shared resource that we all should be respectful of.

Laptops

Bristol Wireless have been kind enough to supply a suite of thin-client computers that run Linux and which will be good enough for low-end computing tasks, such as surfing the Internet (but not youtube), writing documents (using OpenOffice), off-loading photos from a digital camera or memory card, and working on simple graphics and diagrams. A lot of hard work has been put into this suite to minimise the amount of overall power it consumes, whilst maximising the number of computers available; the more computers that are running, the more effecient the suite is. There will be 6 clients dedicated at all times to Be The Media and the Media Team, with another (up to) 12 being made available for short periods during the day for campers to catch up on the latest news and use email. Priority will be given for anyone who is either a part of the core Be The Media team or who is interested in being involved with grass-roots media.

If however you do need to use your own laptop, please follow the following guidelines:

• Try where possible to use a laptop with a smaller screen than a larger. Keep the screen brightness as dimmed as is usable at all times.
• Unless absolutely necessary try not to use processor intensive applications such as video rendering.
• If you are not needing to use sound for your work, disable (mute) it.
• Unless you really, really need to use the CD/DVD drive, don't.
• When charging a laptop uses between 2.5 and 3 times the power than when it's not. Please do not use the facilities for charging up your laptop, to which end we ask everyone to remove their batteries from their laptops if using within the media space.

Mobile phones

We have tried to provide some 12 volt charging for mobile phones.

• Unless you really need the latest Nokia N93 8MB phone for your work, you're really better off with a cheap, low-function mobile that doesn't have a large colour screen and no camera. The battery in this latter type will last at least four to five days with average usage; and N93 will require daily charging.
• If you can find a 12 volt car-charger and a battery to connect it to, then use this.
• If you are using a laptop already and you have a cable to charge your phone off USB, then do this.

Video cameras

Here are a few tips for those with video cameras.

• Try to use the larger batteries that last longer and require less frequent charger.
• Please bring your charger with you. We definitely won't have the right charger for your camera.

In General

During the camp, on the front of and inside the Be the Media tent we will have a colour coded system based on how good power availability is, this system is:

Colour	Meaning	Guidelines
Green
Amber
Red