How much are you using?

Posted by Anna Heywood on June 17, 2008 12:15 PM | Permalink

With utility prices going through the roof and many more of us trying to reduce our carbon footprint, there are now a number of clever methods and gadgets to help us work out exactly how much energy we are using in the home.

Whilst much of the media focus concentrates on the activities of business, according to the Energy Saving Trust, almost half of the UK's carbon dioxide emissions, the main greenhouse gas which causes climate change, actually come from the things we do every day.
Things like leaving lights on unnecessarily or overfilling the kettle all waste energy and result in needless carbon dioxide.

Although we make a big effort at home to switch things off, at times I have been a little blasé about it. We have been with Good Energy, a 100% renewable Electricity Company for a number of years and if I did go out and remember that I had left something on, there was always this little voice at the back of my head that would say ‘oh well it’s green electricity anyway, so not to worry’, (wrongly!) as if it were some sort of insurance policy.

However, two recent big bills shook me out of my smug little comfort zone.
The main one was our gas bill which has almost doubled in little over a year from £57 per month to £106.

I knew that drastic action had to be taken, which despite the gadgets to assist with this that I will go on to mention, can actually be done for free. My call-to-arms also coincided with this timely email from Ray Brooks from Walkerville.

Anna,
I was interested to read your comments on energy usage and the measurement of this in home/business use.
I fitted "plug-in" meters to most of my appliances within my own home and found my fridge/freezer to use more energy than any other appliance in my home!

People should consider buying at least one such meter (quite affordable) at approx £7 each or so; they are quite an eye-opener.
I decided in March'07 to install onto my own home in Walkerville Newcastle,a Photovoltaic Microgenerator-Grid Connected which provided at least 23% of my annual electricity consumption (to March'08)I expect this figure to be increased for this year.

Very little information is commonly available for this type of system and infact appears to be "belittled" by the present government who have left it to entrepreneurs to do this job on their behalf and at their own expense.

As it looks as if increases in electricity prices are increasingly likely for everyone, it should be self-evident that ALL alternative energy systems should be considered and used.
Such systems have been around for quite a long time now, and it seems to me that few politicians are prepared to make decisions in this respect.

I fully expect them to disagree of course. What do you think?
Best Regards,
Ray Brooks, Walkerville

Firstly I’d like to thank Ray for his email and say well done on his commendable efforts to become more energy self-sufficient.

If anybody would like to contact Ray with regards to finding out about installing a Photovoltaic Microgenerator-Grid, then please contact me via the Journal and I shall pass on your details.
For fridge usage, I’ve written about this before and the energy-reducing ‘Fridge Savaplug’.

As a nation we are facing three issues with regards to energy, the pollution created from energy generation and increasing energy demand, both of which the Government has set itself targets to reduce and lastly energy security supply i.e. do we really want to rely on vast amounts of coal being shipped over from Russia just so that you can over-boil your kettle?

A common complaint from scientists and inventors is that the Government is just not interested in investing in their renewable energy generation schemes, preferring instead to focus on Nuclear power.
Until this Government decides that we really can not go on as we are and that all alternative methods are investigated (not just wind power), then I fear the message that the vast majority will hear is that there really isn’t much of a problem.

With regards to monitoring energy usage in the home, I shall start with my rather old-fashioned method which consists of nothing more than a pen and paper.

After receiving aforementioned horrendous bill, I pasted two pieces of paper up on the fridge, one titled Gas and one titled Electricity.
Each one consists of four columns, headed:

DATE
METER READING
INCREASE ON YESTERDAY
NOTES/REASONS FOR CHANGE

I merely take a meter reading each night and after a week I gathered enough information to know that on a typical day our household use 6 units of Electricity and 2 of Gas.
I put in activities such as how many washes I did etc in the Notes section.

The big shock was that on the days that this doubled, it coincided with the laundry.
This is where it starts to get a little bit addictive and the whole family start to note down things that they have done which may have made the figure go above average.

What was great is that the entire household, including Lodgers, decided to switch everything off on one day and we were able to see the reduction for ourselves.
This has really shaken everyone into remembering to turn appliances off.

A more sophisticated version of my method is the award winning Ewgeco.
It connects up to your home/work computer and has been engineered to provide easy to understand visual information about the amount of electricity, water and gas consumed in real-time and over-time.
It is also ideal for small and medium businesses, which are often in Let accommodation with centralised utility billing being retained by the Landlord.

The next step up from this is to start monitoring the individual appliances, as Ray has been doing.
There are simple plug-in gadgets which go in between the socket and the plug of the appliance itself.

Even if you just buy one and test it out on different appliances, it will be sure to give you an idea on where to direct your efforts.

Websites currently selling these appliances are: The Good Energy Shop, EthicalSuperstore.com and CPC.
Prices vary from around £10-50.

The message to take from this week’s blog is that until you start measuring your consumption, you can’t monitor it or decide where to make reductions.

There are a variety of methods to measure your usage ranging from the simple to the advanced and only you will know which is best for you.

I am really keen to hear your measuring and monitoring suggestions which I can share with Readers and the names of any other gadgets people may have come across.