Features editor
There’s a new gadget in my flat. It’s small and unflashy, it’s sitting on the corner of a worktop in my kitchen, and it tells me, from second to second, how much carbon dioxide the electricity I use is generating. And already it’s proving strangely fascinating.
Having been writing about smart meters for some time, when my new utilities supplier offered me one, I thought it was about time I tried it out for myself. It isn’t a billing meter — my bills still depend on the reading from the main analogue meter — so it didn’t need any complicated installation. A magnetic sensor clips around one of the cables going into the meter and plugs into a wireless transmitter, and the display unit sits wherever is convenient.
So for the past couple of days, everytime I or my partner switches on anything electrical, we’ve been dashing into the kitchen to see what’s happened to the little arc on the top of the LCD and the progress bar that marks where I am compared with the average household. It’s odd what you discover. The toaster uses much more electricity then the dishwasher. The computer uses hardly any, but you do see it tick upwards if you put a CD in it. And energy-saving lightbulbs really do make a big difference. Once the supplier confirms my tariff, I’ll be able to adjust the display to show how much money I’m spending, at which point I’ll get even more obsessive about switching off lights in rooms that aren’t being used.
Having this little chunk of plastic handy has really pointed out what physicists always knew and engineers have been saying since the industrial revolution: if you can’t measure something, you can’t control it. Just knowing, vaguely, in the back of your mind that a certain appliance is a bit juice-hungry is no substitute for seeing the hard numbers when you switch the thing on. Knowledge is power; or, in this case, cutting the amount of power.
The consumption of one small household in East London might seem trivial, but what policymakers call ‘the domestic sector’ — homes, to you and me — is currently the biggest single source of reductions in the UK’s carbon emissions. Put simply, most people just haven’t taken steps to reduce their electricity usage. Commentators might say that this reflects a lack of understanding of climate change, or a reluctance to comply with what’s seen as patronising and controlling government rhetoric. But there’s a simple fact that’s missing in this argument: if you use less energy, you spend less money.
The domestic sector is certainly a target for government. Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, announced this week that public money will help to train 1000 apprentices in how to insulate homes, installing loft, cavity and solid wall insulation. Sceptics might say this is trivial, but a very large proportion of the housing in the UK is older properties which weren’t built with insulation in mind, and the amount of expensive energy — which residents have paid for — that escapes out of roofs and through single-glazed windows and thin walls is staggering.
Huhne is also preparing to announce a new roadmap for UK emissions reductions, clarifying exactly how the government intends to meet its EC commitment to reduce CO2 by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by 2050; meanwhile, the BBC is reporting that the EC itself is to recommend that the 2020 target should be nearer to 30 percent than 20 percent. This, it argues, is to take account of rising oil prices, and the increasing premium that will therefore attach to energy generation technologies that don’t rely on burning stuff.
But everything hinges on measurement. The measurement of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and of the changes in the climate; the measurement of emissions from point and dispersed sources; the measurement of electricity usage by industry. And the measurement of how much you’re using in your own home. Here’s something else: since I’ve been using my new gadget, the quality of my lifestyle hasn’t changed at all. But in a weekend, I cut my energy usage by 10 percent.
I have had one of these monitors for at least a year. It has two sensor one for the main supply and the other for economy 7. The tumble drier dishwashers and washing machine all run on timers overnight. Seeing the cost of using the main oven for cooking is initially frightening.
The savings from the energy saving light bulbs appears to be good until you remember that light bulbs are mainly used in the winter when the central heating is on. The old incandescent bulbs not only supplied light but heat as well. As I am in a rural area without a gas main, then the saving from the low energy bulbs is minimal. A lot of the house is fitted with 30 watt spiral daylight bulbs which are great in the office bathrooms and kitchen. I am always surprised that these bulbs are not stocked by the DIY chains or the Supermarkets, as they go a long way to address the criticism levied at the low energy bulbs.
As a Past President of the Institute of Measurement and Control (the Chartered body of the profession) and a career long C&I engineer and manager, I am delighted to read and agree with your comments on the importance of measurements and their fundamental value to many other processes.
Their value was well recognised long before the Industrial Revolution – to parphrase da Vinci – ‘measure everything you can – what is not measureable, make measureable’.
A smart meter is great fun and usefully makes one very aware of usage. It does not give information on total costs,however, nor total usage. Obviously a dish-wash uses more electricity than a toaster although the toaster may have a limited high power rate. I suspect, a dish-washer uses more energy than is ever metered due to its high water usage and embedded CO2 at manufacture, delivery and installation. A hand wash is surely cheaper and quicker (no loading of the machine) and may well use gas as the fuel to heat the water. Ditto the toaster.
We will only really start to save energy when the utility billing system uses “rising block tariffs” instead of “reducing block tariffs” ….for ALL utilities.At present the system is ridiculous encouraging the use of energy because the more you use, the less the price per kWh.
This is on Ken’s comment about heat supplied by incandescent bulbs. This is the most terrible way to do space heating! Good heaters are ‘heat pumps’, using only about 20W of electricity for every 100W of heat that they put into the room.
Sorry, but I don’t need some gizmo to tell me that it’s a good idea to turn off lights when the room is empty, minimise the use of the oven, turn down the central heating thermostat, etc, etc. I think you will find that people on low incomes have been successfully minimising their energy consumption for decades by adopting these practices, without a gizmo. Same applies to driving – just drive smoothly avoiding heavy acceleration and braking and you will see the difference at the petrol station.
Just a word of caution here…. firstly, the device about which you are writting is NOT a smart meter, it is an energy monitor. Smart meters are tarriff meters and will be installed by the energy suppliers before 2010. They will be capable of much more than just energy useage & display.
Secondly, these energy monitors are not particualrly accurate. In order to measure the true energy used it is necessary to measure the voltage & current used by your. These units only measure the current and assume that the voltage is 230V – in reality the actual voltage varies during the course of the day from around 225 to 250ish volts. You can expect an error of around 15% with these devices.
That said, if you are comparing the numbers from yesterday with the numbers from today and attempting to get a downward trend then they are a useful device – just dont expect the costs it calculates to agree with the electrcity bill when it arrives!
I have studied these energy monitors and agree that they are not particularly accurate. I have been trying to design a more focussed device which is targeted at individual products, or groups of connected products. I also think it is absolutely vital to measure the power saved……Then you can calculate your annual savings! go to http://www.ecoology.co.uk/