Energy efficiency must go hand in hand with any renewable energy project - considerations to include with solar power and wind power installations.
If we significantly reduce our energy usage by energy efficient measures, we therefore reduce the size and cost of our renewable energy system.
Click Here (opens in new window) to see our efficiency chart. This will show measures we could take and are currently lacking from most homes in the UK. It will also explain the £'s, kW/hours and CO2 emmisions that could be saved in small and affordable steps.
Energy efficiency... only light bulbs
A recent report from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in the US, entitled ,The conservation Potential of Compact Fluorescent Lamps in India and Brazil', gives a striking example of what this approach could achieve. The report concludes that simply by shifting subsidies from electricity supply, to end use, India, could be saving US$1.2 million and Brazil, US $ 2.5 million per day, by the end of the decade. India and Brazil already subsidise the supply of electricity to the poor, nowhere more than in lighting. Lighting sharply pushes up the peak load on the electricity supply system. In Brazil the residential daily load triples after 5pm. In India , at 6pm some 30% of total incandescent lighting load is switched on in a quarter of an hour. Traditional planning deals with this phenomenon by building new electricity supply capacity, and subsidising the cost of the electricity to users - in effect helping the supplier to finance the new capacity. The Lawrence Berkeley study proposes that planners shift the subsidy to finance the distribution of high- efficiency compact fluorescent lamps (CFL's) to users. According to the British newsletter "Energy Economist", such a shift in policy 'would yield truly staggering returns. Over 10 years, if, as one scenario suggests, India had 20% of lighting in CFL's and Brazil had 36%, then power utilities would be able to avoid building 8 Giggawatts of capacity in India and 7 giggawatts of capacity in Brazil. The net saving involved would be $450 million for India and $930 for Brazil.... Bizarrely, the utilities would still make major net savings if they simply gave away CFL's on street corners.
If all 23 million domestic consumers of electricity in the UK changed one 100W light bulb for a 25W CFL the 1725 megawatts of electricity could be saved - this is more than the combined output of the two nuclear power stations at Hinckley point.
12 easy steps to save energy at home
FREE STEPS
Put lids on pans when cooking
Cooking is quicker and uses less fuel if you use a pan that's the right size for the job, put the lid on, and use as little water as necessary. And use the right ring size to avoid heating the air instead of the pan!
Don't leave TVs on standby
85% of the electricity used by your VCR is consumed while it is not actually on!
Use economy settings on dishwashers and washing machines
Using a 40°C wash cycle rather than 60°C means you use a third less electricity. Modern washing powders and detergents work just as effectively at lower temperatures so unless you have very dirty washing, bear this in mind.
Close your curtains at dusk to stop heat escaping
Just doing this could save you about £15 a year.
Don't leave the fridge door open longer than is necessary
For every minute that the fridge door is open, it will take three minutes for it to regain its temperature.
Turn your central heating down
If you are too warm, turn the room thermostat down by 1°C - it could save up to 10% off your fuel bill.
LOW-COST STEPS
Invest in draught excluders for letterboxes, keyholes, doors and windows that open onto the outside
Fitting insulation tape, brush seals and draught strips is highly effective in cutting down those nasty draughts. If you plug the gaps between floorboards and around skirting boards
Invest in energy efficient light bulbs for all the lights in your home that are on for an average of 4 hours a day or more
Energy saving light bulbs use electronics that enable them to produce a highly efficient and compact light using a fraction of the energy. They last up to 12 times longer than their inefficient counterparts and you can make a amazing saving of £68 over each bulb's lifetime. If every UK household installed 3 energy saving bulbs this would save enough energy in a year to power all street lighting.
Put an insulating jacket on your hot water tank
They cost less than£10, yet if everyone in the UK fitted one the energy saved would be enough to power 64,136 households for a year, and CO2 emissions would be cut by 0.45 million tonnes (90,000 hot air balloons).
AND FOR A FEW MORE!
Insulate your loft
250mm (10 inches) of loft insulation can save up to 25% of your heating costs.
Replace your old boiler
Replacing a 15 year old boiler could save you over 20% on your fuel bills or 32% if you install a super-efficient condensing boiler.
Buy energy efficient appliances
If it's time to replace some of the white goods in your home, make sure energy efficiency is high on your shopping list. If everyone in the UK upgraded their old fridge to an A-rated, energy efficient product, energy wastage would be cut by over two-thirds. That's the equivalent of over 47 million hot air balloons of CO2 and over £1 billion on bills.
80% of the world uses 20% of the energy produced
20% of the world uses 80% of the energy produced
Not just saving money
In a typical north European location a grid-connected domestic solar power installation uses about two peak kilowatts of solar cells. This generates some 2000-3000 kw per year so 300 - 500 houses would save about 1,000,000 kw.Compared with the output of a typical coal-fired power station for every 1,000,000 kw saved each year our atmosphere is relieved of emissions of:* 8 tons of sulphur dioxide (SO2)* 3-6 tons of nitrogen oxide (NO2)* 750-1250 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2)* 40-70 tons of fly ash* 275-470 kgs of dustCO2 Emissions
Every year almost 8 billion tons of carbon are released by the burning of fossil energy and by deforestation, which generates about 29 billion tons of CO2 emissions.
About 3/5ths of this total are absorbed by the worlds forests and oceans (which may supersaturate), about 2/5ths, and perhaps increasingly more remain as additional CO2 in the atmosphere. This represents the biggest danger to the climate.
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