It's a funny old world...

[Penners]

I buy my electricity on a "green" tariff that guarantees to supply me from renewable sources. It doesn't cost any more than the ordinary domestic tariff.

Today, I received in the post from my electricity supplier a 24-page brochure, telling me all about the myriad ways in which I can save electricity. I also got a very sophisticated electronic gizmo. There are two parts to it. (1) A sender, which is a black box to which is attached a clamp (like on a megger clamp meter). I have to attach this clamp to one of the leads from my meter to my consumer unit. (2) A monitor, which has an LCD screen about 5" x 3". The latter reports constantly how much electricity I'm using today, a total of how much I used last month, the cost to me, the time and the ambient temperature. The two units communicate wirelessly.

And it's all free.

I have no idea how much this electronic box of tricks costs, but I have found rather less sophisticated ones for sale on the internet for £40 - £50. I also don't know how much embedded energy is involved in its manufacture.

The brochure encourages me to buy an A-rated washing machine, to save water and electricity (£250); an energy-saving shower-head (£25); and an eco-kettle (£40). Presumably if I do this and chuck away my (fully functioning) old ones, I'll be saving the world... :?

So, my electricity supplier is giving me expensive free gifts, to help me use less of his product. And he's encouraging me to consume more manufactured goods.

Next week, I'm expecting Tesco to send me a free set of bathroom scales, to encourage me to eat less.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I buy my electricity on a "green" tariff that guarantees to supply me from renewable sources. It doesn't cost any more than the ordinary domestic tariff.

Today, I received in the post from my electricity supplier a 24-page brochure, telling me all about the myriad ways in which I can save electricity. I also got a very sophisticated electronic gizmo. There are two parts to it. (1) A sender, which is a black box to which is attached a clamp (like on a megger clamp meter). I have to attach this clamp to one of the leads from my meter to my consumer unit. (2) A monitor, which has an LCD screen about 5" x 3". The latter reports constantly how much electricity I'm using today, a total of how much I used last month, the cost to me, the time and the ambient temperature. The two units communicate wirelessly.

And it's all free.

I have no idea how much this electronic box of tricks costs, but I have found rather less sophisticated ones for sale on the internet for £40 - £50. I also don't know how much embedded energy is involved in its manufacture.

The brochure encourages me to buy an A-rated washing machine, to save water and electricity (£250); an energy-saving shower-head (£25); and an eco-kettle (£40). Presumably if I do this and chuck away my (fully functioning) old ones, I'll be saving the world... :?

So, my electricity supplier is giving me expensive free gifts, to help me use less of his product. And he's encouraging me to consume more manufactured goods.

Next week, I'm expecting Tesco to send me a free set of bathroom scales, to encourage me to eat less.

Ah, but how much electricity does this gizmo use to monitor your electricity consumption?

 

[Penners]

I quote from the beautifully glossy instruction brochure:

TIP: The display consumes only a small amount of energy compared to the savings it can help to make.

The advertiser's favourite words: "can" and "help to"...

We'll see.

 

[AMc]

There is nowhere near enough renewable electricity generation to meet current demand. The problem with getting more renewable electricity isn't demand, it's supply. When all the 'green power' is in use, the electricity grid is topped up with more fossil and nuclear generation. By using more 'green' electricity we don't stimulate demand for and therefore increase investment in, renewable generation we just increasing the amount of fossil fuels burnt to cover the shortfall between what we can provide cleanly and what we currently use.

Those instant electricity metering gizmos help people to reduce their consumption, I've read many accounts of people seeing the financial effects of forgetting lights etc. and learning to be more economic and lower their demand.
By reducing your demand you free up renewable power for use elsewhere and we can cut down the fossil fuel capacity.

As those devices cost £40-80 at retail they probably cost £20-40 to wholesale and an embodied energy use must be less - given the cost of electricity and the ability of most people to waste it without thinking I wouldn't imagine the payback time would be very long.

Ah, but how much electricity does this gizmo use to monitor your electricity consumption?

A couple of batteries, if you use rechargeables and are on a green tariff then the difference should be very small indeed.

You could always pass it on to someone else if you don't think you need it - I'm sure you'll find plenty of people who want it http://www.freecycle.org/groups/unitedkingdom/

The brochure encourages me to buy an A-rated washing machine, to save water and electricity (£250); an energy-saving shower-head (£25); and an eco-kettle (£40). Presumably if I do this and chuck away my (fully functioning) old ones, I'll be saving the world...

Are they really suggesting you throw them away or that you should replace them with more efficient versions when they reach the end of life? Hopefully they're pointing out that a small increase in the capital investment when you buy an item e.g. an A rated washing machine can result in a lower overall cost over the lifetime of the item compared to a cheaper, 'dirtier' version of the same thing.

If we're actually going to have any impact on climate change and/or our reliance on fossil fuels from the Middle East and Eastern Europe (delete as your personal preference) we need to reduce consumption of energy as well as increase production from renewable sources.

 

[middi]

The best way to REALLY save money by using a lot less energy within the home ?

Kill all children above 5 and anybodyelse under the age of 25 :wink:

 

[Lime]

Most "green" tariffs are more expensive.

One thing is for sure, if we all use less energy we will all pay more per unit.
I can't see the electricity companies taking a reduction in profits.
Nor can I see where all the extra "green" energy is going to come from either.
Over my lifetime the average ordinary domestic consumption of electricity has risen and with all the extra houses being built the number of consumers increases daily.
"Green" energy is not cheap to produce.
If it wasn't for subsidies paid by central government, the EU etc. there would be no wind turbines except for a dedicated few.
How we eventually do away with nuclear or coal is anyones' guess.

If young people were really concerned about cutting down consumption (of everything) I think we would have noticed it by now.
As it is most young people want things new, new, new and consume plenty of them.

 

[Flyfisher]

I bought one of those gizmos about a year ago. It's branded "Electrisave" and cost me £50.
It's certainly interesting to monitor and has encouraged us to reduce consumption a bit. The first thing I noticed was that we consume about 400W with 'everything' switched off. I say 'everything' because, clearly, not everything is switched off but it's really the background level of consumption; things like the PC network (not the actual PCs though), chargers, cordless phones, video recorder etc. Most evenings we seem to run at about 1500W.

Things get more dramatic when the dishwasher, washing machine or cooker are used but I can't honestly say the meter has helped reduce our consumption using these applicances, except to make sure the diswasher is full before use (but we were already pretty good at that). Overall we seem to average between about 20kWh and 25kWh per day, depending on the time of year.

I agree with Lime's point about the irony of saving electricity causing the cost to rise. It's a similar thing with 'green taxes' - the Government needs a certain income to run the country regardless of the source. It will pretend (for example) an increase in car tax or fuel tax, whatever, is to help the climate change issue, but if it was suddenly successful in changing all our horrible energy-intensive habits, it would suddenly find itself with a budget shortfall resulting in other taxes having to increase! Death and taxes etc.

I also agree with the point about young people wanting to set up in their own home and furnish it with nice new things; all good stuff for the economy but not much help for consuming less energy, yet none of the 'green' parties or organisations seem to be particularly concerned about the global population increasing by at least 50% in the next 40 years.