Category: Energy Saving

Ten Smart Meter Facts

  1. Consumers will have near real-time information to help understand and manage energy use, thereby helping them to save money and play their part in reducing carbon emissions.
  2. Smart metering will open up new products and services, such as the provision of tailored energy efficiency advice and more innovative tariffs.
  3. Suppliers and networks will be able to receive alerts if a customer goes off supply and when supply is restored – this will enable corrective action to be taken sooner, thereby minimising disruption to consumers.
  4. The remote functionality of smart meters will allow switching between payment methods and will open up additional payment channels for prepayment customers (i.e. top up over the phone, via the internet or ATMs).
  5. Data can be communicated between the meter and the energy supplier or other authorised parties.
  6. Meters can be read remotely by the energy supplier allowing for accurate and timely billing.
  7. The ability to connect devices to the meter, such as a telephones or computers.
  8. They will support ‘time-of-use’ tariffs, which offer different levels of charges, depending on when the energy is used.
  9. Equipment that has been linked to the meter can be turned off automatically by a business at particular times to benefit from varying pricing levels.
  10. Where electricity is generated at the site (such as through a wind turbine or solar panel), any excess electricity exported can be measured, to give an accurate calculation of Feed-in-Tariff (the premium paid to a consumer by its utility)

 

Source: Make it Cheaper

Posted by admin on

Natural England’s carbon reduction story

In 2006 the Natural England Board committed the organisation to reduce the carbon emissions of its business travel and estate by 50% by the end of 2010. Here we set out how we have achieved this target. It contains nothing new or revolutionary. In fact much of their reduction has been achieved through simple low or no-cost measures that can be found in any environmental management manual. What has been different has been the substantial shift in organisational culture towards more sustainable ways of working and integrating carbon into our everyday thinking.

Paul Hinds, Head of Sustainability at Natural England, describes its progress in reducing its carbon emissions, using mostly simple low cost measures to achieve estimated savings of £1.75 million a year.

Natural England committed in 2006 to reduce its emissions by 50%, achieving this target in February 2011. Read more…

Posted by admin on

Research leads to affordable LED bulbs then “smart lighting”

Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a new technique that paves the way for manufacturing affordable LED light bulbs that will have a dramatic impact on carbon emissions.

The process will be utilised by Plessey, a semiconductor manufacturer based in Plymouth, UK that involves growing gallium nitride crystals on silicon that could drastically reduce the cost of making LEDs for lighting in offices and homes. The company may eventually be able to develop “smart lighting” from LED light bulbs.

Light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are the small, coloured lights currently used in electronic equipment, bicycle lights and roadside signs. Many scientists see them as the ideal replacement for old-fashioned tungsten filament light bulbs, which are being phased out by the EU because of the amount of electricity they waste and the consequent impact on carbon emissions.

Researchers estimate that a worldwide switch to LEDs, which are far more energy-efficient, would enable the closure of 560 power plants and result in annual CO2 savings equivalent to the output of all the cars on the planet.

LEDs are also being designed to give off a more natural quality of light, which will be better for people’s health. They could potentially be used as “smart lighting” that can switch itself on or off when a person enters or leaves a room, or adjust its brightness according to the amount of daylight.

Until now, however, they have been very expensive to produce. LED light bulbs currently cost as much as £40, but this could be reduced to below £8.

The potential return on value for money is high. LEDs last for 100,000 hours at a time, compared with the 1,000 hour lifetimes offered by tungsten filament light bulbs and the 10,000 hours claimed for fluorescent lighting. The average light bulb in Britain is on for four hours every day. So, on average, LED light bulbs would only have to be changed once in every person’s lifetime.

More significant, however, are the likely benefits for the planet. Because tungsten filament light bulbs lose much of their energy as heat, just 5% of the energy they consume is used as light. Fluorescent tubes range from 20% to 25% efficiency. LEDs, however, are currently about 30% efficient and Humphreys hopes to raise that figure to 60% in time.

This means that they require far less energy than conventional bulbs. In the UK alone, the researchers estimate that the nationwide use of LEDs would save 15% of the electricity generated by power stations, resulting in a similar reduction in CO2 emissions. There are also potential cost savings: a recent (2010) US Department of Energy report estimates that savings of $20 billion per year would result if LED light bulbs became widespread in the US.

See full press release

Posted by admin on

Smart meter data could transform energy management

Last year the UK Government began consulting on plans for the roll-out of smart meters across the country, with the aim of reducing domestic and commercial energy use. By 2020, these meters will replace all existing electricity and gas meters, providing a means of automatically recording and communicating energy consumption data to the energy supplier.

About 50% of the country’s electricity demand is currently based on meter readings which are taken, on average, every six months – but these readings provide no information about how the electricity is being used, i.e. the times of days. However, the data that the smart meters can provide has the potential to transform the way in which the electricity system as a whole operates, serves its customers and invests in new infrastructure. The electricity industry is reliant on balancing electricity generation and demand – and thus being able to predict peak-demand periods to avoid distribution network failures.

Information from smart meters could prove invaluable to the industry in allowing it to better understand peak demand, how that peak changes over time, what the daily demand is in half-hourly intervals and over a year, and what the changes in the levels and timing of demand are.

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) is leading  project to extract, analyse and present this datain a way that can be done promptly and cost-effectively It is part-funded by the Technology Strategy Board through their ‘Harnessing Large and Diverse Sources of Data’ competition for research and development funding and in partnership between CSE, Western Power Distribution, Scottish and Southern Energy, and the University of Bristol and will run until the end of 2012.

Read full article

Posted by admin on

Warm homes the key to healthy people

The Centre for Sustainable Energy (CSE) is leading a number of support agencies and groups across Bristol, England as part of a Department of Health-backed project aimed at breaking the link between cold homes and bad health.

The new Bristol City Council-backed Keep Warm in Bristol project aims to improve the health of thousands of deprived Bristol households by tackling the thermal comfort of their homes.

Read full CSE news article

More about the project

Posted by admin on