Saving your energy

I've just watched the news on T.V., where people were being interviewed about price increases for electricity and gas. There seemed to be a lot of blame apportioned to the energy companies, but I'm not sure that's the whole story.

We could endlessly debate the merits of profit-making private energy suppliers versus the old system of public-sector gas and electricity boards. But we'd still be watching T.V. news stories about price increases.

The profits of the energy companies are the most obvious and visible aspect. The less obvious one is that the gas we use in our homes, and to fuel our power stations, is increasingly coming from abroad. The U.K. isn't self-sufficient in gas, even though we have all the North Sea oil and gas rigs. They can't meet the demand on their own, so the gas we use is being piped from further and further afield.

The longer the pipeline, the more it costs to operate and maintain it. Also, when you deal with overseas countries, you often deal in overseas currencies that can change in value - as you'll know if you've been abroad on holiday. More importantly, when the energy companies buy the gas, they're only a middleman. The foreign gas supplier can put their prices up when they want, and if the energy companies or their customers (that's you and me) aren't willing to pay the extra, then the supplier doesn't have to give it to us. But because there are limited places to obtain gas, the choice of alternative supplier is also limited.

Obviously, if the supplier's price is too high, then few energy companies would buy from them at all. But the point I'm trying to make is that your home energy supplier doesn't have as much influence on prices as you might think.

So the way to pay less for your household energy in the long term is to cut back on use. Changing supplier might also save you save you some money, but the wholesale price to your supplier will likely be the same, and it's the one thing you can't change.

You could also look at more efficient appliances when it comes time to buy replacements. For example, wood burning stoves are touted as a cheaper and more environmentally friendly alternative to a gas fire. We're still trying to figure out if a wood burner is cheaper overall though, as the cheapest log burner we can find is around £400, plus fitting and some necessary building works. When an electric fire costs around £100, and a basic electric heater is less than £20, then I'm not really sure which is the cheapest option overall. Will the increased cost of electricity outweigh the low purchase price? I don't know, but I think I'd need my calculator to work it out!

In the meantime, the cost of energy will increase, and unfortunately, none of us will have much choice but to carry on paying for it. The best we can do is try to use less, which will help the environment too.

Image: Gas Flame by George Shuklin, Public Domain. Obtained via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gas_flame.jpg

Turned off by low energy bulbs?

Since moving into a new house a few years ago, we've been slowly replacing the ordinary light bulbs with energy-saving ones.

Everything has gone reasonably well, but there are a few lessons learned. As they seem to be the same things that turn other people off low energy lamps, I thought they were worth sharing.

CFLs

A CFL Bulb
Image credit: Nroose

These are fluorescent light bulbs, and are what most people think of as "energy saving". However, I had two issues.

Firstly, they were not very bright, especially for the first few minutes. This was a problem on the stairs - but it was easily cured by buying a slightly higher powered bulb. It still uses less energy than the filament bulb it replaced.

Second were the energy costs to transport the bulbs all the way from China, where most of them seem to be made. I eventually found some made in Hungary, which is at least closer to home; though they probably go by road, so I can't really tell if they're greener.

LEDs

LED bulbs use less energy than CFLs, they switch on instantly, and they don't need to "warm up" to give their full brightness.

LED bulbs
Image credit: Fcancela

Most of the cheap 1 watt LED bulbs are very dim, and I found they are best suited for background or decorative lighting. They tend to have a clean white light that is easier to see by, but it can look harsh compared to a normal bulb.

More modern LED bulbs are rated at 3 watts and above. There are some that are designed to mimic the warm colour of a normal bulb, rather than the brilliant white light normally associated with LEDs. And, in a contrast to normal energy saving bulbs, I found I could get away with a lower powered bulb than I expected, even though it was one of the "warm" ones.

LED bulbs cost a lot more than CFLs (£15 upwards), but they use even less energy and last a very long time. I calculated that they'll pay for themselves in a few years in our kitchen, where they have replaced halogen downlights.

A bright idea!
Image credit: Oscarjosue

Replacement

I tried to replace the old bulbs only when they blew. Despite the fact that the newer bulbs use less energy, there's still a lot of energy used in their manufacture. Besides which, there's no point throwing away something in working order!

The Verdict

I'm convinced that energy-saving bulbs *can* work well. But as with many things, it helps to have a bit of insight, and not pay too much attention to marketing hype.

Image credits:

"Cuerpo humano jaqaru" by Oscarjosue, CC-BY-SA licence. Obtained via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuerpo humano jaqaru.jpg.

"Compact fluorescent straight" by Nroose, public domain. Obtained via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Compact_fluorescent_straight.jpg.

LED lights based on an original image "Green Ray Lights" by Fcancela, Free Art Licence 1.3  Obtained via http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Green Ray Lights.jpg.

Making money from the sun?

A close relative was visiting us at the weekend, enthusing about a new money-making scheme she'd signed up to: solar panels.

A salesman had called round, and sold her a grid-connected system - in other words, the solar electricity she doesn't use gets put back into the electricity supply network for others to use. And, because she's effectively running a miniature power station, she gets paid for doing so.

The salesman estimated that the system would pay for itself in 6 years. But this seemed overly optimistic, given the small size of the system he quoted. The government has publicly said that they will subsidise the payments to solar generators for many years to come. But there's something about politicians' promises, in combination with salesmans' promises, that made me feel uneasy.

Thankfully, another relative used to work for a renewable energy company, so we were able to support our opinions: solar PV may be a good way to help save the planet, but we don't view it as a get-rich-quick scheme.

Thankfully, there's a cooling-off period on the contract, so there's time to reconsider.

Is there really a money-making opportunity in solar PV panels? And where does the money come from?

(photo credit: Solar Panels by Ell Brown, licenced under Creative Commons CC-BY licence, obtained via http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/7083596231 )

Earth Hour

http://www.earthhour.org

Do you fancy an atmospheric, candle-lit night in? Well, here's a great reason to have one.

Earth Hour has been running for several years now, and is supported by WWF, the World Wildlife Fund. The idea is to switch off your lights for one hour, starting at 8.30pm on 31 March. This has three purposes:

 1. It's a fun way to save energy and money.
 2. It's a good reminder of how reliant we are on energy, and what things might be like if we were without it.
 3. It's also a good time to reflect on our own energy use, and how it might affect the environment.

In our house, we joined in last time by having candlelit snacks and a few board games. However, ours was the only house in the street with the lights off. I'm glad to see that this could radically change this year, as WWF are predicting that hundreds of millions of people around the world will be involved. All will be switching off their lights at 8.30pm local time, creating a kind of ripple across the globe.

I've already seen posters in the local community (with the title "60+ : Go beyond the hour"). The WWF have also scored a coup by signing up many famous landmarks, from the Eiffel Tower in France to Sydney Opera House in Australia. It looks like this year could be a big one!

The WWF have a site explaining more about the campaign here: http://www.earthhour.org , and there's a UK-specific site here: http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk .