ECO POWER CAMPAIGN

AIM To meet the UK’s energy

needs from local, clean,

renewable sources

In the UK we need to move

from our dependence on non

renewable, air polluting, climate

changing, centrally generated,

hugely ineffi cient and increasingly

expensive sources of energy – gas

(40%), coal (30%), nuclear (20%),

oil (5%) – to non-polluting, small

scale energy sources generated as

close to users as possible, eg wind,

hydro, tidal, solar, biofuels, ground

source heat etc.

HOW? Supplying the current

(and expected increased) energy

demand in the UK, while

keeping prices for energy low is

IMPOSSIBLE. We either confront

this and start to adapt or we

stick our heads in the sand and

moan about the inexorable rise in

our energy bills. Each one of us,

starting at home and then moving

out into our local communities and

workplaces, needs to:

1 SWITCH our energy SUPPLY to

ECOTRICITY

2 REDUCE our energy DEMAND

3 LOCALISE our energy SUPPLY...

individually, and in our

communities.

We can’t wait for politicians to act,

and can’t rely on an energy market

that profi ts from rising energy

prices and increasing demand. This

is why the Ecologist and Ecotricity

have teamed up to ease your

transition from expensive centrally

supplied energy to clean, locally

supplied energy at home (and at

work). Our combined research and

practical expertise will ensure that

the options we recommend for

reducing demand and generating

your own supply will work without

costing you a fortune.

074 THE ECOLOGIST

STEP 3: CURING ELECTRICAL INCONTINENCE

Clutching a large purple balloon, a plug-in meter and a feather duster, Dave Hampton takes Matilda Lee hunting for lost watts

Electricity leakage? I had the Carbon Coach on the phone again. This time, he was on

about how my appliances weren’t working properly. I assured him that if any of my appliances leaked electricity, I wouldn’t be fannying about with him – I’d be on to an electrician pronto. But no, he was itching to help me take the next step in home-carbon reductions. He said he wanted to make my electricity usage ‘visible’, take £100 off my annual electricity bill and show me how, in addition, that would reduce my CO 2 emissions by half a tonne a year. I accepted, on one condition – that he pull his home apart, not mine. So there I was – sitting in his beautifully ‘energy-effi cient’, lightbulb-lit and airy living room – with Dave, his purple carbon balloon and a little contraption called the Plug-In power meter that displays watt usage. He passed it to me. ‘Buy yourself one of these from Maplin electronics and you could save yourself a fortune in ‘lost watts’.’ ‘Lost watts’ – what on earth was he going on about? I smiled. Dave smiled. First, he hooked it up to his TV – one of three in his six-person home – and it started beeping until the watt sign fl ashed. And yet, the TV wasn’t turned on. It was leaking electricity on standby, right before my eyes. By not turning his TV off at the mains, it continued to waste electricity – at the rate of 3 watts continuously all year. Dave insisted we do an exhaustive round of every appliance with standby in his house – including the DVD, the VCR, the stereo and the kids’ game console. I was astonished that, altogether, they added up to 27 watts of leakage. In the study, he used the Plug-In on his laptop charger which, even though

the laptop was turned off and fully charged, was also leaking electricity. ‘Once my laptop is fully charged, I switch it off at the mains, and save at least 2 watts a year,’ Dave added. Next stop – the kids’ room. ‘My daughter has an electronic piano with a charger that gets quite warm even when the piano is switched off. It may sound funny, but you’ve got to trust your senses,’ he said. ‘If a transformer feels slightly warm to the touch – that’ll be a watt or two.’ Dave’s hunger for ‘lost watts’ really showed through when he told me that even his burglar alarm was leaking electricity until he got the chap doing the 12-month service inspection to go round disabling all the LED lights on the sensors. ‘For a total saving of 5 watts a year,’ he said, with a broad grin. I was now starting to ‘see’ his electricity usage – standby, permanently illuminated displays, warm transformers – I was getting what he meant by electricity leakage. We had somehow managed to breeze past the big box perched on his TV. ‘Let’s hook up the Plug-In meter to that,’ I ventured. ‘Oh,’ he said, looking sheepish, ‘That’s the Sky Plus box my sons use to watch sports. I haven’t quite mastered that yet. Sky Plus uses a massive 15 watts on standby and they insist you keep it on all night to download updates. I’ve been hounding them about getting the wattage down . . .’ I knew not to underestimate the Carbon Coach’s boundless energy when it came to the subject of carbon. We made our way into the kitchen – and Dave, dustrag in hand, reached back behind the fridge to give the coils a good once-over. I thought he had given in to a sudden bizarre urge to clean until he told me dusting every year keeps it running well. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. He ’fessed up, ‘It saves around 10 watts a year.’ Even our tea break became an example. ‘The kettle, its simple, but just fi ll it with what you need.