A to B Magazine
Climate Change
Updated 3rd March 2008
Whether you believe the catastrophic predictions being made by some scientists, or prefer the lower key approach of others, there's no doubt the world is heading for uncertain times, thanks to our misuse of resources, primarily over-consumption of 'fossil' fuels. But we can ALL do something about it.
1) Reducing or
eliminating car use
Motor
vehicles are a very real problem. More than a quarter of all CO2 put
into the atmosphere in the UK comes from transport, and nearly all of
that from the road transport sector. A typical two-car household will
consume 77kWh
of energy per
DAY just running the cars. That's more than the energy consumption of
a typical home. Just think about that for a minute - we are using
more energy travelling around than we are cooking, bathing, keeping
our houses light and warm, watching TV and every other
power-consuming activity.
There are many ways to reduce your reliance on the car. We use
bicycles for short journeys, and the train for long journeys. In
between, we use electric bicycles and folding bikes that can be
carried by train or bus. By these means, we have more or less
eliminated our transport energy consumption.
A folding bicycle enables you to integrate your life with often
irregular and poorly integrated public transport. For more
information, we suggest starting with the page Why
Choose a Folding Bike?
Mor e recently,
electric-assist bicycles have begun to make a real impact. Many
people have now swapped a second car for an electric-assist cycle.
For more information, we suggest starting with the page
Why
Choose an Electric Bike?
2) Reducing energy use in
the home
By a
number of measures we reduced the energy consumption of our home
(plus the A to B office and all electric bicycle charging) from the
national average of about 70kWh
to 22.5kWh per day. More information can be found in A to B 53 - see
Back
Numbers for
more information.
3) Generate your own
power
Not as
easy as it sounds, but our new home has an unshaded south-facing
roof, making it ideal for Solar Photovoltaic panels that generate
electric power from the sun. Full details in A to B 56, see
Back
Numbers
for more
information.
At the end of August, we moved house.
Obviously this caused a great deal of disruption (and extra CO2!),
but things soon settled down. We fitted cavity wall insultation, loft
insulation and double glazing, and in mid-October our Solar PV roof
came on stream There were still many problems - our wood-burner was
not yet fitted and we were cooking electric while the gas supply was
sorted out (this would run on for months), but here is our daily
energy usage when the PV was first fitted. We've had to make an
estimate for our total electricity consumption, because it took us a
while to realise that our digital house to grid meter was unable to
run backwards, so for a while we were recording the incoming grid
power, incoming solar power and adding them together to give a
household energy consumption reading. Of course, this figure was
wrong because it made no allowance for the power we were exporting to
other nearby houses. Judging by past consumption, we've assumed that
about 3kWh of our daytime power generation is actually being used in
the house, with the remainder being exported. On this basis
(reasonably accurate) we have done quite well, and actually crossed
the barrier in the first week of April 2007, becoming carbon
neutral:
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
LATE OCTOBER 2006
Gas 29kWh
Grid
Electricity 7.6kWh
Solar
Electricity 3.0kWh
TOTAL: 39.6kWh per
day (8%
from renewable sources)
NOTES: We had inherited an
inefficient gas central heating system, which accounts for almost all
of that 29kWh a day, despite sparing use. The good news is that our
wood burner was finally installed on 4th November, and the central
heating was finally turned off. October is a bad time for Solar PV,
but the last week was very good, and for the three weeks the solar PV
was in operation, we generated 30% of our electric power this way.
How will the woodburner get on? How much sunshine will we see? Find
out next month!
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
NOVEMBER 2006
Gas 8kWh
Grid
Electricity 10.1kWh
Solar
Electricity 3.7kWh
TOTAL: 21.8kWh per
day (17%
from renewable sources)
NOTES: Wow! What a difference
a month makes! The woodburner has proved up to the task of heating
the whole house, and runs well on recycled timber of various kinds.
This has more or less eliminated our gas useage (we only turn the
boiler on for baths). It's also been a good month for PV. The result
is 16% (plus the wood, of course) from renewable sources.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
DECEMBER 2006
Gas 1.5kWh
Grid
Electricity 10.9kWh
Solar
Electricity 1.6kWh
TOTAL: 14kWh per day
(11%
from renewable sources)
A miserable month. Very
little sun and increasing electricity consumption. The only good news
is that the gas boiler has barely been used at all.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
JANUARY 2007
Gas 2.3kWh
Grid
Electricity 14.1kWh
Solar
Electricity 2.3kWh
TOTAL: 18.7kWh per
day (12%
from renewable sources)
Continuing nasty weather, but
it's a amazing how a few bright mornings can generate a lot of PV
power, keeping the percentage up despite growing demand. Over one
weekend, we produce more than 10kWh. Our overall electricty
consumption is up however - partly space-heating in a child's
bedroom, but also our new dishwasher! Can we bring consumption back
down?
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
FEBRUARY 2007
Gas 2.5kWh
Grid
Electricity 9.3kWh
Solar
Electricity 4.3kWh
TOTAL: 16.1kWh per
day (27%
from renewable sources)
Some scientists think the
recent pattern of hot summers and cold, wet, stormy winters will
become the norm. If so, our power generation will be very seasonal!
Despite some terrible weather, there were a handful of clear, bright
days in February, some producing in excess of 10kWh. The mean of
4.3kWh is a big advance, and with slightly lower demand, helped to
push the solar contribution up to 25%.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
MARCH 2007
Gas 1.8kWh
Grid
Electricity 2.3kWh
Solar
Electricity 8.6kWh
TOTAL: 12.7kWh per
day (68%
from renewable sources)
Interesting to see solar
energy double in February and double again in March. Despite rather
high consumption, that's enough to get us very close to 50% from
solar. Incidentally, if the energy useage seems high, iit covers our
business, home and all electric bike transport, so pretty low
considering. We're working hard to cut household and office
consumption.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
APRIL 2007
Gas 1.24kWh
Grid
Electricity -1kWh
Solar
Electricity 10.6kWh
TOTAL: 10.8kWh per
day (98%
from renewable sources)
Super-fine weather in early
April resulted in a week or so when we were net exporters of energy,
but across the month as a whole, we narrowly failed to beat that 100%
target. All the same, 98% from renewable sources overall is quite
good going for the time of year.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
May 2007
Gas 1.7kWh
Grid
Electricity -0.5kWh
Solar
Electricity 9.6kWh
TOTAL: 10.8kWh per
day (89%
from renewable sources)
A mixed bag of weather in May
drops our home generation total. But towards the end of the month we
install three Schott solar water panels to back up the PV and replace
our aging gas boiler with a new condensing boiler designed to accept
solar pre-heated water . This should reduce our energy consumption
further, but will we simply use more of this wonderful new source of
hot water?
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
June 2007
Gas 0.99kWh
Grid
Electricity -0.7kWh
Solar
Electricity 8.7kWh
TOTAL: 9kWh per day
(97%
from renewable sources)
New boiler and new
pre-heating panels have meant a bit more luxury, and a near halving
of our gas consumption. Disappointingly, two weeks of terrible
weather knocked back our solar power from what should have been the
best month of the year.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
July 2007
Gas 1.4kWh
Grid
Electricity -1.6kWh
Solar
Electricity 9.3kWh
Solar Hot
Water 4kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 13.1kWh per
day (102%
from renewable sources)
These figures are a little
difficult to interpret:
SOLAR ELECTRICITY: It was one of the wettest (and darkest) Julys on
record - solar electricity generation was lower than it might have
been!
GRID ELECTRICITY: With builders working in the house almost every
day, baking for a family party and other odds and ends, we used more
grid electricity than we might have expected, but ovrall consumption
is down because part of the load for the dishwasher, washing machine
and shower is now provided by gas
GAS: The new pre-heating boiler works well, and has reduced
electricity demand, but we're using more gas! Some fine-tuning might
be useful : On hot days, hot water is supposed to flow from the solar
tank direct to the taps, leaving the boiler off. It does, but the
boiler often cuts in unnecessarily. Something to look into when the
last bits of plumbing arrive
SOLAR HOT WATER: Overall energy consumption appears to be up, because
we've recorded the amount of solar hot water produced, which has
little to with the amount used. The process of getting energy from
the roof to the bath is rather inefficient, but it's free energy, and
even if we only manage to use a quarter of it, we're still cutting
our fossil fuel consumption. By managing the solar supply better, we
should be able to improve on these figures!
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
August 2007
Gas 0.8kWh
Grid
Electricity -1.9kWh
Solar
Electricity 9kWh
Solar Hot
Water 3.9kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 11.8kWh per
day (109%
from renewable sources)
Our best ever result, thanks
to two weeks of more or less unbroken sun.All the same, the days are
getting shorter, so we have to expect lower power figures from now
on.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
September 2007
Gas 2.9kWh
Grid
Electricity 1.8kWh
Solar
Electricity 7.9kWh
Solar Hot
Water 3.4kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 16kWh per day
(71%
from renewable sources)
Oh dear! Not a good month for
various reasons. Builders still using a lot of power, which explains
our relatively high electricity consumption, but the gas is a bit of
a mystery. One possibility is that we're simply using the solar
system to have more hot baths!
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
October 2007
Gas 3.4kWh
Grid
Electricity 3.5kWh
Solar
Electricity 4.8kWh
Solar Hot
Water 2.1kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 13.8kWh per
day (50%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 62.6%
from renewable sources
This is more the sort of
thing we were hoping to achieve. Producing 50% of your energy from
renewable sources in October really is not bad in the UK. Gas
consumption is still higher than we hoped, but it's good to see the
solar water still coming on stream almost every day, pre-heating the
cold feed water.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
November 2007
Gas 5.1kWh
Grid
Electricity 7.4kWh
Solar
Electricity 2.9kWh
Solar Hot
Water 1.3kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 16.7kWh per
day (25%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 63.3%
from renewable sources
The lack of pre-heat to the
water tank (zero on many damp, dark days) shows in the higher gas
consumption. And it's been a bad month for solar electricity too. All
things considered, we're lucky to have produced 25% of our
energy.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
December 2007
Gas 6.2kWh
Grid
Electricity 8.2kWh
Solar
Electricity 1.6kWh
Solar Hot
Water 0.7kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 16.7kWh per
day (14%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 63.5%
from renewable sources
Several changes - a new more
efficient washing machine, and a new gas/electric cooker, instead of
the electric only model. And a pretty miserable month.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
January 2008
Gas 7kWh
Grid
Electricity 7.8kWh
Solar
Electricity 2.8kWh
Solar Hot
Water 1.2kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 18.8kWh per
day (21%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 64.3%
from renewable sources
A new baby has added a lot of
extra energy consumption in the short-term. For two or three nights,
we kept the central heating on, and of course, there's a lot more
washing! The other change, just noticable in the figures, is a new
gas/electric hybrid cooking stove. As we were previously
all-electric, this has increased gas consumption a little and reduced
electricty use by about the same amount.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
February 2008
Gas 4.8kWh
Grid
Electricity 5.0kWh
Solar
Electricity 5.2kWh
Solar Hot
Water 2.2kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 17.2kWh per
day (43%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 65.6%
from renewable sources
Not a warm and pleasant
month, but plenty of sharp, cold frosty mornings. These are good for
us, because the solar water and pv panels work extremely well, even
with temperatures near or below freezing.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
March 2008
Gas 6.2kWh
Grid
Electricity 4.4kWh
Solar
Electricity 6.8kWh
Solar Hot
Water 2.9kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 20.3kWh per
day (63%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 65.2%
from renewable sources
Disappointingly high gas and
electricity consumption this month. Hard to explain, but a baby means
a lot of washing, and we used the central heating on two days - it's
a bit scary how fast the gas consumption can rise with just a few
hours of central heating.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
April 2008
Gas 3.5kWh
Grid
Electricity -1.1kWh
Solar
Electricity 9.4kWh
Solar Hot
Water 4.0kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 15.8kWh per
day (85%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 64%
from renewable sources
That's a bit more like it,
but we will have to get used to the idea of our consumption being
higher now there are four of us.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
May 2008
Gas 3.4kWh
Grid
Electricity -0.9kWh
Solar
Electricity 9.0kWh
Solar Hot
Water 3.8kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 15.3kWh per
day (84%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 63.7%
from renewable sources
Slightly down due to grotty
weather.
DAILY ENERGY CONSUMPTION:
June 2008
Gas 2.4kWh
Grid
Electricity -4.3kWh
Solar
Electricity 11.8kWh
Solar Hot
Water 5.0kWh
(estimated)
TOTAL: 14.9kWh per
day (113%
from renewable sources)
RUNNING ANNUAL AVERAGE: 65%
from renewable sources
Excellent weather and our
best solar month yet.
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