Using energy-saving meters
Last updated Wednesday 30 April 2008
Get switched on to wasted watts
Energy display monitors (EDMs) alert us to the costly trickle of energy wasted in most British homes. This awareness should make us more likely to flick a few switches to save money and reduce waste. EDMs currently cost upwards of £50, but the Government is planning to make them free to everyone who wants them from May 2008.
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Saves about 70kg of CO2 a year
311 Bloomers are doing this
CO2 reduction 
Cheapness 
Popularity 
Cost £50 - £250
In this article:
How will it make a difference?
Pub Fact
- Britons waste the equivalent of around two power stations' worth of electricity each year by leaving TV sets and other gadgets on standby
- By 2020 consumer electronics and IT equipment around the home will make up 45% of all electricity used by appliances
- Newsnight's ethical man cut his electricity bills by 22%, and attributes most of this saving to an energy display monitor and energy saving light bulbs
- The Government has the expectation that every house in the UK will have a smart meter within ten years
Switching off idle appliances can trim 6-10% off home energy bills, saving around 70kg of CO2 a year and around £18.
It is estimated that the next generation of smart meters should cut electricity consumption by around 5%, so if all Brits used one the emissions savings would be roughly equivalent to taking 600,000 cars off the road.
How do they work?
EDMs have a monitor that clips on to the mains electricity supply in your fuse box to measure the flow of electricity into the home. When different devices are in use, a display shows fluctuations in electricity use or cost. Some models connect to your home computer allowing you to monitor energy use over time.
The next generation of smart meters will also monitor gas use for even bigger CO2 savings. They are expected to link up to energy providers enabling consumers to select their own tariff.
What's stopping me?
"My house is stuffed with enough gadgets already"
If you just can't face mastering another gadget around the home, you could achieve similar results by monitoring your existing energy meters and learning to understand your bills better.
- Get to grips with your gas and electricity bills from Energywatch
- Find how many kilowatt hours (kWh) you use (with a guide to reading your meter - from EDF, and for gas bills, use the E.ON website).
- Calculate how many kilos of CO2 emissions your energy use produces by multiplying the total number of kWh used in a year by 0.527
What's the debate?
"What do these devices run on - fresh air?"
Ok, it might seem self-defeating to buy an electronic gadget to reduce your energy use, but they use tiny amounts of electricity and figures suggest the savings more than compensate for the energy the devices use in the long run.
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I too have an energy meter in the kitchen which shows what i'm using at any given time, I would have liked to know how much i'm using over a period of time i.e. each day, week, month etc so I could calculate my estimated usage and from that my carbon footprint and best provider. I also wanted to find out how much my appliances were costing me to run, whilst there are varioud ways to do this for electrical appliances, it's a little harder for gas which is why I built a website to calculate all these things for everyone, you can evern compare your houshold energy consumption with other similar households.
The website is very easy and more importantly completely FREE to use, you simply periodically enter in your meter readings and the site will calculate your usage in terms of kWhs and £s, it can even email you to remind your to take your readings.
THe site is www.monitormyusage.com
thanks
Lee
I purchased an energy meter recently, just a plug in thing that can handle up to 3kW, it cost £4 FROM B&Q in one of their sales. I would agree with Geoff in Truro as to their value except that this gadget has allowed me to see the standby consumption of appliances (they don't tell you that on the tin!). This has then allowed me to make a more informed decision about which appliances I leave on standby, rather than just following the dogmatic approach of switch them all off. As for the energy meters that monitor your whole supply, keep your £40 and put it towards your next tank of petrol, or evening out, it will be better used.
Having an energy meter has made a huge difference to us. We couldn't believe how much energy we were wasting and ended up going round our home finding out what we had left switched on. It has meant we are now really switched on (pardon the pun) making sure things are not left on standby or kept plugged in at the mains when we don't need them. I would say we have saved at least 15% on our electricity bill since we had it and not only that, we can now tell when the kids have a light on and their CD players on when they are meant to be asleep!
Do read the full instructions. With mine, the bit that clips over the mains supply has to go in the outside meter box. It takes 4xAA batteries and transmitts back to a separate display in my home run from mains electricity. I followed the quick setup guide. This meant that the batteries in the external transmitter in the meter box went flat in around 2 months. Reading the full instructions, I learn that there is a button on the transmitter that enables me to reduce the data transmission rate. Supposedly, now I am using the low update rate I could 'extend the life of my batteries by up to 12 months'.
Energy meters let you see how much energy your gadgets are guzzling. Admittedly, there's no point installing an energy meter - which itself guzzles energy - for purely ornamental purposes. But there is a point to energy meters if knowing how much energy your gadgets use makes you more likely to turn them off standby, or use them less frequently. On average, people who buy energy meters cut their energy bills by 6-10%.
Of course, some would say that there's no point to energy meters because they barely cut CO2 emissions compared to other actions. For example, investing in an energy meter is less than three times as effective as halving how much beef you scoff - and 80 times less effective than installing a biomass boiler in your house. All the best, the Bloom Team
i can't see the point of energy meters
© MMIX
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