Does the UK need solar electricity?

I am not against solar PV panels in other countries where the pattern of demand is different, but in the UK our peak heating demand is in the winter time when solar power is low. Wind on the other hand peaks in the winter too so is a natural fit for our demand pattern. But does wind generation really match our demand well, or do we need mix of other types of generation? The answer was not as clear cut as I expected.

How to make sense of your meter readings - and make them useful

I have been taking gas and electricity meter readings on a regular basis for about 5 years now and I can use this data to make some pretty graphs, showing energy use through the year. However, heating energy depends on the weather which makes year by year comparisons rather meaningless. Adding in temperature data as well makes it much more interesting and genuinely useful.

Electricity is getting cleaner - should you heat or drive with electricity now?

Increasing renewable electricity (and less coal) in our mix is having a real impact on the carbon emissions from electricity. I used to say that electricity cost (roughly) three times as much as gas and generated three times as much carbon emissions - but now electricity is only twice as much as gas for carbon emissions. This has implications where you have a choice of fuels. For example, heat pumps for heating will now generate less carbon emissions than gas even if their performance is well below average. Also it increases the benefits of switching to electricity for cars. However, decisions made today are often based on out of date carbon factors.

Carbon emissions factors for grid electricity. DUKES is most up to date - DEFRA lags by 2 years (other differences are described below). Natural gas is added for comparison, based on gross calorific value (as appropriate for a condensing boiler)

The Hempcrete Book - review

The Hempcrete Book: Designing and building with hemp-lime by William Stanwix and Alex Sparrow. Green Books.

Hempcrete is an alternative building material with excellent sustainability credentials. It can be used instead of masonry or SIPs to build walls and to insulate roof and floors. If you are thinking of an eco building project you should at least consider using hempcrete for the construction – and in that case you should definitely read this book. It is an easy and fascinating read with a huge amount of advice about what hempcrete is good for, how to use it and other important details such as how to deal with building control. (Most council building inspectors have little knowledge of it so you are usually better off employing an authorised inspector who does.)

Our personal energy use matters

A friend recently complained to me that it was pointless trying to save energy at home because our domestic energy use is a tiny proportion of the overall impact from business and industry - whatever we could do personally would not make any difference. This post refutes her statement, at least for the UK. Depending on how you count things, between 25% and 33% of greenhouse gas emissions are due to our activities at home and for personal travel.

The first figure is based on statistics recently released by DEFRA on greenhouse gas emissions by final consumption - this includes emissions due to imported goods and excludes emissions due to imports. The second figure is based on emissions generated within the UK. The chart below shows my best estimates for emissions on personal consumption in 2014. It shows a fairly even split between heating, electricity use, car travel and air travel. Together these add up to 3.7 t COe.

You can switch energy suppliers - why not water suppliers?

Currently we can choose and switch between energy suppliers but not water companies. Until now water companies have been allowed to enjoy a natural monopoly in each area, with regulation from OFWAT to ensure that prices are fair and services are good. However, as from April next year business customers will be able to switch supplier and OFWAT has produced an evaluation of costs and benefits from extending this to residential customers. They report a number of potential benefits [1]. But given our experience of energy suppliers, do we really expect competition between water companies to realise those benefits?

Never mind the EU - we still need smart meters

Now that we are leaving the EU we don’t have to go ahead with the smart meters rollout [1]. However, the reasons why smart meters were proposed in the first place have not gone away. Smart meters are vital for a truly responsive electricity market. British Gas are leading the way on this, offering their smart meter customers free electricity at weekends, when demand is normally low [2].

Smart meters get a bad press because they don’t save much money by themselves. However they are a vital bit of technology that enables a whole raft of other savings possibilities.