The Energy Savings Trust is a UK based organisation that gives free and independent energy savings advice. For those outside the UK it is also a very useful resource for more general information about ways to save energy.
Some website highlights
Top 10 energy savings tips - Most are the basics are here but it is always worth checking through, it only takes a minute.
List of energy blogs - All sorts of energy related blogs including news, opinion and reviews, will definitely keep you busy for an hour.
UK Energy grants and offers - Plenty of information on sources of UK grants for renewables technology and energy efficiency projects including a search form to find relevant grants for your area.
Energy saving products - goes through the energy rating system and explains a bit about each type of product. If you want to look at some prices it can even direct you through pricerunner.co.uk to find and compare products.
Generate your own electricity - a good size section for those home owners that want to generate their own electricity. Plenty of information on what is available, how it works and if there are any grants available to help.
Sunday 14 December 2008
Tuesday 25 November 2008
Carbon Footprint calculator
One of the first things you might need to do it to calculate your carbon footprint mainly in order to offset it by perhaps planting trees.
You can try this Carbon Footprint simple calculator from the UK government. My carbon footprint for my small modest home came out at 2.58 tonnes per year. What's yours?
The calculator is really simple to use, you don't need to know every last detail about every appliance or house, if you do it can be more accurate, if you don't it will still give you a good estimate.
The CO2 emitted by my appliances, again quite modest was 0.53 tonnes. My CO2 transport cost was negligible as I tend to use public transport.
Which meant my total footprint each year was 3.04 tonnes
Now if you want to offset that you can check out the figures from the woodland trust.
You can try this Carbon Footprint simple calculator from the UK government. My carbon footprint for my small modest home came out at 2.58 tonnes per year. What's yours?
The calculator is really simple to use, you don't need to know every last detail about every appliance or house, if you do it can be more accurate, if you don't it will still give you a good estimate.
The CO2 emitted by my appliances, again quite modest was 0.53 tonnes. My CO2 transport cost was negligible as I tend to use public transport.
Which meant my total footprint each year was 3.04 tonnes
Now if you want to offset that you can check out the figures from the woodland trust.
13For each ton of CO2 you need to plant five trees which mean I should plant 16 trees a year to be safe which will approximately cost £10 each so totalling £160. Hmm offsetting is a lot harder than you think, but if you look at it on a monthly basis its only £13.33 a month.
How many trees do you need to plant to offset 1 tonne of carbon dioxide?
Using very conservative values the Woodland Trust will need to plant and care for 5 trees over a 75 - 100 year period to offset 1 tonne of carbon dioxide. To clarify 18 trees would need to be planted to offset 1 tonne of Carbon, as opposed to 5 trees for 1 tonne of CO2.
In the last 10 years the Woodland Trust has planted over 6 million trees which will offset about 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.- Woodland Trust, UK
NB there is a mistake in the original document
where a line is split, I have corrected it to how
I believe it should be written.
Pre Budget Renewable news
Well what news in the pre budget report is relevant to the renewables generation society. Not much really for the renewables generation society, you would have thought he might have put some money aside for grants into green energy projects.
VAT
The VAT rate dropping from 17.5 to 15% will obviously make lots of things such as solar panels, wind generators and all the other bits and pieces cheaper.
Warm front scheme
The government has invested £100 million into the warm front scheme to give aid to modest income households to insulate their homes.
VAT
The VAT rate dropping from 17.5 to 15% will obviously make lots of things such as solar panels, wind generators and all the other bits and pieces cheaper.
Warm front scheme
The government has invested £100 million into the warm front scheme to give aid to modest income households to insulate their homes.
Monday 17 November 2008
Can I recycle window envelopes (and other dumb eco-questions) (New Scientist)
Generating electricity through exercise
You can exercise at home and generate electricity with the Pedal-A-Watt. This device allows a cyclist to generate up to 200 watts of electricity. An hour's worth of cycling could power a low energy light bulb for eight hours.
Micro-windmill efficiency
The UK building research establishment compared the payback times of micro wind turbines in different locations. It found that inshore urban locations struggled to repay their cost where as coastal locations paid for themselves in under a year. One site at wick generated 3000 lilowaat hours a year, about 40% of that household's needs.
Reference: 15 November 2008. Can I recycle window envelopes (and other dumb eco-questions)". New Scientist, 200 (2682), pp36-42
You can exercise at home and generate electricity with the Pedal-A-Watt. This device allows a cyclist to generate up to 200 watts of electricity. An hour's worth of cycling could power a low energy light bulb for eight hours.
Micro-windmill efficiency
The UK building research establishment compared the payback times of micro wind turbines in different locations. It found that inshore urban locations struggled to repay their cost where as coastal locations paid for themselves in under a year. One site at wick generated 3000 lilowaat hours a year, about 40% of that household's needs.
Reference: 15 November 2008. Can I recycle window envelopes (and other dumb eco-questions)". New Scientist, 200 (2682), pp36-42
Tuesday 11 November 2008
UK Wind speed database
Thinking of adding a wind turbine to your home energy generation master plan, then before you buy you would be well advised to check out the average wind speed in your area.
Of course this will only give you an estimation it is best to do some on-site measuring first and take guestimate on the effects of local topography on wind speed, i.e. tall trees buildings etc.
In the same way you need a fields worth of good space to fly a kite and the effect of a tall tree can still have an effect a 100 metres away you can soon work out how badly affected your wind turbine might be. As with most wind things the higher you can be, the better the wind, so if you live on a hill with open space all around it may well be worth the investment.
Of course if you take the view that any energy generated is a bonus and you don't necessarily expect the turbine to pay for itself then you can go ahead and install it anyway with a clear conscious.
Of course this will only give you an estimation it is best to do some on-site measuring first and take guestimate on the effects of local topography on wind speed, i.e. tall trees buildings etc.
In the same way you need a fields worth of good space to fly a kite and the effect of a tall tree can still have an effect a 100 metres away you can soon work out how badly affected your wind turbine might be. As with most wind things the higher you can be, the better the wind, so if you live on a hill with open space all around it may well be worth the investment.
Of course if you take the view that any energy generated is a bonus and you don't necessarily expect the turbine to pay for itself then you can go ahead and install it anyway with a clear conscious.
Monday 10 November 2008
Solarcentury UK
Solarcentury is a leading UK solar thermal and voltaic technology company.
Some of their innovative products:
Solar Louvres
Solar Facade (Cladding)
C21 Solar Electric Roof Tiles
The Electric roof tiles are particularly interesting as it means the solar power aspects are no longer a bolt on to the roof but the panels are now part of the roof. Very unobtrusive and low impact building materials. In a new build part of the saving can be the roof tiles you don't have to buy.
If every roof was made of those tiles we would use a lot less energy in the UK.
Solarcentury are also one of three framework suppliers for the governments low carbon building scheme phase 2. This means they can offer up to 50% grants for any organisation in the public sector. They also offer a solar4schools programme and easy ownership leasing options.
They also have some good general info pages including:
How Solar Photovoltaic works
General FAQ
Some of their innovative products:
Solar Louvres
Solar Facade (Cladding)
C21 Solar Electric Roof Tiles
The Electric roof tiles are particularly interesting as it means the solar power aspects are no longer a bolt on to the roof but the panels are now part of the roof. Very unobtrusive and low impact building materials. In a new build part of the saving can be the roof tiles you don't have to buy.
If every roof was made of those tiles we would use a lot less energy in the UK.
Solarcentury are also one of three framework suppliers for the governments low carbon building scheme phase 2. This means they can offer up to 50% grants for any organisation in the public sector. They also offer a solar4schools programme and easy ownership leasing options.
They also have some good general info pages including:
How Solar Photovoltaic works
General FAQ
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