Energy Use– Time to Smarten up

Katy Brown looks at the companies selling electricity monitoring devices and discusses the forthcoming Smart Meter roll-out.

A lot has changed in the twenty years since Ethical Consumer began. Technological advances – both harmful and beneficial – have been rapid and life changing. In this report we look to the future at technologies heralded as being key to reducing our energy use, and the table gives the ethical low-down on the handful of companies that make electricity monitoring devices for the consumer market.

What is an electricity usage monitor?

These are devices that you can buy and use in conjunction with your existing electricity meter. Functionality varies from product to product but basically they allow you to monitor your home’s electricity consumption in real-time. Studies have shown that such devices can encourage home owners to reduce energy use by 3-15%. However, the onus is on you to use the device and make the corresponding energy reductions by turning off appliances. Unlike other energy saving measures such as loft insulation, a smart meter won’t reduce your energy consumption if you just install it and forget about it.

How do they work?

Wireless energy monitors come in three parts. A sensor which simply clips around the outside of one of the wires at your meter, a battery operated transmitter unit which sends the information picked up by the sensor, and a battery operated wireless display unit which can be placed anywhere in your home so you can constantly monitor your electricity consumption.

How does it differ from a smart meter?

At the moment some households already have ‘smart meters’ installed by their utility companies. The government has recently announced that it plans to roll out smart meters for every household by 2020 to replace existing standard electricity meters. The term ‘smart meter’ has been used to describe different things and, as we were going to press, the government had made some proposals for smart meter functionality on which it was consulting. Unfortunately the consultation ends before we go to print so you won’t have a chance to comment if you haven’t already done so.

As a minimum ‘smart meters’ will perform the same function as electricity usage monitors, allowing customers to monitor their electricity and in addition their gas consumption, in real-time. They will also feed information on electricity, and gas consumption back through the grid to your utility provider. This is why the scheme appeals to utility companies – it will do away with the need for them to pay for people to go to your house to take meter readings and will reduce the customer service time spent on dealing with inaccurate estimated meter readings – it’s an opportunity for them to save a great deal of money. The government has estimated installing smart meters into Britain’s 26 million homes could save customers and energy companies £2.5-£3.6 billion over the next 20 years, but says it will cost more than double this to implement, and it looks like consumer’s will have to pick up the bill. Under the government’s preferred option the energy companies will pay upfront but will be able to pass on the charge to their customers.

If smart meters are rolled out simply in this form, for there to be any corresponding reduction in energy use, the onus will be purely on consumers to reduce their energy use as a result of being more aware of how much they are using on particular appliances and switching them off. This could also be achieved by giving everyone an electricity monitoring device, a proposal which the government has now scrapped.

What the different electricity monitors do

The first smart meters installed under the government’s new plans aren’t expected to arrive until 2012 and you could have to wait until 2020 to receive yours, so if you want to start monitoring your electricity use in the meantime then you’ll need to buy one of the products on the table. Your choice of energy monitor will partly be influenced by what exactly you want it to do. They aren’t all the same, some do different things – the table below is a rough guide but check the specification before you buy to make sure you’re getting exactly what you want. The manufacturers will be able to help, phone numbers and websites for all of them are provided in Best Buys.

Data compiled by Ethical Consumer using information from company websites in July 2009.
For more detailed functionality comparison and other information on electricity monitors visit www.electricity-monitor.com

What else could smart meters do?

Some argue that the real potential for smart meters lies in going beyond this, and the government’s proposals do so, though there is no guarantee that this means they will actually be implemented. One of the proposals is to give smart meters the capacity to communicate with microgenerators which would make it much easier for people who want to set up their own small-scale renewable energy generation to sell electricity back to the grid. This ties in with the government’s promise to bring in feed-in tariffs, which reward people financially for the renewable energy they produce, in spring 2010 for electricity-producing technologies and 2011 for heat installations.

Another proposal is to enable the meters to monitor demand on the national grid and ‘speak’ to ‘smart’ household appliances, directing them to operate accordingly. The idea is it would enable people to set their household appliances such as dishwashers, washing machines, electric boilers, and eventually maybe even electric vehicles, to listen in to the grid and wait for the period of lowest demand, and corresponding cheapest electricity, to run. Given the amount of reserve electricity generated just to ensure that there is sufficient to meet demand at all times, often from huge coal fired power stations that are able to ‘tick over’ and then crank up when necessary, the potential impacts are significant. This is potentially a great opportunity to cut fossil fuel consumption without consumers being affected, other than by saving money. The technology also has the potential to enable the national grid to function using an increasing amount of renewable, often intermittent, energy sources – wind in particular – without disruption for customers. The first ‘smart appliances’ to become available may be fridges and freezers which are due to be trialled shortly by a company called Rltec. The company has developed a device which could be built into all new fridges and freezers. There are times when electricity use spikes for quite short periods – typical examples are at the end of popular soap operas or half time of important football matches – fridges and freezers can afford to switch themselves off for half an hour then switch back on again once the demand has dropped again without a fall in temperature. The company believes that if applied widely in the UK, this alone could eliminate the need for one 750 megawatt power station, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two million tonnes a year. Obviously the more appliances that ‘get smart’, the greater the reduction in emissions.

You won’t be able to choose which brand of smart meter is installed, your utility company will do that for you, though it may be one of the brands on the table as some of these companies have contracts with the utility companies that are already trialling such meters.

Primitivism vs Techno-fixes

Some argue that necessity is the mother of invention and that technological advances will save the day when it comes to climate change and peak oil. At the other end of the spectrum some are so against technology that they argue a ‘back to the woods’ primitivist stance. Alex Randall from the Centre for Alternative Technology takes a more balanced approach.

“Technology obviously plays a vital role in tackling climate change. Smart meters of various kinds and smart appliances are clearly a crucial part of the jigsaw that will allow us to monitor and reduce our carbon emissions. But we must be careful not to forget the rest of the jigsaw. Looking at the impact of everything else we do is still vital. Engaging in the climate change debate, communicating the issues and using your voice as a citizen to bring about wider change are all crucially important at the moment.

We should welcome the various recent technological developments but they should not become an excuse for abandoning our efforts in other areas. Given the difficulty and urgency of climate change it will always be tempting to find easy, simple solutions that allow us to forget about the problem. Although gadgetry, whether it’s a smart meter or a roof mounted wind turbine, will always be appealing, the best ways of reducing energy consumption are still the most boring. Insulation and draught proofing should remain a priority. Simple behavioural changes around the home should also not be forgotten in the face of shiny gadgets. Although we may be thoroughly bored of hearing about not leaving appliances on stand-by and turning down the thermostat there are still millions of households who are not taking these simple steps. We need to make sure we’re doing them and communicating them to people who are not.

While technological fixes will help us along the way we must begin to accept that our lives may change significantly as we adapt our society to deal with both the causes and consequences of climate change. We should not fool ourselves that technological developments will allow us to continue our lives exactly as they are right now. We must begin to understand that the way we travel, where our food comes from, how much energy we use and how we generate it, will all change.
Of course tackling climate change goes beyond looking at your own energy consumption and lifestyle. Over the next 12 months the UK Government will be taking some monumental decisions that will affect Britain’s contribution to climate change and also have international repercussions. At home the Government will decide whether to start a new phase of coal fired electricity generation, whether to go ahead with various airport expansions, whether to give permission for new nuclear generation, what our renewable energy targets should be, how much of the UK’s emissions can be offset overseas… the list goes on. The UK will also take part in the UN climate change negotiations in December where world leaders will agree (or not) on global carbon emissions cuts, who makes them and how they are paid for. Although our government makes these decisions they are not out of our control. There are numerous ways as a citizen that you can engage in the political process.

It’s not my place to tell you which issues you should worry about and how you should go about addressing them. Part of being an engaged, concerned and active citizen is to find out about the issues for yourself and make your own decisions about what kind of action to take. Needless to say there are many groups and projects that address different parts of the climate change debate. They organize in different ways, have more or less radical stances on various issues and bringing about change in different ways. You will agree with some and disagree with others. But as you find out more about climate change, the possible effects in the UK and other parts of the world, what the solutions might be and what the barriers to change are – you will begin to form your own opinions on how to engage with the issues and which groups, if any, to get involved with.

The task of the truly concerned citizen is not simply to navigate through various consumer choices remaining as ethically pure as possible. Our task must be to fully engage in whatever way we can to bring about positive change.”

Company Profiles

As you can see from the table, there’s not much to choose from between the five different companies. With the exception of 2 Save Energy Ltd, all made the time to respond to Ethical Consumer’s company questionnaire.
All are small companies (turnover below £5 million) providing environmental alternatives and all the products have significant sustainability features, therefore all receive extra marks in both these categories and are exempt from having to produce an environmental report. In fact, with the exception of Current Cost, all have fairly decent environmental policies.
We were encouraged to see for such small companies, that three out of the five – The Modern Moulds Group, DIY Kyoto and Efergy Ltd – were all taking steps towards implementing protection of workers’ rights into their supply chains. In addition the The Modern Moulds Group based in West Sussex manufactures its products in-house.
Efergy gets a mark in the anti-social finance column for having an office based in Hong Kong, a territory on Ethical Consumer’s list of tax havens.
Helpfully 2 Save Energy Ltd provides electricity monitors which are specifically suitable for businesses. Current Cost has partnered with E.ON, Scottish and Southern Energy and British Gas for distribution of its products but has not been marked down for these connections.

Links

Energy Saving Week runs from October 19th–25th 2009 and will feature helpful hints and tips about saving energy at home and at work. Information about the event will be on the Energy Saving Trust website from October 1st.
Energy Saving Trust, 21 Dartmouth Street, London SW1H 9BP, Customer advice line - freephone 0800 512 012 020 7222 010

You can find out the results of the consultation and keep up to date on Smart Meters from the Department of Energy and Climate Change, 3 Whitehall Place, London, SW1A 2HD, enquiries@decc.gsi.gov.uk, 0300 060 4000.

Electricity-Monitor.com, Gloucester Road, Swainswick, Bath, BA1 8BH, info@electricity-monitor.com, 01225 852123

Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ, 01654 705950

Sources

www.electricity-monitor.com viewed 17/07/09
www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/may/11/smart-meters-energy-efficiency viewed 08/07/09
www.theecologist.org viewed 05/09
www.rltec.com/index.php?sID=1208352028167 viewed 05/09
Energy Metering – A Consultation on Smart Metering for Electricity and Gas, May 2009, Department for Energy and Climate Change.