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Fundamentals: Reducing Domestic Energy Use

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      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeApr 16th 2012
     
    Posted By: JSHarrisThe only fly in the ointment would be finding a way of dealing with real hardship cases, like those who are on a limited income yet have unavoidably high energy requirements.

    I think the key is linking this problem to the people with the hardship rather than to the energy bill. That is, they should be dealt with by whatever rules cover help for people with hardships, not by adding special cases in energy legislation. It's crazy having special rules in every piece of legislation there is.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeApr 16th 2012
     
    Indeed, and I don't think tying people to MPANs would be all that hard, eg given the electoral roll and/or council tax registers and/or child benefit.

    I'm sure that since people seem to claim for multiple children they don't have then some degree of energy 'quota' fraud would also be possible, but I think in the main it could be relatively easy to manage if we wanted to.

    Any property requiring more than one MPAN (or meter per energy main) or more than (say) 4 people would need to demonstrate entitlement to the extra allowance, or pay at the higher rate. As I say our entire family of four would slip within what I am suggesting as a single allowance for a single energy supply (electricity), so it's not that draconian.

    It should make leaving a 60" plasma TV on all day and night seem much less attractive to those who don't give a monkey's. And would liven up the fights in student flats no end.

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeApr 16th 2012
     
    "The aim is about 1.5tCO2e per person per year in primary energy, in whatever mix of electricity/gas/fossils they like. Many/most people in the UK would be within the thresholds right now without trying I suspect." Damon HD

    According to imeasure we've managed 0.6 per person last year. Electric only household of 4. A little PV input from December to March, solar thermal all year.

    Bizarrely imeasure now rates our household a C though it previously had us as an A+ - I'm starting to loose faith with imeasure a bit. (Totally believed it when it was telling me what I wanted to hear!)

    RobinB
    • CommentAuthorSeret
    • CommentTimeApr 16th 2012
     
    Posted By: RobinB
    Bizarrely imeasure now rates our household a C though it previously had us as an A+ - I'm starting to loose faith with imeasure a bit. (Totally believed it when it was telling me what I wanted to hear!)


    It's just randomly downgraded me from a C to an E. Something funny going on there I think, although I do notice the "average" use figures it quoted have gone from ludicrous to more sensible lately, so they're clearly fiddling with the data...
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeApr 16th 2012
     
    Mine randomly jumps between B and A+: I'm at the latter now because it's decided that typical electricity use per person is 23MWh/y or something preposterous.

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthordocmartin
    • CommentTimeApr 16th 2012
     
    imeasure has just put me down to D from A; as suggested, above, it seems as if the data for domestic is now being sorted out. Am I right in thinking that the old imeasure was incorporated into the commercial version?
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012
     
    I believe so.

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012 edited
     
    re. imeasure re-grades - I was wondering if it was because we're all electric and it is now comparing our energy use on electric to people who also use gas. According to imeasure under the "electricity" column

    Robinb household energy use per person/year 1,093
    Typical electricity use (kWh/person/year) 1,248
    ST's first suggest is to allow 24kWh per person/DAY = 8,760

    for me the "gas" column is completely blank.

    I really like the idea of imeasure but starting with the changes which made "communities" virtually worthless to me,it is now starting to baffle.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012
     
    And the EU Climate Change Cup decided to delete one of my generation meters and all its data without warning, and German HQ cannot see why anyone would even have more than one such meter, so it's looking pretty crap too, frankly.

    Rgds

    Damon
  10.  
    Any clever bods out there fancy setting up a simple version of these energy logging sites
    giving say kWh/m2/time splitting up various energy inputs and totalling them ?

    Sorry I'm not clever so out of my league.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012 edited
     
    Posted By: RobinBST's first suggest is to allow 24kWh per person/DAY = 8,760

    Does seem high when looked at like that :shamed:
    Last year I used 6.2 kWh/person.day for everythign domestic (all electric here)

    Posted By: jamesingramSorry I'm not clever so out of my league.


    We could just set up a rolling table here.
    Would people prefer weekly readings or Monthly, actually I do not think it really matter, can both.
    The advantage of doing it here is that anyone can update it and we can go back though the history and correct any errors easily enough.

    What do others think?
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012
     
    Good idea - should it be under members only or public?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012 edited
     
    Maybe members only to start with, then if it goes horribly wrong it is only us that know about it :wink:
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012
     
    not sure that "fundamentals" is members only!
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012 edited
     
    I shall set up a new Thread, somewhere in the Member Area and see how it goes.
    I do suggest that we use Sundays as the meter reading day, though the data can be added at any time.
    I would also like to have Latitude, Longitude and Altitude (though only to 1 decimal place for the Lat and Lon so that those that do not want to be pinpointed aren't).
    Some house data may be useful, such as detached, semi, bungalow, flat, volume (excluding loft) external wall area, and percentage of windows is helpful too, as is orientation (for solar gain). Basic construction type is helpful, as are any improvements. Not really sure how to do that easily, maybe a coding system i.e. A=Brick, B=Stone, C=Timber Frame, D=Sips etc
    kWh/m^2 would then have more relevance.

    Any thought anyone?
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012
     
    I vote Steamy for thread monitor, sir.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 17th 2012
     
    One advantgae of doing it on here is that as long as people can cut and paste (rather that quote) the data, then anyone can play with it.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012
     
    Though I read meters every day, the imeasure day is Monday so you may save some duplicate effort if you were to stick with that.

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorPaul_B
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012
     
    Did anyone see this? Using Social Engineering in the form of Facebook to use the least amount of energy:

    http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57408570-76/facebook-friends-compete-to-lower-energy-use/
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012 edited
     
    I avoid Facebook as much as I can.

    I suppose typing in a date is not that hard, as long as we all agree on a format, when it comes to analysis (or a chart), Excel will sort it all out. Could just pick week number, my favourite, but then have to look up the date.
    The real hard one is house details, getting enough to be meaningful, but not so much to be confusing. Maybe should just stick to type, volume, orientation, location, wall and window area, the rest can be part of discussions later. That would only have to be entered once though.
    • CommentAuthorJoiner
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012
     
    Given the variables present in a diverse selection of dwellings, multiplied by whatever complicating factor is represented by different useage per household, why not define a "standard" dwelling and give it a value of 1. You know what follows...! :neutral:
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012
     
    Not a bad idea, could knock something up in a SAP package and use that as a baseline. Make it multiples of ten to keep the sums easy if possible.
    • CommentAuthorskyewright
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012 edited
     
    Posted By: SteamyTeaLast year I used 6.2 kWh/person.day for everythign domestic (all electric here)

    Sorry, I'm not quite clear on what are you including in the term "domestic"?

    Is it "all electricity", or:

    Lighting & appliances.
    Lighting, appliances & DHW.
    Lighting, appliances, DHW & space heating.
    Some other combination (please specify :bigsmile:).

    edit: at 6.2 kWh/person.day I'm guessing "all", with a very impressively low heating demand?
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012 edited
     
    4.5 MWh used last year, 2 of us in the house, 365 days in last year

    4500 (kWh)/365 = 12.3 kWh/day

    Halve that as there is two of us

    6.15 kWh/day each (a good 2/3rd on the E7 rate of 6p/kWh, my overall rate last year was 9.5p/kWh, including meter rental and VAT).

    All electric house, Night Storage heating, DHW on E7 too, occasional fan heater, all cooking on electric, no gas, coal, wood, oil, LPG, nothing but sparkly electrons.

    When I moved in, and on my own, used about 11 MWh/year, but then I was used to having gas, a constantly warm house and hot water on demand. Careful management has made the biggest difference, about 30%, then better understanding of the controls on the storage heater and the water cylinder, then new glazing (from a 4mm gap to 16mm gap, same frames), better airtightness, and finally better insulation in loft.
    I estimate the total spend at under £1000 over 6 years (wish I had done it earlier).
    Now it is time for me to start thinking about MVHR and possibly some renewables (but want to move and do it all over again but better).
    • CommentAuthorRobinB
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012
     
    4.95 MWh of which 241kWh from PV - installed December - and unknown amount from solar thermal and occasional log burner.

    Four in house - we are out at school and work 3 - 5 days a week but force heating on in daytime since COP of heat pump is at it's best and we have plenty thermal mass.

    All electric house ASHP, MHRV mainly triple glazed, great insulation and some lousy thermal bridging. (ah the joys of the PassivHaus course!)

    We are fairly stingy I think - base load in summer about 2kWh per person per day (pre PV, no heating and virtually all hot water from solar.

    this isn't our table though is it!
  26.  
    See , thought some clever bods would come up with an idea,
    so ST , looks like you've been put forward for the 'team leader' job :smile:
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012
     
    I shall have a ponder on it ans see what I can do.
    Could just start of with Username, Date and Weekly readings, will be easy to add to.

    So something like this (will be in CSV format again)

    Username,Date,Last 7 days kWh
    SteamyTea,18/04/2012,94
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteamyTea
    • CommentTimeApr 18th 2012 edited
     

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