There seems to be a bit of a buzz about alternative power sources lately, with the Al Gore film, the power of one campaign and B&Q selling wind generators and solar panels.
This has got to be good news for the environment, with energy being created without the use of carbon based fuels, but are these new domestic power sources going to save us on our ever increasing fuel bills?
When you first look at the savings the 1Kilowatt wind turbine from B&Q will give it’s about one megawatt (1,000,000 watts) of power a year. At roughly 15 cent per kilowatt this is only 150 euro per year in savings. With the cost of the wind turbine at 2250 euros it will take 15 years to pay for itself. With a one year guarantee and a 10 year life expectancy I won’t be rushing out to get one of these.
Alternatively I’ve come up with better solution, first cut down on all the wastage of electricity in your home. Use CFL bulbs where lights are needed on for long periods, use PIR and audio switching to turn on and off lights, and switch to night rate (half price) electricity and do heavy usage stuff like washing machine/dish washer at night.
Another tip is to get an intelliplug (27 euro at maplin) that monitors usage on a master appliance like TV or Computer and when the appliance is turned off it shuts down power to the other peripherals that are in use or in standby. I did some calculations on my own nonstandard TV system, it has 8 peripherals
TV (master)
- FTA satellite
- FTV satellite
- Analogue satellite
- Stereo amplifier
- DVD recorder
- FM tuner
- Antenna amplifier
- CD player
these all added up to 44 watts in standby, when the glass doors on the cabinet were opened the heat of this is noticed, and the appliances are warm to touch. Now when the TV is put in standby or turned off all the other appliances shut down.
This 44 watts per hour works out at 880 watts over 20 hours of standby, over a 61 day bill this goes up to 53,680 watts at 15 cent per watt that’s 8.50 euro per bill, or 51 euro per year. So this device can pay for itself in nearly six months and after that it’s saving you money and the environment.
Our kitchen is tends to be a dark place as there’s no window for light, so it is lit by 3 x 50 watt downlighters. The plan is to replace the single switch with a PIR/Audio switch that turns on after motion or audio is detected and time out after X minutes of inactivity. I’ll keep the blog posted on how this project goes.
that night rate is a rip off with the standing charge, on my own estimates I need to be running a small B&B or farm to make use of the rate.
Comment by Brian Greene — October 19, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
see my next post for a solution to that annoying problem of the night rate standing charge
Comment by plague — October 20, 2006 @ 8:00 am