Domestic energy
Gas and electricity usage are the main factors in domestic carbon emissions but there are lots of things that can be done to reduce consumption, ranging from simple energy saving measures to more expensive insulation and microgeneration measures.
If you are serious about reducing your domestic energy consumption and carbon emissions, it's good to start by working out your current annual energy consumption. The easiest way to calculate this is to look at old fuel bills, choosing only those which contain actual meter readings, rather than estimates. You will need these to cover at least a complete year since most energy use is highly seasonal.
Knowing the annual gas and electricity consumption of your home provides the basis for trying to reduce it. Without figures, you won't know whether what you do is making a difference. There's nothing like seeing results to encourage you to greater effort. (some of our results)
Everyone knows about low energy light bulbs based on compact fluorescent lamps (CFL). These now cost less than £2 each and last for a much longer time than a conventional bulb. Spotlight and flat format tubes are now available, as well as conventional globe-shaped bulbs.
Light Emitting Diode (LED) bulbs are increasingly available. These are much more efficient than CFLs and have even
longer lifetime. No heavy metals are required in their production.
Use a Plug-In Mains Power & Energy Monitor to examine how much mains power your gadgets and household appliances use. You can plug each item into the monitor (which in turn plugs into the mains socket) and then measure the power drawn by it. For something like a fridge which is only on intermittently you can leave it plugged in to the monitor for a day or so to get an idea of averge power consumption.
You can use the Power and Energy Monitor to check what the stand-by consumption of each appliance is. Sometimes you find this is negligible (<1 W) but older appliances (e.g. a cathode ray tube TV or old Hi-Fi) often draw 30W or more.
More elaborate electricity saving measures
If
you have a substantial area of (approximately) south facing roof you
may be suprised to find how much of your annual elelctricity supply
could be generated by photovoltaic panels fixed to the roof.
The
output from the panels is direct current which must be changed into
alternating current to run your appliances or to be fed back into the
main supply. This requires a small gadget called an inverter.
The
cost of the panels is at present rather high. So this solution may not
give a very effective return on your investment, even after allowing
for a possible government grant which can cover some of the cost.
On the bright side it will quite radically reduce your carbon footprint.
Simple gas saving measures
Room heating - If you use gas for heating, then savings can be made by having an efficient condensing boiler, and setting the timer carefully, eg have it set to turn off before you usually go to bed (say 30 minutes). Also, turn down the thermostat a degree or so and install thermostats on each radiator so you can have a lower temperature in less used rooms. Above all though, good insulation will noticeably reduce energy consumption as the boiler has to work less hard to keep the rooms warm.
Water heating - If you don't have a combi boiler, thoughtful setting of the water heating timer should reduce the amount of waste and insulation is important to keep water hot in the pipes and tank.
Cooking with gas - We don't cook with gas, but presumably you can reduce energy waste by giving some thought to cooking several things in the oven at the same time or using a microwave to cut down cooking time.
Further information: