What’s the real energy guzzler in your home? Which of your widgets is whooshing out the carbon dioxide emissions back at the power stations? How much carbon dioxide is produced boiling a kettle? You can borrow our Plug-in Mains Power and Energy Monitors to find out.

Did you know:

• The electricity we get from the national grid comes from a variety of sources, shown below[1]:

• In 2004, the energy supply sector was responsible for carbon dioxide emissions of 53.7 MtC or about 36 per cent of the UK total[2].
• The domestic sector consumes 28% of all energy generated and is responsible for 27% of UK CO2 emissions[3].  Of this, approximately 60% is used for space heating, 25% for hot water heating, and 15% used for lighting and appliances[4].
• You can sign up to a green tariff for your electricity. To view the fuel mix of UK electricity suppliers go to www.electricityinfo.org/suppliers.php . You can ask your supplier for a green energy tariff, or change your supplier to Good Energy (http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/), a 100% renewable power energy company.

Using the energy monitor

• Plug the energy monitor into a socket, and plug the appliance into the energy monitor.
• Use the buttons as shown on the instructions to see how much power (watts) the appliance is using at a given time. The yellow button (kWh) shows how many kilowatt-hours the appliance has used while it was switched on.
• The accompanying spread-sheets will tell you how to calculate the CO₂ emissions which would result from a typical fuel mix for a UK consumer.
• You can also download the background information.

Fred Foxon (a climate Explorer) has written an interesting article about Plug Monitors, which you can download .

Energy diaries

Explore your energy! You can download an energy diary spreadsheet to help you:

• Monitor your top 10 appliances when in use (and on standby)
• Compare how much energy similar appliances use - a small TV, and a large plasma screen
• See how much energy your appliances are guzzling on ‘standby' mode 

Here's what one energy explorer said:

"One of the things I have learned is what variation there is between things on standby. I was particularly horrified by the Sony Freeview box result - it's a more expensive model but I'm seriously considering writing to them experessing my dissatisfaction with it's power consumption being equivalent to a days use of a kettle & toaster combined!"

Sheet one ‘top ten appliances'

This is blank for you to fill in what you'd like to measure. We suggest you focus on your top ten appliances - the ones which are most important to you /  you use most often. The easiest way to record these would be to take a specific reading in kilowatt hours (kWh) when they're in use, and provide more details of how they were used (for example, boiling 4 cups of water, using hair drier for 5 minutes, television on for 2 hours). From these results you can quickly estimate how the kWh from the appliance equates to the carbon dioxide emitted.

Sheet two ‘appliance details' [5]

This is a more in depth record. It contains a prompt sheet of different appliances that you may have in your home, together with details to fill in. If you're using this sheet you may want to start off by putting post-it notes on all the appliances in one room at a time, and noting how often the appliances are operating and on standby. Keep track of which appliances were on for the entire period.  Total up the number of hours and minutes each was on, and enter this on the spreadsheet.  If you have additional appliances, add them to the list. 

Using the energy monitor, see how many watts each appliance uses when operating, and when on standby. For stereos, it might be interesting to see the watt difference when the volume is on max and minimum!

Your experiences of using the energy monitor

We'd love to know your experiences ...

• How long did it take you to get obssessive about energy?
• Did you think about your energy use more consciously?
• Did any results surprise you?
• What did you find most interesting?
• What do you want to know now?

Recording your observations will help us improve the tools, and increase the effectiveness of energy efficiency messaging. Soon we'll have a site on our website for you to record your observations.

You may want to discover some low energy household pioneers at: www.40percent.org.uk/40-percent-exemplars/

Getting your mitts on a monitor 

If you'd like to borrow a power and Energty Monitor, please contact us. If you'd like to buy one, here's a link to Maplin.

 

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[1] Source: http://www.electricityinfo.org/ , also see www.dti.gov.uk/energy/policy-strategy/consumer-policy/

[2] Source: UK Climate Change Programme 2006, section 2, Delivering Emissions Reductions. Webpage: www.defra.gov.uk/environment/climatechange/uk/ukccp/pdf/ukccp06-pt3.pdf

[3] Source: DTI 2002, DEFRA 2002, cited in www.40percent.org.uk/40-percent-research/introduction/

[4] Source:  www.40percent.org.uk/40-percent-research/introduction/

[5] We're grateful to Timmons Roberts for developing this sheet