A Smart Grid for Intelligent Energy Use: The Smart Grid involves the use of communications and computing technology to transmit and distribute energy more efficiently. This video describes the smart grid and how it will reduce our carbon footprint through energy efficiency and the integration of renewable sources of energy. Featuring interviews recorded at the IEEE Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles: Accelerating Innovation Conference (2007) and the IEEE Energy 2030 Conference (2008). Produced by IEEE …

With rising energy costs and depleting fossil fuels becoming more apparent, as well as the increased impact of global warming, many people are starting to look for ways to reduce energy usage.  While some things, such as turning off appliances when not in use, are standard knowledge, there are many things consumers can do that may not be apparent to them.  Today we will look at some of the various ways to conserve energy within the home.

In addition to adding proper insulation to your home, there is much you can do to increase your energy efficiency.  One small and inexpensive step that consumers can take is to replace carbon filament light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs.  They fit into existing sockets and generate equivalent light while generating only a fraction of the electricity.  Caulking or weather stripping around doors and windows is another excellent way to reduce energy use.  In many homes, especially older homes, a great deal of heat or cool air is generated in an attempt to compensate for air entering the home through drafty windows and doors.  By preventing this airflow, you greatly reduce your energy use.

When it comes to heating and cooling devices, the use of an energy efficient model is the best way to save on energy use.  Taking care to not overheat or overcool your home is another excellent energy saver.  Keeping your thermostat at 68 degrees during the day and 55 at night is the median temperature for winter energy efficiency, and the median summer temperature is 78 degrees in summer.  By replacing the air filters as needed in your heating and cooling system, you can also raise energy efficiency by as much as five percent.

The purchase and use of energy saving appliances is highly recommended for all homeowners and renters, as these appliances can use less than half of the energy needed by older models.  Other ways to save money on appliance usage include such things as washing clothes on the cold or warm cycle rather than using hot water.  Heating water is one of the biggest users of energy within a home.  Turn down the thermostat on your water heater and wrap it in an insulating jacket.  This simple change can save significant amounts of energy.

In truth, there are many ways to conserve energy from within your home.  The two most important things to do are to block outside air from entering your home and to turn off appliances when they are not in use.  These two things result in large amounts of wasted energy annually.  When combined with energy efficient appliances and appliance settings designed to use minimal energy, you can significantly lower both your environmental impact and your energy costs.  Following these tips can reduce your annual carbon dioxide emissions by thousands of pounds, which makes a significant change for the better in the environment.  As more people begin to take these steps, we can begin to truly move forward in our fight against global warming.

Energy Performance Certificates, also known as (EPC). An Energy Performance Certificate is needed for all homes which are built, rented or sold. If you are buying or selling a home, then it must have a certificate. This kind of certificate is also required for construction of new homes for rented houses. Not many are aware of EPC. Read further if you wish to know in depth about this.

The certificate records how energy efficient a property is as a building and provides A-G ratings. Similar labels are also available for domestic appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines. Such products are produced using standard methods and assumptions about energy usage so that the energy efficiency of one building can easily be compared with another building of the same type. This kind of certificate allows prospective buyers, tenants, owners, occupiers and purchasers to get the relevant details on energy efficiency and carbon emissions from their building so they can consider energy efficiency and fuel costs as part of their investment.

Energy ratings for buildings are also available. They have evolved since the 1980’s to provide an indication of the energy efficiency of a property. Since then, several energy rating systems have been used. For instance, NHER (National Home Energy Rating), SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure), and RDSAP (Reduced Data Standard Assessment Procedure), all of them are based on BREDEM (The Building Research Establishment Domestic Energy Model) have been in existence since long. EPCS are produced by accredited energy assessors. Every home that is marketed for sale must have an EPC Energy Performance Certificate as part of a HIP (Home Information Pack), which details a home’s energy efficiency.

An EPC also carries a recommendation report that lists cost effective and other measures (such as low and zero carbon generating systems) to improve the energy rating. Along with this, a rating is also given stating what can be achieved if all the recommendations were implemented. The certificate also provides you with a rating for the building, showing its energy efficiency and its environmental impact on a scale from A-G (where A is the most efficient and G the least efficient), in graphical format. It also contains recommended ways to improve the building’s energy performance. An Energy Performance Certificate shows the official energy efficiency rating of a property. If you’re not planning to sell your home, you don’t need to do anything. However, if you wish to sell your property, then you must have this kind of certification.

On 7th December 2007 the government gave Zero-Carbon rated eco houses below £500,000 exemption from Stamp Duty Land Tax.  This relief is available on new houses and will continue until 30th September 2012.  With households in this country on the increase by 223,000 per year (according to government statistics) and an increasing awareness of ‘green living’ amongst the public many property developers have put this firmly on their business plans.  We spoke to leading builders of new homes in Cornwall, Percy Williams & Sons who specialize in green building design in the UK and have a unique development: Fairglen in Hayle.

Simon Williams from Percy Williams & Sons explained that the ‘Government declaration that Zero Carbon-rated houses were to be exempt from Stamp Duty Land Tax was at first a psychological shot in the arm to us over this project of eco houses, but a close study of the strict definition of Zero Carbon and how we might clear this hurdle ended in disappointment’

A Zero-Carbon Home needs to have energy efficiency in three areas, including heat loss, dwelling CO2 emission rate and net CO2 emissions.  If they meet the requirements an accredited assessor will inspect the dwelling and issue a certificate.

To receive the actual ‘Holy Grail’ of Zero Carbon is difficult at the best of times, as it requires a building to have a net production of carbon into the atmosphere of zero. At Fairglen in Hayle the houses are almost uniquely efficient for this sort of development, but in addition would need a wind-turbine to achieve the last bit of balancing electrical generation.  Because of the sheltered valley location that the site is in the turbine could not have been efficiently done.

With the help of John Peapell Sustainable Solutions, a specialist consultant in this area, Percy Williams & Sons were prepared to pay for a turbine on an existing site elsewhere and then pass the ownership of this to the residents’ management company. It would be just as economically feasible in that the savings in Stamp Duty Land Tax could be spent on this, and the house owners would continue to benefit into the future from income from the turbine and green offset credits.  Overall an economically and environmentally sound solution.

Unfortunately on examination of the detail of the legislation Percy Williams & Sons found it stipulated that the generation had to be ‘hard-wired’ to the development, not just owned by it.  

‘I did rather feel that the goalposts were not where one might expect them to be on this one; hardly any houses will achieve this at the moment without huge arrays of photo-voltaic panels or on-site wind turbines which of course restricts their locations to windier and less energy efficient sites. So it is quite safe for the Treasury to offer it’ said Simon Williams.

Percy Williams and Sons are continuing to develop state of art designed and environmentally friendly houses as this is where their passion lies, maybe the government will reward the public who choose to live in these house and the developers one day?

Green Business Start-Up?

With much of the attention now on the state of the economy and efforts to begin a new era of opportunities in the renewable energy sectors, now may be the time to look at launching a career in the field of renewable energy.

There are opportunies to become solar and wind technicians all across the country and many of the certification and training programs are available online. The  U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC),  is a 501(c)(3) non-profit community of leaders working to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation, and they are leading the way in “green” certification programs as well. Their extensive online resources can be accessed online at USGBC.org
There are several FREE courses available once you register to the website.

Training and Workshops are the best way to get started in the new frontier of “green technologies”. USGB membership reaches from coast to coast so you’re certain to find training or workshops in your local area.

If you’re the “techie” type and  interested in jumping into the renewable energy business on a “fast track”, there are many major dealers across the U.S.A. that have in-house training and can provide you with the required “hand-on” experience to become an established solar and wind products dealer in your area.

Are you a Contractor looking to get involved in the “green building” industry? Build America Is another program that forms research partnerships with all facets of the residential building industry to improve the quality and energy efficiency of homes. The goal is to develop cost effective solutions that reduce the average energy use of housing by 40% to 100%.

Even if you’re not ready to take the leap into running a “green” business, you can still take advantage of  the energy saving technologies and tools that are currently available on the market such as the “E-Scale?” What is the EnergySmart Home Scale (E-Scale)?

The E-Scale is an easy-to-understand tool that helps homebuyers and homeowners make smart energy decisions when purchasing, renting, or updating a home. It is designed to provide clear, objective answers to basic energy questions such as . . . Will this home help me save money on energy bills?  How close is it to the “ultimate” – a Net-Zero Energy Home? Click  on this link to see the “E-Scale” and learn more about the Build America Program.

Staff have plenty to do without another scheme to add to the workload. Energy efficiency is just another fad, it’ll all be forgotten in a couple of months – or will it? Morgan Lovell’s Adrian Norman examines ways of inspiring office staff to become enthusiastic about saving energy.

For many staff having to be energy efficient is just another inconvenient company initiative. But how can you motivate your staff and prove to them that it isn’t all just a fad? The following eight points will guide you towards having staff who are not only enthusiastic about saving energy, but actively seek new ways of making those important energy savings.

1. Have Fun

If it’s plausible, hold a series of ‘awareness workshops’ that give your staff a couple of hours away from their desks, while at the same time encouraging them to learn about energy saving. You could invite some guest speakers, or to make it a bit more fun, show some films on energy saving and climate change. Staff at Morgan Lovell spent a Friday afternoon watching Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth – we got to learn about climate change, started to think about how we could make a difference, and food was laid on. You could even throw in the popcorn.

2. Set the Best Example

The Carbon Trust has produced a downloadable factsheet to guide you around doing an ‘energy walk-round’. Doing a walk-round of your office is a great way of identifying where energy is being wasted, and as they are the users of your building it works even better if you can get your staff involved. And being pro-active yourself will motivate your staff, meaning they are more likely to inform you if they identify a source of wasted energy.

3. Give Them Ownership

It’s important to make your staff feel like the changes being made are brought about by them, that they benefit as well as the business, and of course the environment. As the people who use the office, they are in prime position for identifying energy wastage, and thinking up new ways of saving energy, so encourage them to do this. You have to give your staff something to be enthusiastic about, so why not let them choose where some of the saved revenue goes – a donation to charity perhaps?

4. Give Them Control

In an ideal office environment, staff can have complete control over their environment, such as having local climate control panels. If you haven’t got such a system installed, there are other ways to encourage staff to take responsibility for their own energy usage. Providing ‘task lighting’, such as individual desk lamps (with energy efficient bulbs of course), means staff have control over their individual lighting levels, and so the need for overhead lighting is reduced. And your staff are more likely to take responsibility for their own individual equipment too. There are many studies that back this up.

5. Build a Relationship

It’s hard to understand the connection between turning off a light and saving the planet. People need something that demonstrates how saving energy relates to their everyday activities. For example, rather than saying that lighting an office overnight is a waste of energy, tell your staff that the energy used to light an office could heat water for 1,000 cups of tea. Or hire an electricity-generating bicycle that your staff can try out to see just how much of their energy is needed to power a light bulb. Help your staff to understand the consequences of their actions, and they will be inspired to change the way they do things.

6. That Special Someone

Every office, or department, should have one employee who is recognised as being the person who drives forward the energy saving process. This ‘energy champion’ should take the responsibility for ensuring that everyone is doing their bit to save energy, even going as far as making sure that the cleaners turn all the lights off at the end of the day. Maybe there’s already someone on your staff who seems ideal for the role?

7. Monitor Usage

It makes sense to keep track of how much energy is being used by your office(s), and if possible by the floors within. This should be the responsibility of your energy champion, who could produce graphs that can be distributed or put on notice boards or your Intranet, and will visually demonstrate how your energy consumption is (hopefully) dropping. And you can use this monitoring as an incentive for people to do more to save energy – hold competitions and award prizes to the floor/office which reduces its energy usage the most on a quarterly basis, or treat your whole office if you make a significant energy usage reduction month-on-month.

8. Out of Sight…

It sounds simple, but people need to be reminded occasionally to keep saving energy. A poster campaign can be one of the most effective methods for doing just that. You could put up generic posts about why saving energy is important, as well as stickers and posters on and around equipment and light switches reminding people to be energy efficient. You can design your own, or The Carbon Trust has produced a series of inspiring posters which you can download and print off for free. If you do just a few of the above, then your company will be well on its way to having an energy-saving culture. And remember that you should make it appear to be your staff’s choice to save energy, not something that is forced upon them. It’s about finding what works best for your staff, finding something for them to get enthusiastic about.

Key Points

• Hold awareness workshops

• Lead by example

• Make staff feel that they effect the change

• Let staff control their own usage

• Help staff to understand the consequences

• Appoint your ‘energy champions’

• Use saving energy as an incentive

• Keep reminding staff to save energy

• Develop an energy-saving culture

This article first appeared in FM World, 7th September 2007

To find out more about sustainable office design, see http://www.morganlovell.com