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Lucy Siegle's Ethical Living page in the Observer Magazine features Ashleigh Stevens, a student at Reading University, who has started an initiative to persuade students to reduce energy consumption
http://www.studentswitchoff.org/ |
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We've had an email from an Earthpill member about Voltage Optimisation. We haven't tried this ourselves but it looks like a good idea and claims to reduced electricity bills by 10% and also extend the life of light bulbs and appliances by smoothing the voltage.
The cost of the unit is £299 plus fitting.
For more information see http://www.vphase.co.uk/ |
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We've created a simple Earthpill iPhone App that lets you search the Earthpill database when you're on the move.
If this app is popular we'll put in functionality for adding readings into the database.
You can download the app for free from the Apple App Store. Just search for Earthpill.
Comments are welcome to our usual email address 
More information is available at http://www.earthpill.com/iphone.aspx |
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I work from home two days a week in an attic room office. To have this room heated in the winter I had to turn on the central heating for the whole house which seemed such a waste or turn every other radiator off manually.
The solution that I came up with in the end was to zone the house into four zones which can be independently heated. To do this I used Honeywell CM927 wireless thermostats connected to Honeywell V4043H motorized valves. The valves were installed by a plumber and he had to find points on the existing pipework where the pipes supplied the zones that I had identified. He had to cut into the pipes to fit the valves so the whole system had to be drained and it took a whole day.
The original central heating timer and thermostat are still there and these now turn the whole system on and off. Each zone has a wireless unit that can be used to set the times and temperatures of heating in that zone whenever the whole system is running. It's all worked perfectly for the last year, my gas bill is down by 15% and my office is warm for the first time.
The parts cost £560, the labour was £300 and I'm saving £120 a year so this should pay back in just over seven years. |
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The wholesale price of gas goes up and the retail price goes up. The wholesale price goes down and the retail price stays the same.
British Gas have announced a price rise of 7% today and Scottish and Southern have announced a rise of 9%. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11743778
Here's a link to an article on the Consumer Focus web-site with a nice graph of wholesale/retail prices since 2007 http://www.consumerfocus.org.uk/news/consumer-focus-response-to-sse-gas-price-increase |
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The Scottish island of Eigg has most of its energy provided by hydro-electric generators but, according to this article in the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/stop-using-toasters-islanders-are-told-2014033.html, a recent shortage of rainfall has resulted in islanders being encourages to use their energy hungry appliances less.
Islanders have been able to halve their energy use by 47% by "learning to use less energy" - described in this article in the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/01/eigg-island-renewable-energy. We think that they could save even more if they used Earthpill.
Article about Eigg Electrification Project: http://www.isleofeigg.net/trust/eigg_electric.htm |
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about Scottish Island Told to Stop Using Toasters |
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Earthpill has launched a campaign to measure every electrical item in the world.
According to Colin Bennett, one of Earthpill's founders "It's a big job but we think that the community nature of Earthpill means that it's possible. The alternative is to keep on wasting the electricity that we are using up the world's resources to create".
Steven Chu, a physicist and Nobel Laureate has just been appointed as the new US Secretary of Energy and we think that this signals a change in attitudes to energy consumption and waste. Mr Chu recently commented "Energy efficiency is not just low-hanging fruity; it is the fruit that is lying on the ground". Earthpill does the job of picking up the windfalls.
The Measure Everything campaign will be promoted through press and schools' organisations. If you would like to get involved please email us at  |
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St Mary's Junior School in Hornsey, North London, UK has saved £1,200 per year using Earthpill:
"We itemised and measured every electrical item in the school using the Earthpill web-site and produced totals which showed that 67% of the consumption was due to lighting." This led to school applying for and being awarded a grant from ENCAMS to fit PIR occupancy detectors to all rooms. The school's site manager, Ian Bruce, has calculated that this will save them 10,000 kWh (£1,200) per year which is around 15% of their total electricity use.
Full article (in French): http://www.display-campaign.org/article935.html |
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about School Cuts Electricity Consumption by 15% using Earthpill |
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Earthpill is mentioned in an article in the IET magazine by Keri Allan.
"To get more precise numbers, a company called Earthpill created a website that allows people to measure the consumption of their domestic appliances with an energy monitor and put their readings into a free online database. By sharing results, people can see where they are wasting electricity without the need to measure every appliance themselves.
"With companies such as Earthpill appearing, it's clear to see that the issue of energy efficiency is becoming more resonant with the public. This can only be positive news."
Full article: http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0908/war-on-waste-0908.cfm |
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about Institution of Engineering and Technology |