ACT ON CO2

Find out how much carbon dioxide you create and get a simple, personalised action plan to reduce your carbon footprint.
full article

the zero-carbon home

This is because its super-insulation (three times as much as a normal house) means that, other than in exceptional circumstances, it will not need heating in January, or air conditioning in August. One small radiator and a tiny cooling system are optional extras for days of extreme weather.

The electricity that it will use, to power its state-of-the-art energy saving domestic appliances, is generated by the house itself from an array of solar panels on the roof. If you are in a suitable site for a roof wind turbine, you may be able to generate enough surplus energy, say the manufacturers, to run an electric car for 10,000 miles.

Water heating will be from other roof panels, backed up in winter by a biomass boiler (fired by wood chips) which can serve half-a-dozen houses at a time. The house itself is based around a very strong timber frame, supplied as a flat-pack kit, "a bit like a sofa from Ikea", according to Bill Dunster, the director of ZEDfactory, the architectural firm behind the project.

The cost for a three-bedroom version, including setting up, which will take about three weeks – and ruralZED will erect it for you – will be about £150,000. Note that this is not the finished house price. It does not include the price of the land, or installation of the surrounding infrastructure.

But to get an idea of comparative costs, the build price of a three-bedroom home put up according to current building regulations – which will soon be out of date – is about £100,000. On the other hand, the build price of the only other Code 6, zero-carbon home so far designed in Britain, the Lighthouse, created by the building materials firm Kingspan Offsite, is about £180,000, Kingspan say – and you have to erect it yourself.

This cost differential makes the ruralZED house a practical proposition, especially for housing associations, the consortium says. The first six homes are being built, 24 more are in the planning stage, and the finance director, Anthony Dickinson, said he expects to sell "thousands" in two to three years – "mainly to self-builders and local authorities, but looking to market them to commercial house builders".

The key to the house is that it has high levels of "thermal mass" – the ability of a material to absorb and release heat slowly. This is provided by the extremely thick insulation around the walls. Further temperature control is provided by a heat exchanger in the ventilation system, which does not require any power.

full article

Smart meters 'dumb idea'

Smart meters are a mad idea when better power savings could be achieved using the existing "ripple control" for hot water heating, according to power industry consultant Bryan Leyland.

"Everything that could be done with smart metering can be done more effectively and much, much cheaper by taking full advantage of existing ripple-control system," Mr Leyland said.

Putting in smart meters would cost many millions of dollars and would be less effective than ripple control.

Customers would ultimately pay for smart meters, which can cost hundreds of dollars each.

"In the end the consumer always pays [for that]," Mr Leyland said.

But the potential power savings would probably be small because it would rely on people for example doing their washing at 2am to save "20 cents" on a load, he said.

Ripple control allows power companies to send a pulse down the line and turn off storage hot water heaters, which would be a much better way of reducing power use at times of peak demand.

Ripple control can be used to turn off water heating over whole suburbs.

As demand rises, more expensive power stations come into the system to provide electricity, adding tens or hundreds of millions to the cost of power over a year, Mr Leyland said.

"We have been the best in the world in demand-side management," he said. "We invented it."

These days power companies seemed scared to use ripple control, Mr Leyland said, even when they had the right to turn all domestic power off, for example if the Cook Strait cable failed.
full article

Magic Boiler Scheme

The Magic Boiler Scheme offers, high efficiency, 'A' rated gas and oil boilers and heating controls at discounted prices. The boilers have to be purchased from a Plumbing Trades Supplies (PTS) Group store and installed by CORGI (Gas) or OFTEC (Oil) registered installers. There may also be cash back which is subject to funding. Please note that this scheme is only available in certain areas of the UK.

Contact details:
For more information about the availability of the scheme in your area contact your local Energy Saving Trust energy efficiency advice centre on 0800 512 012.
full article