As a first step to designing your renewable home energy
system you have to know how much energy you use. In order
to do this you have to make a list of all your electrical
appliances and lighting along with their amperage. This
exercise can also provide you with information on where you
can reduce your current energy needs. This is an ideal job
for a spreadsheet.
This is an ideal task for a spreadsheet.
If we wish to use renewable energy for our home then it
would be a good idea to know what our current energy usage
is. Essentially you have to carry out an appraisal of your
current energy usage so that you can establish a starting
point from which you can calculate the load requirements of
your micro-power generators i.e. your solar panels and wind
turbines.
Consider each appliance in your home and its energy use.
Some appliances like kettles, toasters and the like draw a
considerable amount of power when used but at the same time
they are used for a relatively short time each day.
Once you know what your current energy usage is you can
take steps to start reducing the amount of energy you use.
Estimating and / or timing the duration that each appliance
and light is in use and the energy expended by each
appliance and light is a real revelation. It allows you to
make informed choices when buying new appliances or
installing new lights.
For instance, I know that it's a lot less hassle to dry our
clothing in a tumble dryer than on a washing line. However
to dry a single load can take up to between 70 minutes to
140 minutes. Assuming that, as a family of four, you have
on average of 7 loads in a week, therefore with a 3.3
kWh/cycle (my current tumble dryer energy consumption),
assuming a 12-hour constant tumbling time per week, you
will be using an approximate 2059.2 kWh a year. This costs
currently around £186.77 per year.
I can probably save up to half the cost by putting the
washing on the washing line and spend the money on myself
instead.
One of the changes that is relatively easy to make concerns
the illumination of your home.
When considering the illumination of your home you should
consider the following:
- The general lighting of a room;
- Localised or task lighting i.e. concentrated light for
activities such as reading, sowing and cooking; and
- Accent or mood lighting to create atmosphere or to focus
attention on certain objects or areas.
For instance in parts of my home I initially reduced eight
50-watt lights to 25 watt and then reduced them even
further to 2-watt LED lights. For one thing the 50 and
25-watt lights needed replacing regularly whilst I have yet
to replace a single LED light.
A simple calculation shows the savings made by carrying out
each of these changes:
Running the 50 watt lights for 3 hours a night I would be
using 1200 watt hours per night i.e. 438 kWh per year.
Using the 25-Watt bulbs I automatically halved that.
However, with the 2 Watt LED light bulbs my energy use for
this room has dropped to 17.52 kWh a year; a cost saving of
£38.14 at current electricity prices i.e.
£0.0907/kWh. It may not sound like much but you
should consider that this was only for one room.
As appliances need replacing they are replaced with
appliances with better energy rating. I look at the energy
rating of the appliances as well as the price when
comparing new appliances. For instance I had to replace
our condenser tumble dryer and I opted for a vented tumble
dryer as there was a 0.5 kWh difference per cycle.
Each individual saving adds up in the end and over time can
make quite a difference to your pocket.
Each small saving made this way reduces the load
requirement of your renewable energy, which in turn means
less solar panels, and energy storage requirements.
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Alain Prudhomme's interests include the various
technologies that allow for the micro-generation of
renewable energy for homes and the freedom such
technologies avail the ordinary person. He also writes
about the contentious and controversial issues surrounding
global warming and climate change. You can find more
resources at http://www.renewablehomeenergysolutions.com
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