The first step to saving energy is changing behavior in the home, and Oxford University engineers think they have the answer. Malcolm McCulloch and Jim Donaldson of the university’s engineering department have designed a “smart” electricity meter that can automatically tell which appliances are on and how much energy they are consuming. They hope that, by itemizing a home’s power use and making wasted energy visible, people could act to reduce their energy bills and carbon footprint.
A survey by the UK’s Energy Saving Trust (EST) found eight out of 10 people in England do not know what they are paying for their gas and electricity. The trust also calculates that, if everyone in England switched to smart meters, which allow householders to see how much energy they are using, they would save £985 million (US$1.6 billion) a year between them.
The EST chief executive, Philip Sellwood, says the way people use energy in their homes at the moment seems hard to believe, especially in the context of recent rises in household fuel bills.
“Most people would never sign a mobile phone contract if they didn’t know how much it would cost. Similarly, you wouldn’t shop every week and then get the bill three months later and just hope you could pay for it. Smart meters help householders work out how much energy they are using, how much they are paying for it as well as showing in real time which appliances are producing the most CO2,” he said.
INFORMATION
Though modern smart meters can tell people their energy consumption over a given time, the information they provide is often of little practical use.
“If you’re faced with the task of reducing your energy bills, you can look at a graph of your energy consumption but just because it’s 7 kilowatts, that doesn’t mean a lot to many people,” said Donaldson, the chief technology officer of Intelligent Sustainable Energy (ISE), the spin-out company from Oxford University that will bring the new meter to market.
“It’s much better to say ‘that’s because you’ve got these lights on, the TV on, that heater’ and it allows people to understand exactly where their energy is going so they can change their behavior,” he said.
The ISE meter is more sophisticated than those currently available, which tend only to give a readout of total energy use at a given time — it can analyze the patterns of electricity coming into a home and uses a software algorithm that works out exactly which appliance is using the power.
McCulloch said the information from the meter would allow householders to make informed decisions about their energy use.
“For instance, if the amount of electricity your washing machine uses increases considerably, this might indicate that it will be more cost-effective and carbon-efficient to replace it,” he said.
A prototype ISE smart meter has been on test in several Oxford homes for most of this year. More than 1,000 days of energy data have been analyzed, equating to about 27,000 hours by the technical team. By using the appliance monitoring data and understanding what energy their appliances were using, users were able to make potential savings of up to 20 percent on their energy consumption.
Appliance monitoring data can be displayed through an in-home display, PC/laptop, TV screen or iPhone application. The information could also be sent to the user’s energy supplier, which could provide them with itemized bills.
If all goes well, the technology will be integrated into a device called the Smart Hub, which will be able to track electricity, gas and water use for an entire household by plugging it into the meters already installed in a property. It will be manufactured by Navetas Energy Management, a co-investor of the ISE technology.
Trials so far have shown the software can identify which appliances are consuming more than 85 percent of all the energy used in the home.
“But if you plug something very small such as a phone charger in, it may say there’s something drawing energy but I don’t have enough information to tell you what it is,” Donaldson said.
OPTION
It is a promising start. Navetas hopes that, once trials are completed next year, one of the major electricity suppliers might option the technology for its customers. They have also come up with a technical solution for the UK smart gas metering market.
Friends of the Earth’s head of UK climate, Ed Matthew, welcomed the Oxford team’s development.
“But the key responsibility for tackling household emissions lies with government — carbon emissions and energy bills could be cut by two-thirds by a massive national program to super insulate all our homes street by street,” he said.
Sellwood adds that household energy consumption is ripe for change.
“The lack of transparency surrounding energy usage is one of the biggest problems holding back the UK’s fight against climate change. Without the uptake of smart metering, this situation in not going to change any time soon,” he said.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.