Boring but brilliant: Four dull-yet-important energy solutions
Glamour: it’s hard to define. Some low carbon technologies, like Tesla’s electric supercar or geothermal energy from actual volcanoes, have it. Most are a little humbler, but these less-feted solutions have the potential to make big a big impact on our energy use and emissions. After all, you might never own a Tesla, but you can probably afford a thermostatic radiator valve.
After a careful and (we hope) statistically rigorous Twitter poll and intensive discussion, we can announce our pick of the four most boring-yet-effective low carbon technologies.
1. Temperature control
First, how about stripping it back a level? Turning down the heating and putting on a woolly jumper – as suggested by @drsimevans_ENDS, and mums everywhere – isn’t going to get anyone excited. But turning down the thermostat by one degree saves £65 and 260g of carbon dioxide a year, according to the Energy Saving Trust.
At the slightly techier end of the spectrum, temperature control gadgets like thermostatic radiator valves – TRVs to those in the know – could also help you control temperatures in each room and save energy (@EarthOrgUK has a whole project on smart heating and TRVs).
2. Insulation
It appears everyone finds insulation fantastically boring (thanks, @joabbess, @environeconomics and others). But if we can stave off our ennui for a second, we should remember the UK housing sector is one of the least energy efficient in Europe – and responsible for around 45 per cent of UK emissions.
The government recognises this and wants to cut housing sector emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, mostly through its Green Deal scheme. That’s a big (potential) impact from a pretty boring technology. As @twundit points out – much of it it doesn’t even involve any gadgets, just material with a low U-value.
Then there’s window film, kindly suggested by @shrinkfoot. Solar window film – especially when applied to old windows – is fairly cheap and the savings you make should pay back your investment in around two to five years. According to one company, treated windows can become carbon neutral within less than two months – yawn.
After all, as the Energy Savings Trust points out, eco-bling like solar panels might seem exciting – but unless you’ve lagged the hot water tank (six to 12 months payback time) first, they won’t be as effective.
3. Heat pumps
There was some disagreement in the office over whether heat pumps were boring enough to make the list, because there’s something slightly fascinating about a technology that is basically a fridge in reverse. Nevertheless, the heat pump makes the grade.
Ground source heat pumps, buried in the garden, circulate a mixture of water and antifreeze around a loop of pipe. The liquid absorbs heat from the ground, which passes through a heat exchanger into the pump, warming the home.
The savings – both when it comes to emissions and energy bills – can be significant, though it depends to an extent which fuel you are replacing. Heat pump fan @mwt2008 tells us his parents cut their heating and hot water bills by 73.5 per cent when he convinced them to install a heat pump.
Heat pumps have an efficiency of more than 100 per cent (h/t @cwhope), and people who have them installed receive a fixed income for every kilowatt hour of heat they produce through the government’s Renewable Heat Incentive. Relatively exciting, you might argue.
On the other hand, heat pumps are expensive and take a long time to pay back. @planetkooler votes heat pumps the “energy technology with the largest amount of boring worldwide”. But environmental thinktank the Green Alliance wants the government to start paying more attention to heat pumps: at present, 70 per cent of all heat in the UK comes from burning natural gas, so heat pumps could cut carbon and reduce dependence on natural gas.
4. Smart meters
Despite attempts by politicians to get consumers excited by smart meters – and media claims that they would allow the EU to spy on our homes – the prospect of nailing a blinking energy wonk to the wall doesn’t seem to have lit people’s fire.
Smart meters will replace people’s existing energy meters, sending readings automatically back to energy suppliers through SIM cards or long range radio signals. The meters can also include energy monitors or computer software – suggested by @JimDensham – which let you see how much energy you’re using at different times and might also let you know when there’s plenty of electricity on the grid. Stats ahoy!
So as well as helping people cut bills by making sure the TV isn’t on standby, smart meters could also bring them down by making UK energy use more efficient. If people do what the meter says, that is. Avoiding big fluctuations in energy use would also mean gas stations wouldn’t have to be powered up to cope with peak demand – in theory reducing overall emissions.
Smart meters are due to come in pretty soon – the government must roll them out across the UK by 2020. How much they’ll reduce emissions by will depend on how interesting people find the new frontier of energy saving energy monitors will open for them – but it’s not impossible. After all, most people are just a little bit nerdy.
Boring. But brilliant
So ends our pick of boring-yet-potentially-significant energy technologies – though we like to think of it as just the beginning of a conversation.
Think we’ve unfairly snubbed something? Have your say in the comments.
Thanks to our energy friends on Twitter for championing their pet boring energy solutions. And thanks also to the Energy Saving Trust, which provided us with the majority of our information.