You may have read my colleague Julian Reeves’ post entitled ‘Tilting at Windfarms’ which discusses some of the successes of renewable energy around the world. In his article he mentioned new Government initiatives to encourage windfarms and renewable energy. This, coupled with the media coverage regarding the number of low energy light bulbs energy companies have sent out to customers, prompted some questions from you and got us thinking that this would be a good topic for another post.
The Government has several programmes in place which are designed to help address the issues of climate change and to secure future UK energy supplies. These include improving energy efficiency in our homes and increasing the amount of energy suppliers generate from renewable sources. These targets are set by the Government and monitored by OFGEM, the industry regulator, to ensure that the whole industry works towards the same goal.
I’ve been working on energy efficiency initiatives since the early 1990’s and in that time I’ve been involved in many schemes to promote low energy lamps. Back in 1994 low energy lamps were expensive to buy and very few people used them in their homes. Lighting is one of our most significant uses of electricity and as low energy lamps can use up to 80% less electricity than old fashioned tungsten bulbs, there’s a significant energy reduction to be made by switching. As a result, energy companies have been encouraged to promote the use of low energy lamps.
The media recently reported that the energy industry had sent out over 182 million low energy lamps in recent years and rather cynically compared this to a survey where people said they normally had a few of these lamps unused or spare around the house, suggesting that they simply weren’t needed and were a waste. Whilst 182 million lamps sounds like a lot, we all have more than one light fitting in our homes and we should realise that in the UK we already use some 600 million light bulbs in our homes. By sending low energy lamps to customers, energy suppliers have successfully reduced the energy used for lighting. However, overall domestic electricity use has not reduced on the whole, because of the increased number of gadgets and appliances we have in our homes these days, like set-top boxes, video game consoles, home computers etc.
At Atlantic, we’re meeting the Government targets through a variety of schemes. These include grants for cavity wall and loft insulation and DIY loft insulation from Focus Do It All stores. To address the increase in gadgets in our homes, we’re also working with a number of manufacturers to encourage improvements to televisions, set-top boxes, DVD recorders and laptops, amongst others. As a result, we’re already seeing more energy efficient models being introduced faster. We’ve also invested in programmes for ground source heat pumps, energy efficient central heating systems and external wall insulation or cladding.
The Government estimates that the measures being undertaken by the industry to meet these targets will cost a typical customer no more than £21 per fuel each year. We’re always looking at ways to be more efficient and it just wouldn’t be possible to give you all the details here. But, I hope this has given you an idea of how we’re meeting our obligations and helping you reduce energy use.