UK households to get "free" energy monitors

The environmentalists in the UK have certainly been earning their paychecks of late, as it's been the Brits who have looked at outlawing standby buttons, offered up a way to kill power en masse, and now, officials are readying the launch of free household energy monitors to bring wasteful habits to light. As a part of the upcoming Energy White Paper, England is hoping that the real-time monitors "will help cut greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of energy wasted by appliances being left on standby." The devices are supposed to give dwellers a quick look at just how much energy is going to waste by leaving the bathroom light on, and a handheld extension allows you to view the killowatt-burning action from all over your domicile. Of course, it should be noted that while citizens can request one for free starting sometime in 2008, "the cost of the scheme will either be recouped through taxes or their energy bills."

[Image courtesy of MoreAssociates]

[Fraggle @ Apr 18th 2007 6:56AM]

How much power will these use when running in the background all the time?

just some thoughts...

How much power will it cost to manufacture and transport them to everyone in the UK?

Do you think that the benefits will outweigh the environmental cost?

[Neil Christie @ Apr 18th 2007 7:12AM]

Where do we start with the inaccuracy of this article?

Firstly - the move is merely being proposed in a "White Paper" - a document which outlines policy but which cannot become law until Parliament votes on it.

Secondly - It's happening in the UK Parliament - the UK constitutes not only England but Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales too.

Please do a little more research before posting sensationalist stories.

[Bman21212 @ Apr 18th 2007 7:13AM]

Initially, it wont be great. But if they are used for years as I suspect they will, that argument is void.

[epigenetic @ Apr 18th 2007 7:19AM]

I would like this to be able to monitor more than electricity. Functions for gas and water and also to be able to disable it before going on holidays. This would be an excellent way to check whats been left on before leaving the house.

Hope Australia follows the UK and implements it

[kip @ Apr 18th 2007 7:28AM]

Something to please the Guardian readers, methinks. And I like the word "citizens" - I think that applies to you guys over the pond. We Brits are lowly subjects, like poor old Kate Middleton.

[ste @ Apr 18th 2007 9:25AM]

We in the UK are both citizens AND subjects... A weird one really.. Though I would not consider myself a subject as I've never sworn allegiance to any monarch (unlike polititions, civil servants, armed forces etc)

Though since 1994 we are citizens of the European union....

Clear as mud eh ?

Ste (not British nor English but a Scouser!

[spam_from_engadget @ Apr 18th 2007 9:26AM]

> We Brits are lowly subjects

Huh? My passport says "Nationality: British Citizen", loud and clear. Does yours really say "subject"?

As for the savings from these things; well, I think the main benefit would be if they could show how *litte* difference you make by unplugging your phone charger, and thereby educate those people who think it's OK to fly to New York to do their Christmas shopping and eat air-frieghted Zambian vegetables all the time and drive around in a Chelsea Tractor as long as they don't ever leave the TV on standby.....

(My phone charger takes 0.5W when it's not charging, and my TV takes 2W when it's on standby. My DECT phone takes 7W, as does my cable modem. My PC monitor takes 10W on standby.)

[Andir3.0 @ Apr 18th 2007 7:31AM]

I just like how "Others" is one of the major contributors to the drain in the picture. It's kind of like asking a group of people if they voted for Person A, B, C, D, E, or F and making a chart showing only Person A and B and hiding the fact that Person E got the second most majority of votes.

[PDubNYC @ Apr 18th 2007 2:05PM]

@Andir3.0
Second most majority of votes? whhhhhat?
What the hell does that mean? I don't think the word majority means what you thinks it means, get my meaning? Not to mention I just don't get your analogy in general.

Personally, I would love to have one of these. It makes it a lot harder to plead ignorant when you have the numbers right in front of you.

[Colin @ Apr 18th 2007 7:39AM]

@Fraggle
How much power does a cell phone in trickle charge consume? I would assume it's something along those lines. Taking advantage of pre-existing distribution channels will reduce the production and delivery footprint. If people pay attention to them, the benefits will surely outweigh the costs. To whit:

Judging by the photo in TFA, the unit is comprised of a colour-screen, poorly placed into the body of a Palm Zire 21 with some Apple-esq widgets and emblems. It'll be interesting to see how the thing actually works. How, for example, does it know that my kettle is using that much power? Or do I need to upgrade to Kettle 2.0?

[bob @ Apr 18th 2007 10:37AM]

These are available already for purchase:
http://www.electrisave.co.uk/

They featured on a TV program recently, and I think as an indicator to raise awareness they will be useful.

The site explains how they are used, no need to upgrade the kettle just yet...

[Joel Rossel @ Apr 19th 2007 11:37AM]

the costs are going to be recooped from taxes or energy bills*.

* but theoretically the bills are going to be even lower... so this is just yet another tax hike to reduce consumption. You know, the quickest way to slow consumption is to tax 95% of everyone's income. That would stop greenhouse gasses REAL fast.

[jennifer @ Apr 18th 2007 10:57AM]

The BBC ran this story earlier in the week. Great to see it filtering to other news sources, but c'mon guys, give some credit where credit is due! The gadget pictured is made by More Associates (http://www.moreassociates.com).

[James @ Apr 18th 2007 1:25PM]

I assume you'll have to attach some sort of widgets to your outlets, or maybe just change out your circuit breakers. It's a neat idea, but I'm less sure that the government needs to be "funding" the project (e.g. mandating that everyone pay for them). I guess you could argue there's a compelling public interest in reducing energy consumption overall...

It's interesting, for instance, to see that the kettle (presumably on for a very short period in a given day) burns more juice than the refrigerator (presumably kicking in periodically throughout the day).

Speaking as a US citizen, I think perhaps the best way to encourage this would be a tax credit for people that want to install one of these systems, particularly during new home construction. If this sort of monitoring were available in all new residences, it would probably make those residences a lot more energy efficient simply by virtue of letting people know where their energy (and therefore money) is going. I've wanted something like this in my home for some time, but never could get up the gumption to spend the money. If there were a tax break involved, though...

[Andir3.0 @ Apr 18th 2007 3:00PM]

That's okay, I still can't figure out why a kettle would be using electricity. I mean, a kettle in the basic form of the word is a metal container with a spout for pouring out the hot liquid inside. Has it been adapted to something else? Maybe a teakettle or a coffeemaker?

So I chose the wrong word with "majority", sue me. You can replace it with popular and the sentence is the same. Basically, "Others" is draining a large amount from the power grid, but you can't really tell what "Others" is. Do you have some neighbor tapping into an external outlet and running his refrigerator off your power? It could be anything. I'd want more detail on something using that much power.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to pull up my power distribution on my PC or something else and see exactly what it is contributing to my power usage, but the level of detail I want is on the per outlet level. When I finally get a house built to my specs, it's one of the things I'm going to look into (if not that, at least circuit level.)

[James @ Apr 18th 2007 3:11PM]

@Andir: If my PBS Britcom education is worth anything, it's apparently common for Brits to use the phrase "put the kettle on" to mean they're going to boil water to make tea. I'm pretty sure that "kettle" is a common abbreviation of "teakettle", and in many cases now probably refers to an electric one. Apparently, a pretty high-drain electric one...

And to bob: OK, you could install a whole-house meter, or you could just make notes using your current (electric company supplied) one. It doesn't wirelessly relay data, or do moving averages, or convert to cents-per-minute or whatever, but I don't think those things are worth shelling out a hundred bucks or more. What intrigues me about the subject bit of kit is that it centralizes a broken-out analysis of a number of different big-ticket items. I'm still not sure I would pay several hundred (or thousand?) dollars for it, but it's a fine idea -- and a big improvement over the thing you linked to.

[ethana2 @ Apr 18th 2007 4:00PM]

This should be software. I have wanted for a long time one single power converter in my house that uses USB 3.0 to negotiate DC voltages with all outlets. I was going to try to use my PC. I still want to integrate my PC with my house. Don't put computers in everything, people. Make everything a peripheral. Only then can it scale flawlessly.

Seriously: one day you want to monitor power, the next you want to control things from a central point (that's running something SECURE, like, not closed source.) The only way to do that without having to rewire your house every time is to either make it a peripheral for your PC and use software, or think of everything. And you can never really and surely think of everything.

And yes, I have asked intel for a scalable x band x pin x frequency USB protocol- like a PCIe card would negotiate like this: I have two connections: 128 pins and 2 pins, I can go to 2 GHz bus frequency, and I need 1 volt. A wireless device could be like: I can do a 4-way fragmented connection with one "pin" on 4.001,4.002,4.003, and 4.004 GHz.

A good idea. Just implement it correctly. I don't want to find ANYTHING that I can't do with this system. And like I say, the only way to do that is to use general purpose software and hardware.

If anyone wants to help me get in touch with someone that could help me get this going properly, please email me: [e-mail]

[TTX1 @ Apr 18th 2007 7:45PM]

I'm amazed no one has commented on the Ambient Devices Energy Joule from Consumer PowerLine:

http://www.consumerpowerline.com/homejoule/

[some person @ Apr 18th 2007 11:11PM]

Why is the UK doing that? It's the US that's uses the most energy.