Energy Rethinking - use less save more

Can you find your way around your house in the dead of night by following the glowing lights of chargers, modems, telephone answering machines and home entertainment centres on standby? If you can, you’re not alone. Our addiction to our gadgets and appliances may be a bigger factor than you imagine in keeping the UK from meeting its 2020 carbon reduction targets.

The Rise of the Machines

Five years ago, the Energy Saving Trust (EST) published The rise of the machines a report on the impact of home electrical goods on energy use and carbon emissions. It was gloomy reading. That summer of 2006, the study found, among many other things, that:

• The number of household appliances and gadgets we owned had trebled since the 1970s
• Though appliances had been growing about 2% more efficient every year, flat screen televisions used four times as much electricity as smaller, conventional sets.

The report predicted that home electricity use was likely to increase by a further 12% by 2010.

The Elephant in the Living Room

Now, five years on, the EST has revisited its original study to compare current realities with those earlier predictions and to project ahead to 2020 to see where we are heading.

So, was the news good or bad? A bit of both actually – not as bad as it might have been; not as good as it should be.

Technology and consumer demand for greener goods – possibly chivvied along by the rising cost of energy – and new European regulations, seem to be pushing energy consumption of some major energy eaters – lighting and household appliances – downward. Electricity demand from lighting could fall by 25% by 2020. And energy use for traditional appliances – washing machines, cookers and refrigerators – is expected to fall by 9.2%. In fact, if you are still using a refrigerator you bought 15 years ago, it’s time to replace it. It uses about 50% more electricity than models available today.

But while most energy reducing attention – including the government’s Green Deal proposals, making their way through Parliament now – has been aimed at energy efficient home improvements such as insulation, and alternative approaches to heating, the real elephant in the living room is our penchant for consumer electronics.

The report, entitled appropriately, The elephant in the living room predicts that consumer electronics – television, set-top boxes, radios, DVD and Blu-ray players and so on will increase their energy demands by 5% by 2020 while energy for home computing, information and communications technology will rise by about 7%.

In the UK about 29% of carbon emissions come from home energy use. The EST report concludes that while our energy use and carbon emissions figures in 2020 will not be as bad as predicted five years ago, we are still likely to miss UK carbon reduction targets by up to 7 million tonnes.

Download your own copy of The elephant in the living room from the EST website.