UK using less energy despite growing economy

[3rdRock]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30518649

Increased wealth typically leads to increased energy use - but this link appears to have been broken by technology and government policy.

New analysis of government statistics for BBC News shows that the average person in the UK is using 10% less electricity than five years ago.

That is despite the boom in large TVs, computers, smartphones and tablets.

EU standards on household appliances have allowed people to do the same tasks with less energy.

[adam2]

Good news, though the reduction is limited.
Despite all the hatred of energy saving measures, they are starting to make a dent in consumption. Many domestic appliances are now more efficient than in years gone by, especially refrigeration, laundry and lighting equipment.
Some progress is also being made with very small but long hour loads such as cellphone chargers, heating pumps and extract fans.

I suspect that some of the saving is in fact the substitution of un metered energy sources such as fire wood and off grid renewables.

The article could have been better written, note the reference to "high voltage" vacuum cleaners ! I think that a little education re the difference between volts and watts is called for.
And why illustrate it with a picture of American style electricity meters, and screw base CFLs ?

[emordnilap]

Tell the people without jobs, on short hours, on reduced wages, on slashed or no benefits, people maybe living on the street, that they're living 'more efficient' lifestyles.

This is government propaganda through the government mouthpiece. There've been several articles like this recently, like the unemployment rate dropping. That's easily massaged - Cameron crowing about 'jobs created'? 39 out of 40 are part-time.

[another_exlurker]

Tell the people without jobs, on short hours, on reduced wages, on slashed or no benefits, people maybe living on the street, that they're living 'more efficient' lifestyles.

This is government propaganda through the government mouthpiece. There've been several articles like this recently, like the unemployment rate dropping. That's easily massaged - Cameron crowing about 'jobs created'? 39 out of 40 are part-time.

Exactly, but that particular part of the reduction will never be mentioned.

However, I have been seeing more solar PV installations going up this year.

[clv101]

Interesting that folk managed to reduce electricity use 10% over 5 years - without really trying!

Seems odd that we should spend £24bn over 10 years to build Hinkley C, supplying 7% of electricity demand. Maybe it would be cheaper and faster just to use a little bit less?

[biffvernon]

10% over 5 years (during a major recession) is hardly spectacular. Remember the 1010 campaign?

[kenneal - lagger]

...The article could have been better written, note the reference to "high voltage" vacuum cleaners ! I think that a little education re the difference between volts and watts is called for.
And why illustrate it with a picture of American style electricity meters, and screw base CFLs ?

Because they're only journalists and their limited education taught them sweet F A about anything technical.

[frayne]

Why not give them benefit of the doubt. Maybe their sources were reliable.

[BritDownUnder]

I am not sure they mean just domestic electricity use or all electricity use. If it is all use including industrial which I think could be a great percentage of total it could indicate a continuing erosion of the UK industrial base in favour of things such as banking, insurance and more service sector industries which could use less power. Or indeed unemployed people staying at home watching their more efficient flat screen televisions.

If, on the other hand, domestic use per capita is down then this is more encouraging. Perhaps insulation and other energy efficiency schemes along with rooftop solar beginning to have an effect. They certainly are here in Australia.

[RenewableCandy]

Cool lightbulbs.

[Pepperman]

10% over 5 years (during a major recession) is hardly spectacular. Remember the 1010 campaign?

Appliance churn is slow (10 to 15 years on average) so reductions in domestic electricity demand tend to move at a relatively slow pace. Now all new cold and wet appliances put on to the market have to be A+ or better which is good news which will keep pushing average electricity demand down. I'd like to see them continue to tighten the minimum requirements though because there's quite a difference between A+ and A+++.

Lighting moves much quicker though and quite a chunk of this reduction will have come from the phase out of incandescent GLS bulbs (which are more or less gone now). The government needs to bite the bullet and phase out halogens which will lead to another substantial reduction.

Consumer electronics and computing experience a medium churn rate. TVs now have minimum energy standards but this is being offset by the trend towards bigger screens. The move to mobile computing in the last few years must be another big contributor to falling consumption. The desktop market has imploded and laptops are struggling against tablets and phones which is also good news.

So the electricity demand trend is encouraging and will continue but it could be accelerated considerably (not to mention forcing manufacturers to fit dynamic demand functionality). The gas demand trend is nothing short of eye popping though - a bigger than 25% reduction in average gas demand in 10 years is very good. Unfortunately the gas trend is going to slow considerably because it's getting harder to insulate the remaining properties.

[Tarrel]

10% over 5 years (during a major recession) is hardly spectacular. Remember the 1010 campaign?

Appliance churn is slow (10 to 15 years on average) so reductions in domestic electricity demand tend to move at a relatively slow pace. Now all new cold and wet appliances put on to the market have to be A+ or better which is good news which will keep pushing average electricity demand down. I'd like to see them continue to tighten the minimum requirements though because there's quite a difference between A+ and A+++.

Lighting moves much quicker though and quite a chunk of this reduction will have come from the phase out of incandescent GLS bulbs (which are more or less gone now). The government needs to bite the bullet and phase out halogens which will lead to another substantial reduction.

Consumer electronics and computing experience a medium churn rate. TVs now have minimum energy standards but this is being offset by the trend towards bigger screens. The move to mobile computing in the last few years must be another big contributor to falling consumption. The desktop market has imploded and laptops are struggling against tablets and phones which is also good news.

So the electricity demand trend is encouraging and will continue but it could be accelerated considerably (not to mention forcing manufacturers to fit dynamic demand functionality). The gas demand trend is nothing short of eye popping though - a bigger than 25% reduction in average gas demand in 10 years is very good. Unfortunately the gas trend is going to slow considerably because it's getting harder to insulate the remaining properties.

Interesting about the gas reduction. I wonder where this is coming from? Is it mainly improved insulation, or could it be the phasing out of older, inefficient boilers?

When we lived down south we took advantage of the boiler scrappage scheme a few years back and had a new condensing boiler fitted to replace the old Potterton floor standing one that was installed when the house was built in 1970. We saw an immediate reduction of 30% on our gas bill.

[Pepperman]

There has been a lot of loft and cavity insulation activity over the past decade which will have accounted for a fair chunk of it. The boiler scrappage scheme was relatively small (in the order of tens of thousands I think) compared with the usual churn of >1m per year through attrition but boiler replacement certainly plays a significant part.

There's a fair amount of head scratching going on concerning the reasons for such a rapid drop, only some of which can be accounted for by physical measures. To my mind it's pretty clear: behavioural measures are being adopted wholesale due to high energy prices and depressed incomes. People who aren't able to afford to insulate their homes are turning their heating down.

[adam2]

Remember that the gas demand includes gas used for electricity generation, not just domestic gas.
Therefore the reduced electricity demand tends to mean less gas demand also.
The increasing amount of power from wind is also reducing gas burn in power plants.

[Pepperman]

There's data for natural gas used by homes for heating and cooking too:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... lysis-2014

It's based on meter point data so is pretty good quality and DECC has done some interesting analysis.