House 1 - Review Of The 2006 Electricity Survey Results

2008 Survey	2006 Survey	2004 Survey
2008 Survey Notes	2006 Survey Notes

A number of points come across very clearly from this survey.

1. There is still a large potential saving just by switching things off, it will be interesting to see the real savings from these items.

2. Compared to the 2004 survey there is less scope for saving indicating how much progress there has been since 2004.

3. A number of less obvious items have potential for savings - i.e. bell transformer, cooker, telephone chargers and microwave.

4. Most of the savings identified in 2004 have been implemented.

Another thing that has become clear over the last two years is that apart from a bit more discipline there has been almost no change in our lifestyle despite all the changes. It is also starting to become clear that the payback times assumed for the various investments were in the main a bit pessimistic.

Since 2004 there have been a few major changes to electricity consuming devices - we have gained our first ever dishwasher, replaced several computers and purchased a new microwave.

The failure rate of low energy light bulbs has been lower than expected - around 80-90% of the rated life on average as opposed to the 70% allowed for originally when calculating payback times .

Once the savings identified in this survey have been implemented it will be necessary to look at more creative ideas to save significantly more. As a first step in this direction I have been experimenting using invertors supplied from car batteries charged on cheap rate electricity. More details of this can be found on the projects pages.