Please take a few minutes - right now - to read Greenpa's post about the murderous impact of food market speculation on the world's poor and needy, and follow it up with an action.
I'm going to write to my member of parliament.
Saturday, 19 April 2008
"Greenwashing" concern re Solahart promotion
I just sent the following email to Solahart's Australian headquarters:
Hello,
Let me preface this by saying that I'm a very satisfied Solahart customer, having replaced my electric system just over six months ago and not wasted a single watt-hour of electricity on water heating ever since. However I was not so impressed with your company's recent marketing initiative involving a bumper sticker which reads, "My Solahart helps offset my car's CO2 emissions."
It surprised and disappointed me to have such a misleading environmental line come from a company which does an enormous amount of good through the promotion of renewable energy technology. Quite simply, that bumper sticker statement is false and potentially harmful.
The statement is false because solar water heaters do not remove CO2 from the atmosphere, directly or indirectly, and therefore cannot be counted as an "offset" against the burning of fossil fuels in a car engine. Instead, solar water heaters simply avoid the need to burn fossil fuels in power stations or in gas heaters. There is absolutely no relationship between solar hot water and vehicle emissions.
If the community truly believed the bumper sticker then they would feel less compelled to reduce their transport-related emissions in the false belief that they were somehow "offset" to some degree by their solar water heater.
Though it may have been an honest mistake or oversight, this promotion has the appearance of "greenwashing". At the very least, please cease the distribution of this bumper sticker immediately. I would also ask that you either send a follow-up retraction letter to all those who have already been sent a sticker (such as myself), or that you post such a retraction in a prominent place on your website or in another suitable public forum.
I would be more than happy to discuss these matters with you further - please feel free to reply via email or contact me on [phone number removed].
Sincerely,
Terry Brady
Bald Hills, Qld, Australia
http://2050vision.blogspot.com
Stats Update - now including tank water
Here are the latest stats for our electricity and town water consumption over the past 25 days, plus some new information on our tank water use.
Electricity consumption has increased again.
This period: 8kWh per day, or 333W continuous
Previous 21 days: 6.84 and 285
Average since start of year: 7.62 and 317.
Town water use is also up. I think it's largely my fault... love the hot showers in cooler weather. 189L/day vs 130 in the previous 21 days and 164 average since the start of the year.
I may have mentioned when I was planning my tank installation that I considered getting a water meter to measure how much water we pumped from the tanks. Well I didn't do that, but I did fit a water level gauge which shows the height of the water in increments of 10cm. I also bought a rain gauge at the start of February and started keeping records of daily rainfall, and I noted on which date my tank was last filled completely. I've observed that 1mm of rainfall causes a rise of 20mm in the tanks and I've calculated that 100mm of water in the tanks is very close to 800L.
Armed with all this information and the current gauge reading, I can estimate how much water we've used and when it's likely to run out. In the 21 days since last full the tank level has dropped from 110cm (full) to 70cm. Rainfall of 11mm has added about 22cm to the tanks, so we have extracted about 62cm in total. That works out to about 4960L, or 236L/day. At that rate we have enough water to last another 24 days without further rain and a full tank would give us 37 days supply in a dry spell.
What's startling here is the overall amount of water we're using... 189+236=425L/day. It's quite a bit more than before we had the pump installed but we aren't using any significant amount of water outside. That means we're using more inside.
The laundry has to be the main culprit. Once we had the washing machine hooked up to the tanks we started using cloth nappies for our infant instead of the evil but water-efficient disposables. So every day or two we now go through a big bucket of tank water for soaking and then an extra load of washing. Combine this with my slackening frugality in the shower and you would probably account for most of the roughly 100L/day increase compared with figures from six months ago.
Electricity consumption has increased again.
This period: 8kWh per day, or 333W continuous
Previous 21 days: 6.84 and 285
Average since start of year: 7.62 and 317.
Town water use is also up. I think it's largely my fault... love the hot showers in cooler weather. 189L/day vs 130 in the previous 21 days and 164 average since the start of the year.
I may have mentioned when I was planning my tank installation that I considered getting a water meter to measure how much water we pumped from the tanks. Well I didn't do that, but I did fit a water level gauge which shows the height of the water in increments of 10cm. I also bought a rain gauge at the start of February and started keeping records of daily rainfall, and I noted on which date my tank was last filled completely. I've observed that 1mm of rainfall causes a rise of 20mm in the tanks and I've calculated that 100mm of water in the tanks is very close to 800L.
Armed with all this information and the current gauge reading, I can estimate how much water we've used and when it's likely to run out. In the 21 days since last full the tank level has dropped from 110cm (full) to 70cm. Rainfall of 11mm has added about 22cm to the tanks, so we have extracted about 62cm in total. That works out to about 4960L, or 236L/day. At that rate we have enough water to last another 24 days without further rain and a full tank would give us 37 days supply in a dry spell.
What's startling here is the overall amount of water we're using... 189+236=425L/day. It's quite a bit more than before we had the pump installed but we aren't using any significant amount of water outside. That means we're using more inside.
The laundry has to be the main culprit. Once we had the washing machine hooked up to the tanks we started using cloth nappies for our infant instead of the evil but water-efficient disposables. So every day or two we now go through a big bucket of tank water for soaking and then an extra load of washing. Combine this with my slackening frugality in the shower and you would probably account for most of the roughly 100L/day increase compared with figures from six months ago.
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Solar Tariff Tiff
There's a lot of noise being made at the moment about "feed-in tariffs", or bonus money paid to folks like me for energy that my new solar panels will feed in to the electricity grid. The debate centres around how to measure and price that energy. Here's my take.
There are two main kinds of benefit that large-scale distributed PV electric generation can potentially deliver to the community as a whole: environmental and financial.
The long-term environmental vision, which I'm sure most people would agree is the right idea, is for future society to be powered with cheap, clean, renewable energy instead of being dependent on the burning of coal or the fission of uranium which - even if the technology can be made "clean" - will both eventually run out. An essential feature of this vision is that we must become far more efficient in our use of the energy that is available.
And while it's obvious to most people that harvesting sunlight is sustainable and much cleaner than digging up and burning coal, not everybody is aware that having solar energy generation located nice and close to all our air conditioners is a great way to minimise infrastructure costs associated with peak demand and long-distance power transmission on hot afternoons.
A good feed-in tariff scheme for solar electricity would help to realise both kinds of benefit.
The Queensland Government appears to be following the South Australian lead in proposing a model under which I would only be paid a bonus for producing energy that was not simultaneously consumed within my own home. Just to be clear, that's excess energy which I produce but somebody else gets to use. This is broadly referred to as a "net tariff" scheme.
A number of groups, including the Local Power group through which I've ordered my panels, the Alternative Technology Association, Queensland Conservation, the Queensland Consumers Association and reportedly even BP (who make panels) are expressing disappointment in this and arguing instead for a "gross tariff" scheme whereby I would be paid a premium rate for all the energy produced by my panels regardless of how much energy I consume within my own home, or when. This is reportedly the model implemented in Germany, a world leader in terms of solar electricity generation capacity.
The motivation of the "gross tariff" advocates is fairly simple to understand.
Firstly, most of them genuinely want to see our society move as quickly as possible from fossil-fuel dependency to clean, renewable energy sources - which of course I agree with. Secondly, there's the financial self-interest: panel buyers want faster payback on their "investment" and higher long-term profitability while manufacturers like BP want to sell more panels. And thirdly we have an environmental loopback effect where making panels more financially attractive encourages greater adoption which takes us one step closer to having a clean, renewable energy infrastructure.
However, despite being both an "environmentalist" and a purchaser of solar panels, I don't agree that a gross tariff scheme is an obviously right choice for Queensland as a whole community.
In order to deliver on the environmental potential, the installation of solar panels must succeed in reducing the overall demand for energy from non-renewable sources. And in order to reduce costs associated with the grid infrastructure itelf, that energy must be delivered at times of peak demand. As I see it, the gross tariff schemes being proposed would actually erode both of those benefits from the inside, because it reduces the incentive for the owners of the panels to minimise their own energy consumption. Taken to the extreme, it provides an avenue for wealthy high energy users (and especially those addicted to their air conditioning) to cheaply maintain or even increase their energy consumption. I have actually had conversations with somebody who sees that kind of thing as an opportunity.
(Related post: Does energy efficiency encourage greater consumption?)
In contrast, the net tariff scheme put forward by the state is designed to reward those who find ways to minimise their consumption (delivering the environmental benefit), especially during those hot, sunny times when their panels are producing the most power (delivering the peak load infrastructure cost benefit).
Australian taxpayers are already contributing $8,000 towards my panels through a federal scheme to stimulate growth in the PV industry. Why should my fellow Queenslanders pay me even more in a subsidy which I could squander by simply using more energy and defeating the purpose of all that investment in the first place?
---
Speaking of the bigger picture, I believe that the actual core problem here is that current retail energy prices are much, much lower than the true cost of the energy. Government subsidies to the coal industry, myopic belief in unlimited growth and a very bad habit of completely ignoring "externalities" have made it so. Gross tariff proposals make a certain amount of sense in that they come closer to recognising the complete value of the energy, but the proper objectives of such a scheme would be continually undermined by the disincentive to reduce consumption.
Maybe as a kind of middle-ground policy it would make sense for panel owners to be paid a modest flat rate for their gross production on the proviso that they sourced at least the same quantity of energy (or 100% of their consumption, whichever is lower) from GreenPower-accredited providers. That would help to direct funding into renewable energy projects. Mind you, panel owners could achieve almost exactly the same thing by simply not selling their RECs at the time of installation. (See my earlier post on that topic.)
Perhaps surprisingly, I'm leaning towards opposing "time-of-day" metering for retail electricity consumption at this point. The idea behind it is to charge consumers more for energy consumed during peak periods. Sounds sensible enough, but apart from smoothing the load on the distribution grid it actually favours the coal generators and erodes the benefit of having a substantial PV capacity. However if it could be shown that time-of-day metering reduced overall energy consumption and especially consumption of fossil fuels then it might be worth doing.
But the "elephant in the room" (to borrow a phrase I once heard used by Andrew McNamara) which apparently nobody is talking about is that over the lifetime of any new solar panel installation the retail price of energy is likely to go up dramatically. You can thank climate change, carbon trading, peak oil and population growth for that. Even without any kind of tariffs, that rise should significantly shorten the effective payback time for a PV installation through avoided energy costs in the future.
There are two main kinds of benefit that large-scale distributed PV electric generation can potentially deliver to the community as a whole: environmental and financial.
The long-term environmental vision, which I'm sure most people would agree is the right idea, is for future society to be powered with cheap, clean, renewable energy instead of being dependent on the burning of coal or the fission of uranium which - even if the technology can be made "clean" - will both eventually run out. An essential feature of this vision is that we must become far more efficient in our use of the energy that is available.
And while it's obvious to most people that harvesting sunlight is sustainable and much cleaner than digging up and burning coal, not everybody is aware that having solar energy generation located nice and close to all our air conditioners is a great way to minimise infrastructure costs associated with peak demand and long-distance power transmission on hot afternoons.
A good feed-in tariff scheme for solar electricity would help to realise both kinds of benefit.
The Queensland Government appears to be following the South Australian lead in proposing a model under which I would only be paid a bonus for producing energy that was not simultaneously consumed within my own home. Just to be clear, that's excess energy which I produce but somebody else gets to use. This is broadly referred to as a "net tariff" scheme.
A number of groups, including the Local Power group through which I've ordered my panels, the Alternative Technology Association, Queensland Conservation, the Queensland Consumers Association and reportedly even BP (who make panels) are expressing disappointment in this and arguing instead for a "gross tariff" scheme whereby I would be paid a premium rate for all the energy produced by my panels regardless of how much energy I consume within my own home, or when. This is reportedly the model implemented in Germany, a world leader in terms of solar electricity generation capacity.
The motivation of the "gross tariff" advocates is fairly simple to understand.
Firstly, most of them genuinely want to see our society move as quickly as possible from fossil-fuel dependency to clean, renewable energy sources - which of course I agree with. Secondly, there's the financial self-interest: panel buyers want faster payback on their "investment" and higher long-term profitability while manufacturers like BP want to sell more panels. And thirdly we have an environmental loopback effect where making panels more financially attractive encourages greater adoption which takes us one step closer to having a clean, renewable energy infrastructure.
However, despite being both an "environmentalist" and a purchaser of solar panels, I don't agree that a gross tariff scheme is an obviously right choice for Queensland as a whole community.
In order to deliver on the environmental potential, the installation of solar panels must succeed in reducing the overall demand for energy from non-renewable sources. And in order to reduce costs associated with the grid infrastructure itelf, that energy must be delivered at times of peak demand. As I see it, the gross tariff schemes being proposed would actually erode both of those benefits from the inside, because it reduces the incentive for the owners of the panels to minimise their own energy consumption. Taken to the extreme, it provides an avenue for wealthy high energy users (and especially those addicted to their air conditioning) to cheaply maintain or even increase their energy consumption. I have actually had conversations with somebody who sees that kind of thing as an opportunity.
(Related post: Does energy efficiency encourage greater consumption?)
In contrast, the net tariff scheme put forward by the state is designed to reward those who find ways to minimise their consumption (delivering the environmental benefit), especially during those hot, sunny times when their panels are producing the most power (delivering the peak load infrastructure cost benefit).
Australian taxpayers are already contributing $8,000 towards my panels through a federal scheme to stimulate growth in the PV industry. Why should my fellow Queenslanders pay me even more in a subsidy which I could squander by simply using more energy and defeating the purpose of all that investment in the first place?
---
Speaking of the bigger picture, I believe that the actual core problem here is that current retail energy prices are much, much lower than the true cost of the energy. Government subsidies to the coal industry, myopic belief in unlimited growth and a very bad habit of completely ignoring "externalities" have made it so. Gross tariff proposals make a certain amount of sense in that they come closer to recognising the complete value of the energy, but the proper objectives of such a scheme would be continually undermined by the disincentive to reduce consumption.
Maybe as a kind of middle-ground policy it would make sense for panel owners to be paid a modest flat rate for their gross production on the proviso that they sourced at least the same quantity of energy (or 100% of their consumption, whichever is lower) from GreenPower-accredited providers. That would help to direct funding into renewable energy projects. Mind you, panel owners could achieve almost exactly the same thing by simply not selling their RECs at the time of installation. (See my earlier post on that topic.)
Perhaps surprisingly, I'm leaning towards opposing "time-of-day" metering for retail electricity consumption at this point. The idea behind it is to charge consumers more for energy consumed during peak periods. Sounds sensible enough, but apart from smoothing the load on the distribution grid it actually favours the coal generators and erodes the benefit of having a substantial PV capacity. However if it could be shown that time-of-day metering reduced overall energy consumption and especially consumption of fossil fuels then it might be worth doing.
But the "elephant in the room" (to borrow a phrase I once heard used by Andrew McNamara) which apparently nobody is talking about is that over the lifetime of any new solar panel installation the retail price of energy is likely to go up dramatically. You can thank climate change, carbon trading, peak oil and population growth for that. Even without any kind of tariffs, that rise should significantly shorten the effective payback time for a PV installation through avoided energy costs in the future.
Thursday, 13 March 2008
Discuss: growing food in cities, and using the internet to learn how
During the course of my work this week I had reason to visit a school in north-eastern New South Wales. That region has a reputation for attracting and fostering people with "alternative" views and values, particularly in regard to environmental protection and sustainable living. So it was that one of the teachers, knowing beforehand that I publish this blog, introduced me to a student who has a keen interest in permaculture and who is also active in a group centred around the Transition Towns concept (see link in my "highly recommended" sidebar).
Now, not that this blog has a huge world-wide audience or anything, I would like to give that student the opportunity to remain anonymous but at the same time see if I can't get a bit of discussion going here around a couple of the ideas that have come to mind as a result of our meeting.
I put that TT link over there ages ago and haven't looked at their site in months. I think they're clearly world leaders, forging a path to the future. What I'm not so sure about is how to make that path into a highway wide enough to take the cities along with the towns. I should revisit their site and see if there's been any progress on that subject.
One of the obvious things (to me) is that people in cities will need to grow food for themselves and their immediate community. More than that, they'll need to do so sustainably, recycling nutrients in efficient closed loops and doing it all with an absolute minimum of external energy inputs. In other words we need permaculture cities. Unfortunately the vast majority of city dwellers know nothing about growing anything.
Take me as an example: I have a borrowed copy of the 2nd edition of "Introduction to Permaculture" and recently bought the Digger's Club's "Australian Fruit & Vegetable Garden". I've been experimenting in the back yard for the past year or so, but so far have very little to show (or eat) as a result.
So, you thus-far anonymous student, if you're looking for school project ideas that combine IT with permaculture, you might consider starting an online library of training/instructional podcasts or other resources to help city folk like me with no horticultural knowledge transform our backyards and balconies into productive, sustainable food gardens. Seriously - was there ever a period in history prior to the present day where an entire generation of a civilisation had no idea how to grow their own food? We need that knowledge back again, and the internet provides a platform unlike anything else in human history for the distribution of knowledge.
The internet might well be our best defence against falling into another dark age as oil production falls. We stand to lose a great deal of our personal mobility. It just won't be feasible for people like me to travel hundreds of kilometers in a single day just to provide some brief specialist service. But if we can maintain and build on our communications infrastructure and the library of publicly-accessible knowledge then the physical isolation won't necessarily be a barrier to skills and ideas.
What I would like to do now is to invite you all to hit the comments and have a bit of a discussion about those two ideas and their intersection. Will city people need to grow their own food in the future? Can the internet be used effectively to deliver training in the essential garden skills and design principles? If you're a city person, what kind of online resources do you think would help you? If you're a gardening guru, how could you best capture and share what you have learned?
Now, not that this blog has a huge world-wide audience or anything, I would like to give that student the opportunity to remain anonymous but at the same time see if I can't get a bit of discussion going here around a couple of the ideas that have come to mind as a result of our meeting.
I put that TT link over there ages ago and haven't looked at their site in months. I think they're clearly world leaders, forging a path to the future. What I'm not so sure about is how to make that path into a highway wide enough to take the cities along with the towns. I should revisit their site and see if there's been any progress on that subject.
One of the obvious things (to me) is that people in cities will need to grow food for themselves and their immediate community. More than that, they'll need to do so sustainably, recycling nutrients in efficient closed loops and doing it all with an absolute minimum of external energy inputs. In other words we need permaculture cities. Unfortunately the vast majority of city dwellers know nothing about growing anything.
Take me as an example: I have a borrowed copy of the 2nd edition of "Introduction to Permaculture" and recently bought the Digger's Club's "Australian Fruit & Vegetable Garden". I've been experimenting in the back yard for the past year or so, but so far have very little to show (or eat) as a result.
So, you thus-far anonymous student, if you're looking for school project ideas that combine IT with permaculture, you might consider starting an online library of training/instructional podcasts or other resources to help city folk like me with no horticultural knowledge transform our backyards and balconies into productive, sustainable food gardens. Seriously - was there ever a period in history prior to the present day where an entire generation of a civilisation had no idea how to grow their own food? We need that knowledge back again, and the internet provides a platform unlike anything else in human history for the distribution of knowledge.
The internet might well be our best defence against falling into another dark age as oil production falls. We stand to lose a great deal of our personal mobility. It just won't be feasible for people like me to travel hundreds of kilometers in a single day just to provide some brief specialist service. But if we can maintain and build on our communications infrastructure and the library of publicly-accessible knowledge then the physical isolation won't necessarily be a barrier to skills and ideas.
What I would like to do now is to invite you all to hit the comments and have a bit of a discussion about those two ideas and their intersection. Will city people need to grow their own food in the future? Can the internet be used effectively to deliver training in the essential garden skills and design principles? If you're a city person, what kind of online resources do you think would help you? If you're a gardening guru, how could you best capture and share what you have learned?
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Tuesday, 11 March 2008
Queenslanders receive cash incentive to tackle climate change
Update 13/4: Most of what I wrote in this post still makes sense, except that the actual model proposed by the government is slightly different to what I though it was. See today's post for more detail.
---
Great headline, huh? I can't claim credit for it - somebody in the Premier's Office came up with that one to catch the media's attention for today's press release about feed-in tariffs for private solar electricity generation. (Thanks to Ian for pointing that one out to me.)
Like most government statements there's enough spin there to make you dizzy just looking at it. The goods news is that behind the bluster is some really good policy. And a catch, of course.
The announcement lauds the Queensland government's decision to "pay households and business 44 cents for every kilowatt-hour generated from solar power systems at work and at home and fed into the grid." At first glance it sounds like every panel on every roof suddenly becomes a great money-spinner. However you need to read carefully into the definition of "fed into the grid." In the context of the rest of the release it becomes clear that the 44c rate applies only to any additional energy produced by the panels in excess of the energy consumed by the household or business. Your panels have to make more energy than you use before the government (or utilities) spend a cent.
You'd know by now that I'm quite proud of my home's energy efficiency. Our bill just arrived confirming our consumption for the quarter at 7.8kWh per day. (By comparison, Australian government figures I found via Google seem to suggest that the average Aussie household uses around 18, and some friends of ours just got hit with a bill for something in the vicinity of 50kWh per day.) To produce enough energy to meet all of my own needs in a year, I would need to install a 2kW (peak output) array which is estimated to produce almost exactly 8kWh per day on average. Even with the discount negotiated by the Local Power buying group and the federal govt's eight grand rebate I'd be looking at an investment of around $11,000 just to get my quarterly bill down to zero!
If I wanted to actually get some of the 44c/kWh action I'd need to install an even larger 3kW array - an additional investment of 7 thousand for a yearly return of around $650. Premier Bligh's offer doesn't sound quite so generous now, does it?
So I need to explain why I said at the top of this that it's "really good policy". Thankfully the explanation is simple: this policy promotes interest and investment in renewable energy infrastructure, but more importantly it provides a strong incentive to increase efficiency and reduce demand in order to get household or business consumption down below the capacity of smaller PV systems which are presently affordable thanks to the federal government's $8K rebate scheme. For myself, I'll be taking the 4kWh per day threshold as a personal challenge.
Though I may have to wait until the kids leave home before that becomes feasible. Good thing the feed-in tariff legislation announced today is guaranteed for 20 years.
---
Great headline, huh? I can't claim credit for it - somebody in the Premier's Office came up with that one to catch the media's attention for today's press release about feed-in tariffs for private solar electricity generation. (Thanks to Ian for pointing that one out to me.)
Like most government statements there's enough spin there to make you dizzy just looking at it. The goods news is that behind the bluster is some really good policy. And a catch, of course.
The announcement lauds the Queensland government's decision to "pay households and business 44 cents for every kilowatt-hour generated from solar power systems at work and at home and fed into the grid." At first glance it sounds like every panel on every roof suddenly becomes a great money-spinner. However you need to read carefully into the definition of "fed into the grid." In the context of the rest of the release it becomes clear that the 44c rate applies only to any additional energy produced by the panels in excess of the energy consumed by the household or business. Your panels have to make more energy than you use before the government (or utilities) spend a cent.
You'd know by now that I'm quite proud of my home's energy efficiency. Our bill just arrived confirming our consumption for the quarter at 7.8kWh per day. (By comparison, Australian government figures I found via Google seem to suggest that the average Aussie household uses around 18, and some friends of ours just got hit with a bill for something in the vicinity of 50kWh per day.) To produce enough energy to meet all of my own needs in a year, I would need to install a 2kW (peak output) array which is estimated to produce almost exactly 8kWh per day on average. Even with the discount negotiated by the Local Power buying group and the federal govt's eight grand rebate I'd be looking at an investment of around $11,000 just to get my quarterly bill down to zero!
If I wanted to actually get some of the 44c/kWh action I'd need to install an even larger 3kW array - an additional investment of 7 thousand for a yearly return of around $650. Premier Bligh's offer doesn't sound quite so generous now, does it?
So I need to explain why I said at the top of this that it's "really good policy". Thankfully the explanation is simple: this policy promotes interest and investment in renewable energy infrastructure, but more importantly it provides a strong incentive to increase efficiency and reduce demand in order to get household or business consumption down below the capacity of smaller PV systems which are presently affordable thanks to the federal government's $8K rebate scheme. For myself, I'll be taking the 4kWh per day threshold as a personal challenge.
Though I may have to wait until the kids leave home before that becomes feasible. Good thing the feed-in tariff legislation announced today is guaranteed for 20 years.
Sunday, 9 March 2008
Can't have your solar power cake and eat it too
Let me first give kudos to the people behind Local Power, a community-based buying group which is helping to bring a chunk of new solar electricity generation online. I applaud their initiative, commitment and professionalism. More than that, though, I've paid them a deposit to have a 1kW photovoltaic array installed on my own roof.
Curiously, following on the heels of the high levels of public interest in what this group has done, the Queensland government has announced that it will offer a similar kind of service in order to facilitate the installation of a thousand PV systems on roofs in the "sunshine state" at a reduced price. Note they're not actually providing funds for the gear - just the administrative service that's required to coordinate a bulk purchase and therefore a cheaper per-unit price.
I'll leave my thoughts about the significance and value of PV in the grand scheme of things for another post. For this one I want to focus on a tricky little aspect which green-minded solar panel buyers will need to be aware of. (The particulars are likely to vary in different situations but what I'm writing here is what I understand will apply to me. I'll edit and/or post again if I need to.)
Both the Local Power and Qld government schemes are for "grid-connected" solar photovoltaic electricity generating systems. The systems include an inverter which takes the low-voltage DC power from the panels and transforms it into 240V AC power that gets fed into the electricity grid. There's a dedicated meter which measures how much power your system has supplied to the grid, separate from the one you already have which measures how much power you consume in the running of your home.
Hypothetically, let's say that in some future 3 month period my home consumes 675kWh of energy and my panels supply 360kWh to the grid. As I understand it, when I get my electric utility bill I will see the readings for both meters. Normally Tariff 1 costs about 15.5c per kWh so without the panels I'd be charged about $105 for my energy. But with the panels producing power I get recognition for their contribution with a simple deduction from my Tariff 11 consumption. The nett use would be 315kWh at around $49.
Woohoo! My investment in panels has not only saved me money, but reduced my dependence on fossil fuels by 360kWh this quarter! I can sure feel proud of myself now, having invested in environmental protection and sustainability.
But wait a moment. I might be badly mistaken about my green energy credentials.
You see, most of the time when a PV system like this gets installed, the buyer signs a little bit of paper in return for an extra discount on the up-front cost. The amount of the discount varies but as an example the system I've ordered might be discounted by somewhere between $315 and $819. Neat, huh? How nice of the government to give me a bit of an extra bonus for investing in clean energy.
Listen up: this is not a bonus. This is not free money. The form that you are offered to sign is one which transfers your right to claim the "cleanness" of the energy your panels will produce over their lifetime to another party. You are paid market price for your Renewable Energy Certificates, or "RECs" as they are known. One REC is equivalent to one megawatt-hour (MWh) of renewable power. These RECs represent the legal right of the holder to claim that the power they used (or sold to somebody else) was clean. And if you signed that paper, you don't have them any more.
So in the case of my hypothetical electricity bill, though I do enjoy a financial benefit, every one of the 675kWh of energy that I consumed must have been supplied to the grid by coal-fired power stations! If I wanted to have a clear conscience about my energy use I'd still have to opt in for 675kWh of 100% certified GreenPower. In effect I would have to pay a bit extra each quarter to buy a portion of my own original RECs back again.
I hope that's not too confusing. Just to repeat: by selling my RECs when the system was installed, I gave up the right to claim the cleanliness of the energy my system produces. Though I get a financial benefit for the energy produced by the system over time, I would still have to opt in to GreenPower schemes for the entire amount of my personal energy consumption if I want to eliminate my dependence on dirty power generators.
It's worth pointing out that you're in no way obliged to sell your RECs. You can either hold on to them with a view to eventually selling them (during which time you would have to pay the GreenPower surcharge since you're intending to give up your right to the cleanliness of your panels' energy sometime in the future) or your can ignore the whole scheme entirely and just consider all of that clean energy to be yours for as long as you're using the panels. Whatever you do, there's a bit of a gamble and speculation involved and most of us don't have the time nor skill to track and trade these things to our financial benefit.
So if you do sign up for one of these systems - which I would generally applaud even though I think PV is only a tiny part of the overall solution to our energy and climate crisis - please be aware of the significance of the RECs scheme and what it means to sell those certificates. Otherwise you might end up being more dependent on fossil fuels than you hoped you would be, without even realising it.
Curiously, following on the heels of the high levels of public interest in what this group has done, the Queensland government has announced that it will offer a similar kind of service in order to facilitate the installation of a thousand PV systems on roofs in the "sunshine state" at a reduced price. Note they're not actually providing funds for the gear - just the administrative service that's required to coordinate a bulk purchase and therefore a cheaper per-unit price.
I'll leave my thoughts about the significance and value of PV in the grand scheme of things for another post. For this one I want to focus on a tricky little aspect which green-minded solar panel buyers will need to be aware of. (The particulars are likely to vary in different situations but what I'm writing here is what I understand will apply to me. I'll edit and/or post again if I need to.)
Both the Local Power and Qld government schemes are for "grid-connected" solar photovoltaic electricity generating systems. The systems include an inverter which takes the low-voltage DC power from the panels and transforms it into 240V AC power that gets fed into the electricity grid. There's a dedicated meter which measures how much power your system has supplied to the grid, separate from the one you already have which measures how much power you consume in the running of your home.
Hypothetically, let's say that in some future 3 month period my home consumes 675kWh of energy and my panels supply 360kWh to the grid. As I understand it, when I get my electric utility bill I will see the readings for both meters. Normally Tariff 1 costs about 15.5c per kWh so without the panels I'd be charged about $105 for my energy. But with the panels producing power I get recognition for their contribution with a simple deduction from my Tariff 11 consumption. The nett use would be 315kWh at around $49.
Woohoo! My investment in panels has not only saved me money, but reduced my dependence on fossil fuels by 360kWh this quarter! I can sure feel proud of myself now, having invested in environmental protection and sustainability.
But wait a moment. I might be badly mistaken about my green energy credentials.
You see, most of the time when a PV system like this gets installed, the buyer signs a little bit of paper in return for an extra discount on the up-front cost. The amount of the discount varies but as an example the system I've ordered might be discounted by somewhere between $315 and $819. Neat, huh? How nice of the government to give me a bit of an extra bonus for investing in clean energy.
Listen up: this is not a bonus. This is not free money. The form that you are offered to sign is one which transfers your right to claim the "cleanness" of the energy your panels will produce over their lifetime to another party. You are paid market price for your Renewable Energy Certificates, or "RECs" as they are known. One REC is equivalent to one megawatt-hour (MWh) of renewable power. These RECs represent the legal right of the holder to claim that the power they used (or sold to somebody else) was clean. And if you signed that paper, you don't have them any more.
So in the case of my hypothetical electricity bill, though I do enjoy a financial benefit, every one of the 675kWh of energy that I consumed must have been supplied to the grid by coal-fired power stations! If I wanted to have a clear conscience about my energy use I'd still have to opt in for 675kWh of 100% certified GreenPower. In effect I would have to pay a bit extra each quarter to buy a portion of my own original RECs back again.
I hope that's not too confusing. Just to repeat: by selling my RECs when the system was installed, I gave up the right to claim the cleanliness of the energy my system produces. Though I get a financial benefit for the energy produced by the system over time, I would still have to opt in to GreenPower schemes for the entire amount of my personal energy consumption if I want to eliminate my dependence on dirty power generators.
It's worth pointing out that you're in no way obliged to sell your RECs. You can either hold on to them with a view to eventually selling them (during which time you would have to pay the GreenPower surcharge since you're intending to give up your right to the cleanliness of your panels' energy sometime in the future) or your can ignore the whole scheme entirely and just consider all of that clean energy to be yours for as long as you're using the panels. Whatever you do, there's a bit of a gamble and speculation involved and most of us don't have the time nor skill to track and trade these things to our financial benefit.
So if you do sign up for one of these systems - which I would generally applaud even though I think PV is only a tiny part of the overall solution to our energy and climate crisis - please be aware of the significance of the RECs scheme and what it means to sell those certificates. Otherwise you might end up being more dependent on fossil fuels than you hoped you would be, without even realising it.
Stats Update
For the two weeks to 4th March:
Electricity averaging 7.51kWh per day (313W continuous)
Water averaging 188L per day
Averages for the quarter since Dec 28 are 7.72kWh (322 continuous) and 165L.
Electricity averaging 7.51kWh per day (313W continuous)
Water averaging 188L per day
Averages for the quarter since Dec 28 are 7.72kWh (322 continuous) and 165L.
Starting again, though not from scratch
It was about a year ago that I first became seriously concerned about the environment and the sustainability of human civilisation. For about six months my energy and activity built up, then they plateaued and eventually waned over summer. Now here we are approaching the March equinox and I think things are on the up again. I'm totally out of phase. Maybe I should live in the northern hemisphere.
In the latter part of last year I came into a bit of extra money. It was enough to offer lots of interesting possibilities, but not so much that I didn't have to think carefully about what I'd do with it. I kept a chunk of it in reserve in case the appalling mosquito plague of the previous summer repeated itself, in which case I'd have invested in a gizmo to help make going outdoors a less hazardous proposition. But thankfully summer was mild and the mozzies were less than awful and so the funds stayed in my bank account.
Over the same period though, my gardening and composting efforts pretty much stopped. I got the overflow from the south tank connected up to the street, and I ripped up four old sleepers and a previous owner's intricate irrigation system in preparation for a backyard renovation... but that was about it. The compost pile has had no turning or tending. And yesterday I found that my mulch heap has become home for cane toads and termites! That's going to be a challenge to sort out. But anyway...
Pragmatically speaking, living in a city and having a sporadically time-demanding job as I do, I can't guarantee regular time to devote to gardening during the week. So I need to be smart about the way I set things up and to make use of systems and solutions which don't require a lot of maintenance.
Realising this, I've finally given in and used my stash of cash to purchase a fancy compost bin to take over duty from the simple open-bottomed thin-walled mouse-eaten black plastic box I've been using up until now. I put it on a base of four large pavers sited nearer the back door so hopefully it'll be less inviting and accessible to the furry little bastards, and adding things to it in the evenings should be less of an, um, "adventure".
I have to say, though, that as I set about giving my new bin a good feed of starting materials I was rather impressed with the quality of the compost in the bottom of the old black bin. It was made from a huge pile of woody weeds, a large dose of hedge trimmings and half a dozen or so 4-litre buckets of already-putrefying kitchen scraps irregularly thrown in on top. After removing some of the sticks and stalks and chunks of onion, what I was left with pretty much fit the descriptions of good compost that you read in books: dark brown, spongy, slightly moist, little odour. About ten centimetres of that has gone in to the bottom of the new bin to hopefully give the thing a good kick-start.
And along with that I'm hoping to restart my gardening efforts. In the past year or so I've failed to grow heaps of things, but I've learned a fair bit along the way and am ready to have another go. In truth it's a little out of character for me to show that kind of long-term persistence. Sadly, though, the signs are increasingly suggesting that a backyard garden is going to be an invaluable asset in years to come.
In the latter part of last year I came into a bit of extra money. It was enough to offer lots of interesting possibilities, but not so much that I didn't have to think carefully about what I'd do with it. I kept a chunk of it in reserve in case the appalling mosquito plague of the previous summer repeated itself, in which case I'd have invested in a gizmo to help make going outdoors a less hazardous proposition. But thankfully summer was mild and the mozzies were less than awful and so the funds stayed in my bank account.
Over the same period though, my gardening and composting efforts pretty much stopped. I got the overflow from the south tank connected up to the street, and I ripped up four old sleepers and a previous owner's intricate irrigation system in preparation for a backyard renovation... but that was about it. The compost pile has had no turning or tending. And yesterday I found that my mulch heap has become home for cane toads and termites! That's going to be a challenge to sort out. But anyway...
Pragmatically speaking, living in a city and having a sporadically time-demanding job as I do, I can't guarantee regular time to devote to gardening during the week. So I need to be smart about the way I set things up and to make use of systems and solutions which don't require a lot of maintenance.
Realising this, I've finally given in and used my stash of cash to purchase a fancy compost bin to take over duty from the simple open-bottomed thin-walled mouse-eaten black plastic box I've been using up until now. I put it on a base of four large pavers sited nearer the back door so hopefully it'll be less inviting and accessible to the furry little bastards, and adding things to it in the evenings should be less of an, um, "adventure".
I have to say, though, that as I set about giving my new bin a good feed of starting materials I was rather impressed with the quality of the compost in the bottom of the old black bin. It was made from a huge pile of woody weeds, a large dose of hedge trimmings and half a dozen or so 4-litre buckets of already-putrefying kitchen scraps irregularly thrown in on top. After removing some of the sticks and stalks and chunks of onion, what I was left with pretty much fit the descriptions of good compost that you read in books: dark brown, spongy, slightly moist, little odour. About ten centimetres of that has gone in to the bottom of the new bin to hopefully give the thing a good kick-start.
And along with that I'm hoping to restart my gardening efforts. In the past year or so I've failed to grow heaps of things, but I've learned a fair bit along the way and am ready to have another go. In truth it's a little out of character for me to show that kind of long-term persistence. Sadly, though, the signs are increasingly suggesting that a backyard garden is going to be an invaluable asset in years to come.
Saturday, 23 February 2008
Does energy efficiency encourage greater consumption?
My initial encounter with the work of Amory Lovins was everything he intended it to be: persuasive, compelling and inspiring. After watching his lectures it just seemed obvious that we should all be taking energy efficiency to the extreme in order to save heaps of money - not to mention the planet.
Googling about for a bit more info and context, though, it wasn't long before I came across some Lovins hatin'. This piece is a prime example. (The one I linked to - not the one you're reading now!) I know very little about the author, Bryce, and would have to agree with him when it comes to what I believe is the false hope in biofuels, but I really took issue with the last part of his essay where he recalls the work of a long-dead Briton:
Jevons' postulate is based on at least two assumptions: that the available supply of energy will continue to grow over time, and that demand for the service that the energy provides is also unlimited. Think about the context of the early 1800's for a minute, as the industrial revolution was ramping up.
I'm no economist, but I have a notion that around that point in history the main constraint on economic growth was labour productivity - ie how much raw material could be processed by the human (and I guess animal) workforce. Then suddenly, with the invention of the steam engine, the amount of material which could be processed under the direction of one person dramatically increased. Instead of energy from food being applied through muscle, we had energy from wood, coal and other combustibles being applied through machinery.
I don't know exactly what happened, but it seems reasonable to think that the take-up of the new technology would have initially been constrained by high up-front costs, high ongoing costs in terms of fuel and maintenance and the need to train operators. You can also imagine that due to simple economies of scale - and the seemingly unlimited abundance of fossil fuels waiting to be dug out of the ground - both the up-front and ongoing costs would have trended downwards in reasonably quick time.
As that happened, the unit cost of production fell, making a whole range of goods affordable to people who never could have afforded them in the past. A vast reserve of energy converged with a vast reserve of market demand and the end result is the energy-squandering consumerist culture we have today. Any increase in energy efficiency during the time from then until now would simply have lowered production cost and therefore met with increased demand which in turn increased overall energy consumption.
But I suspect that era is rapidly coming to an end.
For starters, we are now seeing constraints on energy availability every way we turn. Even if it weren't for the fact that we've consumed such a large portion of the planet's fossil fuel stores, the greenhouse effect is imposing a major restriction on our use of what remains. Practical, environmental and security concerns get in the way of a rapid expansion of the nuclear power industry. What's left is a smattering of accessible geothermal resources and true renewables like wind, solar and wave energy. For these reasons, I think that energy availability may become the primary constraint on the economy. Increasing energy-efficiency then becomes a pre-requisite for economic growth... but overall energy consumption will be constrained on the supply side. So the first of Jevons' assumptions is no longer true.
The other assumption - that the market will respond to increases in efficiency by simply using more of the service - is more subtle. Let's have another look at what Bryce had to say:
Getting back to Amory Lovins, though, air conditioning is a great point on which to end this post. You see, Lovins doesn't just advocate ongoing marginal improvements to the efficiency of air conditioners and cars. His vision is to design buildings that don't need to use energy to keep them cool, making the air conditioner pretty much obsolete in the process; to make cars which are so light and efficient (while also being roomy, strong and safe) that they can reasonably be powered by solar-generated electricity or a few handfuls of biofuel.
While it's true that our energy supplies are tightening up, the work of guys like Lovins means that there's the opportunity for improving the quality of life by continually learning to do more with less.
Googling about for a bit more info and context, though, it wasn't long before I came across some Lovins hatin'. This piece is a prime example. (The one I linked to - not the one you're reading now!) I know very little about the author, Bryce, and would have to agree with him when it comes to what I believe is the false hope in biofuels, but I really took issue with the last part of his essay where he recalls the work of a long-dead Briton:
The final – and most important – area in which Lovins has been consistently wrong is his claim that efficiency lowers energy consumption. And when it comes to arguing the merits of energy efficiency, Lovins’s prime nemesis is a dead guy – William Stanley Jevons – a British economist who in 1865 determined that increased efficiency won’t cut energy use, it will raise it. “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” And in the 142 years since Jevons put forth that thesis, now commonly known as the Jevons Paradox, he’s yet to be proven wrong.It shocked and dismayed me at first. Now, after some consideration, I'm convinced that argument is fundamentally flawed when applied to the present day circumstances.
Jevons' postulate is based on at least two assumptions: that the available supply of energy will continue to grow over time, and that demand for the service that the energy provides is also unlimited. Think about the context of the early 1800's for a minute, as the industrial revolution was ramping up.
I'm no economist, but I have a notion that around that point in history the main constraint on economic growth was labour productivity - ie how much raw material could be processed by the human (and I guess animal) workforce. Then suddenly, with the invention of the steam engine, the amount of material which could be processed under the direction of one person dramatically increased. Instead of energy from food being applied through muscle, we had energy from wood, coal and other combustibles being applied through machinery.
I don't know exactly what happened, but it seems reasonable to think that the take-up of the new technology would have initially been constrained by high up-front costs, high ongoing costs in terms of fuel and maintenance and the need to train operators. You can also imagine that due to simple economies of scale - and the seemingly unlimited abundance of fossil fuels waiting to be dug out of the ground - both the up-front and ongoing costs would have trended downwards in reasonably quick time.
As that happened, the unit cost of production fell, making a whole range of goods affordable to people who never could have afforded them in the past. A vast reserve of energy converged with a vast reserve of market demand and the end result is the energy-squandering consumerist culture we have today. Any increase in energy efficiency during the time from then until now would simply have lowered production cost and therefore met with increased demand which in turn increased overall energy consumption.
But I suspect that era is rapidly coming to an end.
For starters, we are now seeing constraints on energy availability every way we turn. Even if it weren't for the fact that we've consumed such a large portion of the planet's fossil fuel stores, the greenhouse effect is imposing a major restriction on our use of what remains. Practical, environmental and security concerns get in the way of a rapid expansion of the nuclear power industry. What's left is a smattering of accessible geothermal resources and true renewables like wind, solar and wave energy. For these reasons, I think that energy availability may become the primary constraint on the economy. Increasing energy-efficiency then becomes a pre-requisite for economic growth... but overall energy consumption will be constrained on the supply side. So the first of Jevons' assumptions is no longer true.
The other assumption - that the market will respond to increases in efficiency by simply using more of the service - is more subtle. Let's have another look at what Bryce had to say:
While it’s true that improvements in energy efficiency on a microeconomic level – like replacing an old inefficient air conditioner with a newer high efficiency one – will cut consumption for that one location, when that same effort is spread over a macro scale the overall energy savings are usually swamped by overall increases in consumption. Thus the installation of more efficient air conditioners across an entire city or state, or country, allows people to use their air conditioners more and, since the cost of cooling suddenly becomes more affordable, more people install air conditioning.OK, that makes sense. It's probably reasonable to say that humanity will find some way to use all of the available energy and there will also be continuing demand for more. But with energy becoming less available, a balance is likely to be found.
Getting back to Amory Lovins, though, air conditioning is a great point on which to end this post. You see, Lovins doesn't just advocate ongoing marginal improvements to the efficiency of air conditioners and cars. His vision is to design buildings that don't need to use energy to keep them cool, making the air conditioner pretty much obsolete in the process; to make cars which are so light and efficient (while also being roomy, strong and safe) that they can reasonably be powered by solar-generated electricity or a few handfuls of biofuel.
While it's true that our energy supplies are tightening up, the work of guys like Lovins means that there's the opportunity for improving the quality of life by continually learning to do more with less.
Tuesday, 19 February 2008
Fad or Fundament?
Have you noticed that the world is changing fast? For once I'm not talking about the biosphere - it's human society and politics I mean. Words based on "environment" and "sustainable" are starting to pervade the mass media, turning up in just about every political message at all levels of government and peppered through corporate communications. Advertising budgets are increasingly being spent on pointing out the "green" attributes of some product or service.
It seems that environmental groups have succeeded in using the greenhouse effect as a kind of lever to shift the massive inertia of social consciousness and direct it towards the long-term liveability of this planet. And the result has not just been all talk.
There are some great local examples, starting with the response to the water shortage of recent years. Not only have the residents of south-east Queensland succeeded in reducing their average per-capita consumption to one of the lowest rates in the developed world, we've maintained that discipline even with the rain of the past two months more than doubling the amount of water in our dams. Moreover, the sentiment of the majority of people I've spoken to is in line with official policy which says that conservative water use has become a permanent feature of life in this region!
Continuing with the theme of sustainable water use, one of the two main candidates standing for election to the office of Lord Mayor of Brisbane in a few weeks time is making a very big deal of his policies for minimising water wastage from leaking pipes and increasing the rebates for people who connect rainwater tanks for internal use in the home.
On the other side of politics, the incumbent mayor is earning a rare cheer from me for the spirit behind his latest announcement of funding to assist residents equip their homes with instantaneous energy meters of the type I've written about here in the past. I'm not totally thrilled with that particular approach (I'd rather see a loan/rent scheme) but I am thrilled with the stated objective of reducing the city's electricity consumption.
Both candidates are straining to one-up each other when it comes to public transport. Brisbane isn't large enough to have any direct control over railways but the next few years appear certain to see a very large number of new natural-gas powered buses on the city's roads and an expansion of the CityCat ferry fleet. Mr Incumbent is also touting a spending spree on bicycle paths and facilities.
I offer these examples as evidence of a major and accelerating shift in the public awareness of and concern for sustainability. I've written in the past about my belief that changing values is what brings about changes in behaviour, and I'm starting to become hopeful that values are indeed shifting in the right direction. Heck, I've even listened to speeches from federal parliament this week exhorting the nation to embrace the aboriginal peoples' attitude towards "the land", seeing oneself as literally a part of the environment and being always mindful of the need to care for it.
The question is whether this "trend" will continue. Are we really witnessing the early stages of the transformation of our wasteful, destructive, economically and ecologically irrational society into a responsible, efficient, ecologically-integrated civilisation with advanced culture and traditional wisdom as well as high technology? Well I hope so... because that's what it's probably going to take to avoid catastrophe.
So here's a litmus test for us to monitor our progress as a nation. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) published a report in December 2007 which predicts that, on the basis of the policies and trends in effect at that time, Australia's energy use will grow by 1.6% per year through to 2030 (that's up about 44% compared to today) with around 92% of that energy being sourced from fossil fuels. Let me suggest that if these projections match our future reality, then we're in very big trouble. But...
If society is in fact changing, embracing values of sustainability, we will necessarily see our energy use grow by a smaller amount than predicted and possibly even declining by 2030. We must also see an major decrease in the proportion of our energy derived from fossil fuels. I'll be keep an eye out for future releases like this one from ABARE to see where we're headed.
In the meantime, we all need to support those politicians who are promoting reduced energy consumption, increased efficiency and a transition to renewable energy sources.
It seems that environmental groups have succeeded in using the greenhouse effect as a kind of lever to shift the massive inertia of social consciousness and direct it towards the long-term liveability of this planet. And the result has not just been all talk.
There are some great local examples, starting with the response to the water shortage of recent years. Not only have the residents of south-east Queensland succeeded in reducing their average per-capita consumption to one of the lowest rates in the developed world, we've maintained that discipline even with the rain of the past two months more than doubling the amount of water in our dams. Moreover, the sentiment of the majority of people I've spoken to is in line with official policy which says that conservative water use has become a permanent feature of life in this region!
Continuing with the theme of sustainable water use, one of the two main candidates standing for election to the office of Lord Mayor of Brisbane in a few weeks time is making a very big deal of his policies for minimising water wastage from leaking pipes and increasing the rebates for people who connect rainwater tanks for internal use in the home.
On the other side of politics, the incumbent mayor is earning a rare cheer from me for the spirit behind his latest announcement of funding to assist residents equip their homes with instantaneous energy meters of the type I've written about here in the past. I'm not totally thrilled with that particular approach (I'd rather see a loan/rent scheme) but I am thrilled with the stated objective of reducing the city's electricity consumption.
Both candidates are straining to one-up each other when it comes to public transport. Brisbane isn't large enough to have any direct control over railways but the next few years appear certain to see a very large number of new natural-gas powered buses on the city's roads and an expansion of the CityCat ferry fleet. Mr Incumbent is also touting a spending spree on bicycle paths and facilities.
I offer these examples as evidence of a major and accelerating shift in the public awareness of and concern for sustainability. I've written in the past about my belief that changing values is what brings about changes in behaviour, and I'm starting to become hopeful that values are indeed shifting in the right direction. Heck, I've even listened to speeches from federal parliament this week exhorting the nation to embrace the aboriginal peoples' attitude towards "the land", seeing oneself as literally a part of the environment and being always mindful of the need to care for it.
The question is whether this "trend" will continue. Are we really witnessing the early stages of the transformation of our wasteful, destructive, economically and ecologically irrational society into a responsible, efficient, ecologically-integrated civilisation with advanced culture and traditional wisdom as well as high technology? Well I hope so... because that's what it's probably going to take to avoid catastrophe.
So here's a litmus test for us to monitor our progress as a nation. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) published a report in December 2007 which predicts that, on the basis of the policies and trends in effect at that time, Australia's energy use will grow by 1.6% per year through to 2030 (that's up about 44% compared to today) with around 92% of that energy being sourced from fossil fuels. Let me suggest that if these projections match our future reality, then we're in very big trouble. But...
If society is in fact changing, embracing values of sustainability, we will necessarily see our energy use grow by a smaller amount than predicted and possibly even declining by 2030. We must also see an major decrease in the proportion of our energy derived from fossil fuels. I'll be keep an eye out for future releases like this one from ABARE to see where we're headed.
In the meantime, we all need to support those politicians who are promoting reduced energy consumption, increased efficiency and a transition to renewable energy sources.
Thursday, 7 February 2008
Wet wet wet
I bought a rain gauge a couple of months ago. Managed to resist the impulse to start making daily records. Well, up until a week ago, anyway.
The way our gutters are set up, we can capture the rainfall from about 160 square metres of roof. That means for every millimetre of rain in the gauge about 160L flows into the tanks.
Over the past five days we've had 90mm of rain. That's almost fifteen thousand litres!
Beyond just my own backyard, the whole region is breathing a little easier with significant flows into our water storage dams. From a low of around 17% late last year, storage has almost doubled to around one third of capacity.
The way our gutters are set up, we can capture the rainfall from about 160 square metres of roof. That means for every millimetre of rain in the gauge about 160L flows into the tanks.
Over the past five days we've had 90mm of rain. That's almost fifteen thousand litres!
Beyond just my own backyard, the whole region is breathing a little easier with significant flows into our water storage dams. From a low of around 17% late last year, storage has almost doubled to around one third of capacity.
Saturday, 26 January 2008
Stats Update
Average daily consumption for the past 29 days: 7.56kWh of electricity, 160L of town water.
Rainwater in storage: approx 6.4kL.
Per-day stats are one way to think about consumption of resources, but it's a bit of a mental leap to associate those numbers with our actual behaviour. I've started another column on my spreadsheet which puts the electricity use into a different perspective, converting it to an average continuous load.
Our 7.56kWh/day figure is equivalent to using 315W continuously - like having five of the old 60W incandescent light bulbs (or the common halogen downlights) burning day and night.
Rainwater in storage: approx 6.4kL.
Per-day stats are one way to think about consumption of resources, but it's a bit of a mental leap to associate those numbers with our actual behaviour. I've started another column on my spreadsheet which puts the electricity use into a different perspective, converting it to an average continuous load.
Our 7.56kWh/day figure is equivalent to using 315W continuously - like having five of the old 60W incandescent light bulbs (or the common halogen downlights) burning day and night.
Tuesday, 22 January 2008
Sustainable Cooking
I've been pondering the issue of energy for cooking - the various energy sources and the technology for using them in the kitchen. Got a few comments and a couple of conclusions to share.
First, burning gas. If we're talking about the fossil fuel kind of gas, I'm opposed to it on the basis that it's a non-renewable, polluting source of energy. Pragmatically speaking it may be an essential part of our transition to sustainability but in the long-term the use of "natural" gas in the kitchen has to stop. I should also mention that in absolute energy terms it's rather inefficient: lots of energy used to extract and transport it, then lots of heat wasted into the air without performing any useful work.
Second, burning wood (or other biomass). In some cases wood is probably the best choice, but I suspect that'll be a minority. Wood is renewable, of course. It's also somewhat polluting especially in areas with dense populations. It's inefficient in terms of being able to direct the heat energy into the cooking but in cold climates that becomes a benefit rather than a problem. Not a good choice for my home though.
Next, solar. Do a web search for "solar oven" and you'll find lots of innovation around the basic theme of using the sun's heat to cook food in an insulated vessel. Absolutely top marks for being clean and sustainable. Not so great for cloudy weather, though, and hard to control in terms of temperature and therefore cooking time. I could imagine this technology becoming more common in the future if other energy systems are struggling to deliver the needs of society... but probably not my own family eating sun-cooked roast veges this coming winter.
Finally, heat from electricity - it's a broad topic. You have to look at both how the electricity is produced and how it is used. The production part of the discussion is well-trodden ground... everybody knows coal is dirty and non-renewable while wind/solar/wave etc offer far cleaner and sustainable sources. No, the really interesting bit is in how the electricity is used.
Most of us have heard that using our microwave oven is a more energy-efficient cooking option than using the standard electric oven or hotplate. That makes sense at first glance. It's not as cut and dried as it sounds, though: consider the case of my own microwave oven.
It's rated at 900W cooking power, which means in theory that it can generate lots of heat directly inside the food instead of heating the materials and air surrounding the food. But if it's putting 900W into the food, why is it drawing 1400W from my AC socket? 500W of power - more than third of the total draw - is being wasted by the machine, lost as heat into my kitchen without touching the food. That's not really very impressive. I've no idea whether other microwave ovens on the market perform any better.
What I do know is that induction cooking is often touted as the safer, more efficient alternative to traditional electric hotplates or gas burners. The technology is vaguely similar to microwave cooking, but instead of using radio waves to transmit energy into the food it uses magnetic fields to transmit energy into the metallic cookware. Proponents like to point out the 85-90% efficiency of converting electrical energy into useful heat (ie heat in the cookware, in contact with the food). Sure beats the 65% that my microwave is capable of.
But I reckon there's an even better electrical cooking technology that's being overlooked. It's cheap, and simple, and already well established in the marketplace. It's your regular old electric frypan. An electric pan has an embedded element which converts 100% of the energy it consumes into heat in the cookware. A portion of that energy is lost as heat radiates away from the pan, but the same could be said of induction cooking technology.
With some simple design improvements - mostly focusing on insulation - highly efficient cooking vessels with embedded electrical heating elements could be the eco-friendly kitchen technology of choice in the future, powered of course using electricity from clean, renewable sources.
First, burning gas. If we're talking about the fossil fuel kind of gas, I'm opposed to it on the basis that it's a non-renewable, polluting source of energy. Pragmatically speaking it may be an essential part of our transition to sustainability but in the long-term the use of "natural" gas in the kitchen has to stop. I should also mention that in absolute energy terms it's rather inefficient: lots of energy used to extract and transport it, then lots of heat wasted into the air without performing any useful work.
Second, burning wood (or other biomass). In some cases wood is probably the best choice, but I suspect that'll be a minority. Wood is renewable, of course. It's also somewhat polluting especially in areas with dense populations. It's inefficient in terms of being able to direct the heat energy into the cooking but in cold climates that becomes a benefit rather than a problem. Not a good choice for my home though.
Next, solar. Do a web search for "solar oven" and you'll find lots of innovation around the basic theme of using the sun's heat to cook food in an insulated vessel. Absolutely top marks for being clean and sustainable. Not so great for cloudy weather, though, and hard to control in terms of temperature and therefore cooking time. I could imagine this technology becoming more common in the future if other energy systems are struggling to deliver the needs of society... but probably not my own family eating sun-cooked roast veges this coming winter.
Finally, heat from electricity - it's a broad topic. You have to look at both how the electricity is produced and how it is used. The production part of the discussion is well-trodden ground... everybody knows coal is dirty and non-renewable while wind/solar/wave etc offer far cleaner and sustainable sources. No, the really interesting bit is in how the electricity is used.
Most of us have heard that using our microwave oven is a more energy-efficient cooking option than using the standard electric oven or hotplate. That makes sense at first glance. It's not as cut and dried as it sounds, though: consider the case of my own microwave oven.
It's rated at 900W cooking power, which means in theory that it can generate lots of heat directly inside the food instead of heating the materials and air surrounding the food. But if it's putting 900W into the food, why is it drawing 1400W from my AC socket? 500W of power - more than third of the total draw - is being wasted by the machine, lost as heat into my kitchen without touching the food. That's not really very impressive. I've no idea whether other microwave ovens on the market perform any better.
What I do know is that induction cooking is often touted as the safer, more efficient alternative to traditional electric hotplates or gas burners. The technology is vaguely similar to microwave cooking, but instead of using radio waves to transmit energy into the food it uses magnetic fields to transmit energy into the metallic cookware. Proponents like to point out the 85-90% efficiency of converting electrical energy into useful heat (ie heat in the cookware, in contact with the food). Sure beats the 65% that my microwave is capable of.
But I reckon there's an even better electrical cooking technology that's being overlooked. It's cheap, and simple, and already well established in the marketplace. It's your regular old electric frypan. An electric pan has an embedded element which converts 100% of the energy it consumes into heat in the cookware. A portion of that energy is lost as heat radiates away from the pan, but the same could be said of induction cooking technology.
With some simple design improvements - mostly focusing on insulation - highly efficient cooking vessels with embedded electrical heating elements could be the eco-friendly kitchen technology of choice in the future, powered of course using electricity from clean, renewable sources.
Wednesday, 16 January 2008
High Tech, Low Power and Less Nasty
I have deliberately kept my work and my blog separate. The high tech company I work for has a very strict policy about the way employees represent it in public and it's a line I never want to cross.
Suffice for me to say, my employer has just released a new model of ultra-portable no-compromise laptop computer. It has a full-size screen and keyboard, runs the full version of our latest operating system, uses a fully modern Intel processor... and according to the published specs has an average power consumption of just 8W. Yes I have a tradition of liking this company's products but that little stat particularly impressed me.
It's also nice to see attention given to things like the materials choices (making use of aluminium for its recycling value, eliminating PVCs and BFRs etc) and packaging (smaller packaging increases transport efficiency, materials also selected for recycling).
And the best thing is that it's not just my employer who's doing this - lots of other companies are making actual improvements in their environmental impact. I wonder how far they can go with it by 2050.
Suffice for me to say, my employer has just released a new model of ultra-portable no-compromise laptop computer. It has a full-size screen and keyboard, runs the full version of our latest operating system, uses a fully modern Intel processor... and according to the published specs has an average power consumption of just 8W. Yes I have a tradition of liking this company's products but that little stat particularly impressed me.
It's also nice to see attention given to things like the materials choices (making use of aluminium for its recycling value, eliminating PVCs and BFRs etc) and packaging (smaller packaging increases transport efficiency, materials also selected for recycling).
And the best thing is that it's not just my employer who's doing this - lots of other companies are making actual improvements in their environmental impact. I wonder how far they can go with it by 2050.
Tuesday, 8 January 2008
Stats Update
Our mains water consumption for the past 11 days has averaged out to...
187L per day!
That's the total for the five of us, not per person. This is in line with the drop I saw in the last readings period after the tanks were connected to the laundry and toilet. Looks like sub-200 territory is here to stay, at least while there's water in the tanks.
With that qualification in mind, I'm going to start reporting our tank reserves along with these stats. With a specified minimum diameter of 2.2m and a current water height of 110cm in two tanks, we have approx 8.3kL in storage.
Looking at electricity, our hot water system narrowly avoided needing a boost late last week. I had a shower one evening in water that was merely "warm" but with a pause in the rain the next morning the temperature quickly went back up into "ouch" territory. Tariff 33 consumption remains at 0kWh.
Our general consumption is definitely up a bit from the previous trend though. The water pump would be contributing to that. We're using fans to keep ourselves cooler in the warm weather. And maybe we've slacked off a bit with turning things of and generally being frugal. For the past 11 days Tariff 11 usage has averaged 7.4kWh per day.
Just for comparison, here's a graph of our average daily usage per quarter (as per the electricity bill) for the past two years or so. The final column represents the current usage. Would love to get that blue bar down significantly but I'm not sure how I can do that without tossing out the fridge and not cooking food any more.
187L per day!
That's the total for the five of us, not per person. This is in line with the drop I saw in the last readings period after the tanks were connected to the laundry and toilet. Looks like sub-200 territory is here to stay, at least while there's water in the tanks.
With that qualification in mind, I'm going to start reporting our tank reserves along with these stats. With a specified minimum diameter of 2.2m and a current water height of 110cm in two tanks, we have approx 8.3kL in storage.
Looking at electricity, our hot water system narrowly avoided needing a boost late last week. I had a shower one evening in water that was merely "warm" but with a pause in the rain the next morning the temperature quickly went back up into "ouch" territory. Tariff 33 consumption remains at 0kWh.
Our general consumption is definitely up a bit from the previous trend though. The water pump would be contributing to that. We're using fans to keep ourselves cooler in the warm weather. And maybe we've slacked off a bit with turning things of and generally being frugal. For the past 11 days Tariff 11 usage has averaged 7.4kWh per day.
Just for comparison, here's a graph of our average daily usage per quarter (as per the electricity bill) for the past two years or so. The final column represents the current usage. Would love to get that blue bar down significantly but I'm not sure how I can do that without tossing out the fridge and not cooking food any more.
Pipes and Pumps, part 3
I've recently stumbled across the controversial figure of Amory Lovins, a high-profile American advocate of radical energy efficiency improvents through integrative design, improved technology and really obvious (once they're pointed out to you) common-sense actions. In March 2007 Lovins gave a series of five evening lectures at Stanford University and these are available for free download as podcasts through iTunes. I found these less than a week after my pump had been installed... and boy did I wish afterwards that those two events had occurred in the opposite order.
In the Tuesday night lecture on improving energy efficiency in industry, Lovins focused fairly heavily on pipes and pumps. Apparently a very large percentage of the electrical energy used by industry is consumed in the motors of pumps. The point is made that due to the compounding energy losses between electrical generation (usually in a coal-fired power station) and consumption in the motor, even a relatively small improvement in end-use efficiency will be multiplied back through the chain to deliver a far more significant drop in generating capacity requirements and associated pollution emissions etc.
In the pursuit of those end-use efficiency improvements, Lovins laid down a number of basic principles for designing energy-efficient pumping systems. I encourage you to watch the lectures for yourself, but my quick summary would have to include:
- If pipework looks neat, it's probably inefficient
- Short, fat, straight pipes are far more efficient than long, thin pipes with corners in them
- Engineers tend to optimise pipes and pumps separately focusing on up-front cost, when an overall cost reduction can be achieved by optimising them as a system for efficiency
- By optimising the efficiency of the system you can specify a much smaller pump which costs far less to buy, run and maintain
- It's usually best to design the pipework *first* and then lay out the equipment around them
That first point especially hit home. Have a look at the pictures in the previous post or two - I actually insisted that the installer do a "proper" job and fit two additional 90-degree bends in the pipe that takes water to the toilet instead of allowing it to curve smoothly (but untidily). I'm quite sure that if I'd watched this lecture beforehand I'd have spent some time carefully designing and specifying the pipes and pump which are going to be a fixture of our home for some years to come.
Oh well. On the bright side, check out the water use stats I'm about to publish in a separate post.
In the Tuesday night lecture on improving energy efficiency in industry, Lovins focused fairly heavily on pipes and pumps. Apparently a very large percentage of the electrical energy used by industry is consumed in the motors of pumps. The point is made that due to the compounding energy losses between electrical generation (usually in a coal-fired power station) and consumption in the motor, even a relatively small improvement in end-use efficiency will be multiplied back through the chain to deliver a far more significant drop in generating capacity requirements and associated pollution emissions etc.
In the pursuit of those end-use efficiency improvements, Lovins laid down a number of basic principles for designing energy-efficient pumping systems. I encourage you to watch the lectures for yourself, but my quick summary would have to include:
- If pipework looks neat, it's probably inefficient
- Short, fat, straight pipes are far more efficient than long, thin pipes with corners in them
- Engineers tend to optimise pipes and pumps separately focusing on up-front cost, when an overall cost reduction can be achieved by optimising them as a system for efficiency
- By optimising the efficiency of the system you can specify a much smaller pump which costs far less to buy, run and maintain
- It's usually best to design the pipework *first* and then lay out the equipment around them
That first point especially hit home. Have a look at the pictures in the previous post or two - I actually insisted that the installer do a "proper" job and fit two additional 90-degree bends in the pipe that takes water to the toilet instead of allowing it to curve smoothly (but untidily). I'm quite sure that if I'd watched this lecture beforehand I'd have spent some time carefully designing and specifying the pipes and pump which are going to be a fixture of our home for some years to come.
Oh well. On the bright side, check out the water use stats I'm about to publish in a separate post.
Saturday, 29 December 2007
Pipes and Pumps, part 2
The good news is that in terms of reducing our use of town water, this project is definitely meeting its objectives! We've done piles of washing and started flushing the loo again with wild abandon. I even hosed off the concrete along the back of the house after doing some top-dressing of the lawn. With the weather we've been having lately (lots of showers) we've been unable to get the water level more than about 1200L below capacity, and as of this morning the tanks were full again. Makes me wish there was some way to use that water for bathing as well.
However... all this water abundance has come at the cost of increased electrical consumption. Of course I knew that some electricity would be necessary to power the pump, but I've discovered two ways in which our setup is far from optimal.
First, the pressure switch. That blue gizmo on top of the pump which monitors the pressure and decides whether the pump needs to be running or not. Courtesy of my power meter I have discovered that the cost of monitoring the pressure is apparently about 15W continuous power consumption, or the equivalent of one rather bright CF bulb shining 24x7. In most homes that would be considered negligible, but in my home that's slightly more than a 5% increase in our average daily energy use.
The obvious solution to problems of that sort is simply to switch off the device when it's not needed. And sure, the pump needs an appropriate switched outlet to plug it into. But that would only solve part of the problem.
Three out of the four taps fed by the pump are used in such a way that it makes sense to switch on the pump before use and switch it off again afterwards - doing a load of washing, filling the tub or a bucket, using the hose and so on. The toilet, though, is a different matter.
With a toilet you need the water to flow into the cistern after your, um, "activity" is completed, and then only for a relatively short time. Can you imagine being required to flush, wash hands, walk to the laundry, flick the switch on, wait 30 seconds then flick the switch off again? Can you imagine teaching young children to do that? No, a simple switch is not going to suffice here.
The next most obvious suggestion is to install a second switch in the toilet, wired up in a 2-way configuration like many light fixtures are - such that flicking either switch up or down will change the on/off status of the light, or pump in this case. It would alleviate the walking part of the problem, but you'd still be left with the waiting.
What I'm hoping to do is a variation on that idea using a logical "OR" operation and a time delay switch. This switch is normally in the "off" state. When you push it in, power is allowed to flow but only for a minute or so until the spring-loaded mechanism returns to its initial position. So you push one button on the cistern to flush the toilet and then another button on the wall to refill the cistern, then you walk away (to wash your hands, of course). Either the laundry switch OR the toilet time delay switch can be independently activated to provide power to the pump as required.
Actually both of those switches will feed into the exterior switched socket that the pump is plugged into, so the correct logical expression is: (laundry OR toilet switch turned on) AND (external switch turned on) -> (a powered pump).
I foolishly bought all three switches today without first asking about the prices. Total cost $106. Could have saved twenty bucks if I hadn't asked for the laundry switch to have one of those little red lights in it to show when it's turned on. But anyway...
At current prices of 21.455 cents per kWh (15.455c regulated tariff 11 plus 6c GreenSwitch renewable energy premium) I'm going to have to have the pump switched OFF for about 33 thousand hours - nearly four years! - to recover the cost of the switches alone. But then I'm still predicting that energy costs will rise rapidly over time, and hopefully these switches will be in use for a long time after they've paid back their cost.
The moral of the story is to carefully check the electrical requirements of the equipment you're installing in a bid to save water. Thus endeth part 2. Next time I'll look at the other, far more important aspect of the energy efficiency equation when it comes to pumping water around: the pipes.
(Got any ideas about how to design a really efficient tank/pump system for home? Please share in the comments.)
However... all this water abundance has come at the cost of increased electrical consumption. Of course I knew that some electricity would be necessary to power the pump, but I've discovered two ways in which our setup is far from optimal.
First, the pressure switch. That blue gizmo on top of the pump which monitors the pressure and decides whether the pump needs to be running or not. Courtesy of my power meter I have discovered that the cost of monitoring the pressure is apparently about 15W continuous power consumption, or the equivalent of one rather bright CF bulb shining 24x7. In most homes that would be considered negligible, but in my home that's slightly more than a 5% increase in our average daily energy use.
The obvious solution to problems of that sort is simply to switch off the device when it's not needed. And sure, the pump needs an appropriate switched outlet to plug it into. But that would only solve part of the problem.
Three out of the four taps fed by the pump are used in such a way that it makes sense to switch on the pump before use and switch it off again afterwards - doing a load of washing, filling the tub or a bucket, using the hose and so on. The toilet, though, is a different matter.
With a toilet you need the water to flow into the cistern after your, um, "activity" is completed, and then only for a relatively short time. Can you imagine being required to flush, wash hands, walk to the laundry, flick the switch on, wait 30 seconds then flick the switch off again? Can you imagine teaching young children to do that? No, a simple switch is not going to suffice here.
The next most obvious suggestion is to install a second switch in the toilet, wired up in a 2-way configuration like many light fixtures are - such that flicking either switch up or down will change the on/off status of the light, or pump in this case. It would alleviate the walking part of the problem, but you'd still be left with the waiting.
What I'm hoping to do is a variation on that idea using a logical "OR" operation and a time delay switch. This switch is normally in the "off" state. When you push it in, power is allowed to flow but only for a minute or so until the spring-loaded mechanism returns to its initial position. So you push one button on the cistern to flush the toilet and then another button on the wall to refill the cistern, then you walk away (to wash your hands, of course). Either the laundry switch OR the toilet time delay switch can be independently activated to provide power to the pump as required.
Actually both of those switches will feed into the exterior switched socket that the pump is plugged into, so the correct logical expression is: (laundry OR toilet switch turned on) AND (external switch turned on) -> (a powered pump).
I foolishly bought all three switches today without first asking about the prices. Total cost $106. Could have saved twenty bucks if I hadn't asked for the laundry switch to have one of those little red lights in it to show when it's turned on. But anyway...
At current prices of 21.455 cents per kWh (15.455c regulated tariff 11 plus 6c GreenSwitch renewable energy premium) I'm going to have to have the pump switched OFF for about 33 thousand hours - nearly four years! - to recover the cost of the switches alone. But then I'm still predicting that energy costs will rise rapidly over time, and hopefully these switches will be in use for a long time after they've paid back their cost.
The moral of the story is to carefully check the electrical requirements of the equipment you're installing in a bid to save water. Thus endeth part 2. Next time I'll look at the other, far more important aspect of the energy efficiency equation when it comes to pumping water around: the pipes.
(Got any ideas about how to design a really efficient tank/pump system for home? Please share in the comments.)
Pipes and Pumps, part 1
Can you think of a more boring-sounding subject? There wouldn't be too many, but if you care about energy and water efficiency then there are some very important things to know about pipes and pumps. As with many lessons in life, I learned these things shortly after the precise moment when it would have been most helpful to know them.
The context is, of course, that having installed tanks to capture the rain that falls on my roof I needed some way to get that water into my laundry and toilet in order to reduce my consumption of externally-supplied water. In this time and place carrying water in buckets is not an acceptable solution. Pipes, valves and a pump would be required. In this post I'll show you the solution we installed.
As I've mentioned more than once, our two tanks are situated one at each end of our house and are connected by a 25mm plastic pipe at ground level. That pipe has two functions: it allows the water level to rise evenly in both tanks regardless of how much water flows through their respective downpipes, and because it runs straight past the laundry it allows water to be drawn evenly from both tanks through a T piece inserted at the appropriate point. So far so good.
Knowing my limits, I paid a professional to supply and install the rest of the solution. We had a brief discussion about my requirements, agreed to use a pump at the low end of the price/performance curve and arranged to install four taps: one on the outside laundry wall adjacent to the pump, two just inside the laundry for the tub and the washing machine and the fourth a few meters along and through the wall for the toilet.
Stop! Camera time. In this first image you can see the inlet (low foreground) going into the pump body (red). On top of the pump is the electric pressure switch (blue) which turns on the pump whenever the outlet pressure drops below a preset level. The water flows upwards through the pressure switch and out the top.
Here you can see the new pipework (black) going up the wall to the new tap (left) and still further up then through the wall into the laundry.
Next, a shot inside the laundry with the double tap arrangement for the tub and washing machine.
Finally, our modified toilet. My original plan was to have a second tap in the toilet just as we have in the laundry so that we can connect the cistern to the appropriate one as required. The bloke we hired to do the installation explained that council regulations wouldn't allow it - something about making it too difficult for the elderly or the disabled to ensure reliable toilet operation - and so we now have a permanent dual-float configuration where we merely need to turn on the appropriate tap. The tap (and float) on the left control the existing mains water supply while the parts on the right take water from the pump.
Now I shall be the first to admit that, overall, this isn't a "pretty" job - because that really wasn't a goal. The pump gets hidden under a plastic cover that's about the same colour as the concrete, the laundry is destined for eventual renovations anyway and the whole lot is down the back side of the house where nobody goes looking for aesthetic satisfaction.
So that's what it looks like. In the next post I'll go into how well it works.
The context is, of course, that having installed tanks to capture the rain that falls on my roof I needed some way to get that water into my laundry and toilet in order to reduce my consumption of externally-supplied water. In this time and place carrying water in buckets is not an acceptable solution. Pipes, valves and a pump would be required. In this post I'll show you the solution we installed.
As I've mentioned more than once, our two tanks are situated one at each end of our house and are connected by a 25mm plastic pipe at ground level. That pipe has two functions: it allows the water level to rise evenly in both tanks regardless of how much water flows through their respective downpipes, and because it runs straight past the laundry it allows water to be drawn evenly from both tanks through a T piece inserted at the appropriate point. So far so good.
Knowing my limits, I paid a professional to supply and install the rest of the solution. We had a brief discussion about my requirements, agreed to use a pump at the low end of the price/performance curve and arranged to install four taps: one on the outside laundry wall adjacent to the pump, two just inside the laundry for the tub and the washing machine and the fourth a few meters along and through the wall for the toilet.
Stop! Camera time. In this first image you can see the inlet (low foreground) going into the pump body (red). On top of the pump is the electric pressure switch (blue) which turns on the pump whenever the outlet pressure drops below a preset level. The water flows upwards through the pressure switch and out the top.
Here you can see the new pipework (black) going up the wall to the new tap (left) and still further up then through the wall into the laundry.
Next, a shot inside the laundry with the double tap arrangement for the tub and washing machine.
Finally, our modified toilet. My original plan was to have a second tap in the toilet just as we have in the laundry so that we can connect the cistern to the appropriate one as required. The bloke we hired to do the installation explained that council regulations wouldn't allow it - something about making it too difficult for the elderly or the disabled to ensure reliable toilet operation - and so we now have a permanent dual-float configuration where we merely need to turn on the appropriate tap. The tap (and float) on the left control the existing mains water supply while the parts on the right take water from the pump.
Now I shall be the first to admit that, overall, this isn't a "pretty" job - because that really wasn't a goal. The pump gets hidden under a plastic cover that's about the same colour as the concrete, the laundry is destined for eventual renovations anyway and the whole lot is down the back side of the house where nobody goes looking for aesthetic satisfaction.
So that's what it looks like. In the next post I'll go into how well it works.
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