Knowledge is Power...
It’s the information age and we have a seemingly unquenchable thirst for the stuff. Whereas in the past we used machines and electrical products with little desire to find out how efficient they were, today we have the ability and the need to have much greater access to such information. I was recently at the launch of a new MCB which can deliver a vast array of analytical information to the user. Can we expect to see more products with this sort of capability as the cost of energy increases?
Energy and performance monitoring is nothing new, but the number of products with built-in reporting is growing and their size is decreasing which may suggest that the technology is at a point where it can move easily from industrial/large commercial applications to smaller settings. I know a fair few people (my dad being one) who would take great pleasure in being able sit at their computer and, via a wireless connection, detail the electricity consumed from a particular socket in the house and plot it on a graph showing daily and monthly trends. And rather than the hit and miss process of isolating a fault, be able to spot the dodgy kettle in one mouse click.
Campaigns such as ‘Stamp out Standby’ have been criticised for having little impact on manufacturers but I believe their message has slowly seeped into the public consciousness, making people think about energy consumption on an individual appliance basis rather than a monthly bill that is either higher or lower than expected. And again, the very high profile marketing of low energy light bulbs has made the public more aware of what they’re consuming.
The key phrase for energy monitoring is the old management adage “you cannot manage what you cannot measure.” So, as people become more aware of their electricity use and pressure increases to be frugal, the ability to get information directly from the products they are using will be of great benefit. Maybe it will take some time before the technology becomes cheap enough to be incorporated into more everyday products. But I expect as more buildings adopt the ‘Smart Home’ philosophy that home owners and office managers will soon be able to glean increasing amounts of information from their air conditioning systems, lighting and consumer units.
In other news, following on from my comments a couple of weeks ago about wind turbines and their impact on the countryside, it would appear that bats are the latest casualties. According to scientists, the blades cause a sudden drop in air pressure which bats’ small, fragile bodies cannot handle causing them to drop dead.
Hopefully some inventive individual can come up with a way of using the bats’ acute senses to scare them away from the structures. Maybe scarecrows dressed to look like The Penguin?
Enjoy the newsletter,
Richard Scott
Editor
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