Good on the Energy Saving Trust in persuading some enlightened retailers – Best Buy UK, Comet, Co-operative Electrical, Currys, PC World, John Lewis, Argos, Marks & Spencer, and Sainsbury’s – to stop selling the most energy wasting TV’s. (It didn’t stop John Lewis plugging the worst Plasma TVs last weekend though). With TV sales increasing and “look how big my screen is” having become the new macho status symbol, it’s about time something was done to edit out the most energy hungry appliances. It’s hard to imagine that all other retailers will immediately follow their lead, but let’s hope. As sust-it, has proved, when energy usage is measured by the £’s used, buying energy efficient products starts to make sense.

Retailers can have a huge role to play, in not only influencing consumers to buy energy efficient products, but also in their discussions with manufacturers to develop the most energy efficient appliances. Sust-it can provide retailers with information on which makes and models of TV’s and other electricals top the league tables in terms of energy usage. Striving to become top, and the most energy efficient, is something manufacturers can aim for, and can help their ‘green’ credentials.

The first thing that comes to mind when we hear the words ‘micro–generation’ is wind turbines and PV panels – not now – as Baxi introduce the Ecogen which is the first, commercially available micro-CHP (Combined Heat and Power) unit for the home.

The transmission of electricity over the grid wastes around 10/12% of power, so local generation can make a real impact in energy production. Yes, you’re still producing electricity through burning fossil fuels, just more efficiently.

The appliance’s Free Piston Stirling Engine (FPSE) generates up to 1kWh of electricity whilst providing abundant supplies of space heating and hot water for the home. The unit responds to an initial heat demand of up to 6kW by igniting the engine gas burner. The heat causes the gas inside the FPSE to expand, moving a piston up and down between a copper coil. As a result, electricity is generated in a similar way to an alternator in a car.

Field trials in over 400 UK homes have shown units can reliably satisfy up to two thirds of a typical household’s electrical requirements. For all electricity generated, the householder will receive 10p/kWh, using the recently announced Government Feed-In Tariffs (FIT) scheme, effective from April 2010. Any unused electricity can be exported back to the grid for which the householder will receive a further 3p/kWh.

Will it work when you have a power cut? Sorry, no! Safety regulations will prevent this.

Combined Heat and Power unit for the home

Energy minister Joan Ruddock has revealed that the Energy Saving Trust spent £272,000 + VAT over the past 12 months on Google adwords – this is a form of advertising where organisations pay for their webpages to appear at the top and alongside certain web searches. The minister also admitted that DECC, the Department for Energy and Climate Change have spent over £424,997.50 including VAT on other online advertising campaigns.

It could be seen that paying to be top of Google is a key part of any communications campaign for the Energy Saving Trust, when they are informing the public about free insulation or the boiler scrapage programme, however, why are they paying to be top when a keyword search of the ‘Energy Saving Trust’ already places it there? So they appear top for FREE anyway, and same goes for the Carbon Trust and Act on CO2. Click on this top sponsored link (which most people do) and you’ll be contributing to Google’s profits and UK deficit. We even spotted the Carbon Trust and the Energy Saving Trust trying to outbid themselves for certain keywords in 2009!

At sust-it we spend a great deal of time trying to rank high within Google’s natural searches (unpaid for page rankings within search engines) as this is our lifeblood. Paying to be top is out of the question with our limited resources!

The top headings are sponsored links which are displayed when keywords (selected by advertisers) are typed into Google

It’s great news that the government has announced details of the UK’s Feed-in tariffs (FiTs) for small scale low carbon energy production. Sust-it’s wind-turbines are whizzing away as I write, but so far it hasn’t been financially worth trying to sell any of the power they generate back to the grid.

While a step in the right direction, and a better system than the “first come first served” grant basis, we should be cautious before making costly investments. Looking at ways to save energy, by the buying the most energy efficient products, as listed on sust-it, and making sure our homes and offices are well insulated, can help reduce our demand for energy. Wind turbines are inefficient in some settings and will not re-coup the energy used in their production, and the noise factor cannot be ignored! Photovoltaic (PV) panels, whilst more expensive initially, look set to reap a higher tariff, have less maintenance issues, and in most cases, less visual impact.

For businesses, offering tax incentives for installing microgeneration technologies could make them more viable.

Sust-it\’s Future Energy Wind turbines, helping power our office

Sust-it’s energy efficiency chart for washing machines has been dominated by expensive machines, but not now, as Beko have taken the top slot with their WMD78144 model. It has a large capacity drum (8.0 kg) which helps with efficiency and is fast at washing too (28 minute cycle – 8kg wash at 30ºC).

So, is it expensive? No, it’s just over £300, that’s almost half the price of the nearest rival, the LG F1402FDS6, in our efficiency charts.