Z-Wave is the award-winning wireless home control and automation technology that gives consumers the ability to wirelessly control and monitor virtually any device or appliance in their home, even when they're not at home themselves.
"Z-Wave can precisely tailor a home's energy usage by the device, by the room or by the whole house," said Mark Walters, chairman of the Z-Wave Alliance. "Using a wide variety of sensors and controllers, consumers are now able to customize their home environments with as much or as little energy as needed, at any given time. And manufacturers are selecting Z-Wave because it's the recognized standard, with real products available from industry leaders around the globe."
Real Solutions to Real Energy Problems -- Today!
Because Z-Wave enabled devices can talk to each other, it is now possible for homeowners to enjoy automated, whole-home energy management that immediately reacts to changing conditions. As an example, a Z-Wave sensor can monitor how much light and heat is coming into the home throughout the day. During bright, warm daylight, Z-Wave can dim the lighting, close electric shades and lower the thermostat. When dusk settles in, Z-Wave can automatically reverse the sequence.
Using Z-Wave, homeowners can also monitor energy usage from afar, with real-time control over their HVAC, lights and appliances via an Internet connection from anywhere in the world. If weekend guests have accidentally left lights or air conditioning on at a remote vacation home, homeowners can adjust them from their easy chair. When it's raining out, a home lawn sprinkler system can be turned off while the owner is at work. Z-Wave can turn on the lights when someone enters a room, and turn them off as soon as they leave. Energy savings with Z-Wave can be immediate and dramatic for the homeowner, with simple, accessible devices that can be retrofitted to any home.
continue
Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Ten things to do today
Standby power
If you're not using it - switch it off. It's a simple rule but many of us fail to turn off the dozens of electrical devices around the house when they are not required. While devices such as TVs, stereos and mobile phone chargers are plugged in on stand-by they are silently wasting up to 10 per cent of your annual power bill.
Cutting down on this waste can be as simple as doing an audit of the appliances in your home and deciding which needs to be switched on permanently (such as the fridge) and which can be turned off until required. One trick is to group appliances together that can be switched off and plug them into a single power board. That way they can all be switched off together.
Light bulbs
Conventional incandescent light bulbs are very inefficient, converting more than 90 per cent of their energy into useless heat. And the halogen downlights so beloved of kitchen designers everywhere are scarcely any better in environmental terms.
By changing all the incandescent bulbs around the house to the widely available compact fluorescent lights, the average home can slash its light bill by 75 per cent, with a corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Solving the problem of halogen downlights is a little more complex. The ideal replacement for energy-guzzling downlights are LED (light-emitting diode) lamps but the technology is still developing and it may be a couple of years before LEDs are powerful enough to be a true downlight replacement. Infrared-coated halogen bulbs are a reasonable compromise and are much more efficient than conventional halogens - however, they are also a lot more expensive.
One simple thing almost anyone can do to cut emissions caused by driving is to choose to leave the car at home. For very short journeys, walking may be enough while for longer trips and even the daily commute, a bicycle may do the trick.
Shower efficiently
On average, 20 per cent of the water used on the home goes down the plughole in the bathroom. A water-efficient showerhead will cut the amount of water used by about 50 per cent and also trim the amount of electricity used to heat the water. Modern showerheads are designed to restrict water flow to about 7 litres a minute while still delivering an invigorating shower.
Sydney Water runs a program called WaterFix under which a plumber will come to your house and for $22 will install a low-flow showerhead plus devices to reduce the flow through your taps.
Wash clothes in cold water
According to the Australian Greenhouse Office, the average washing machine in a year produces about 90kg of greenhouse gases while heating up the water to do the family load adds another 475kg of greenhouse gasses. The motto: wash clothes in cold water. Detergent, plus the efficient action of modern washing machines means a cold wash will do the job just as well as using hot water.
Dry clothes naturally
Used three times a week, the average clothes drier will add about $100 to your annual electricity bill and also generate about 500kg of greenhouse gases. It's pretty easy to get into the habit of relying on an electric drier but pegging out your clothes on a washing line the old-fashioned way is a very smart environmental choice. Obviously, it won't be possible with every load - especially when it's raining - but it makes sense to use the clothesline wherever possible. It's also kinder to your clothes.
Use air conditioners efficiently
If you're going to use an air conditioner in your home, there are things you can do to make sure it works as efficiently as possible and uses as little energy as possible. AGL recommends a summer setting of between 24 and 27 degrees. Every 1 degree cooler will add between 10 and 15 per cent to your energy costs. AGL also recommends turning off the air conditioner for about 15 minutes each hour, as well as only cooling the rooms that you use - other rooms can be sealed off.
Check your fridge
After your hot water service, the fridge is the biggest energy consumer in the home as it hums away in the kitchen all day, every day. So it's wise to make sure it is working as efficiently as possible and that the door seals are in good order. A dirty, poorly fitting or worn out door seal should be replaced.
The way you use the fridge - for instance by putting cold items back into the fridge immediately - also has a big effect on efficiency. According to the Australian Greenhouse Office, cooling a two-litre drink bottle back down from room temperature generates 10 times as much greenhouse gas as does opening the fridge door.
Get rid of the beer fridge
And while on the topic of fridges, the second or "beer" fridge that lurks in the uninsulated garage of many Australian households is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It's often an old, inefficient appliance that gets used only intermittently yet stays on all the time, steadily consuming power. If you don't really need a second fridge it's worth considering getting rid of it. Until recently the State Government operated a "fridge buyback" scheme that collected and recycled more than 3500 fridges. However, the scheme is not operating at the moment but may start up again in future. You can register you interest at their website
Walk don't drive
One simple thing almost anyone can do to cut emissions caused by driving is to choose to leave the car at home. For very short journeys, walking may be enough while for longer trips and even the daily commute, a bicycle may do the trick.
continue
If you're not using it - switch it off. It's a simple rule but many of us fail to turn off the dozens of electrical devices around the house when they are not required. While devices such as TVs, stereos and mobile phone chargers are plugged in on stand-by they are silently wasting up to 10 per cent of your annual power bill.
Cutting down on this waste can be as simple as doing an audit of the appliances in your home and deciding which needs to be switched on permanently (such as the fridge) and which can be turned off until required. One trick is to group appliances together that can be switched off and plug them into a single power board. That way they can all be switched off together.
Light bulbs
Conventional incandescent light bulbs are very inefficient, converting more than 90 per cent of their energy into useless heat. And the halogen downlights so beloved of kitchen designers everywhere are scarcely any better in environmental terms.
By changing all the incandescent bulbs around the house to the widely available compact fluorescent lights, the average home can slash its light bill by 75 per cent, with a corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Solving the problem of halogen downlights is a little more complex. The ideal replacement for energy-guzzling downlights are LED (light-emitting diode) lamps but the technology is still developing and it may be a couple of years before LEDs are powerful enough to be a true downlight replacement. Infrared-coated halogen bulbs are a reasonable compromise and are much more efficient than conventional halogens - however, they are also a lot more expensive.
One simple thing almost anyone can do to cut emissions caused by driving is to choose to leave the car at home. For very short journeys, walking may be enough while for longer trips and even the daily commute, a bicycle may do the trick.
Shower efficiently
On average, 20 per cent of the water used on the home goes down the plughole in the bathroom. A water-efficient showerhead will cut the amount of water used by about 50 per cent and also trim the amount of electricity used to heat the water. Modern showerheads are designed to restrict water flow to about 7 litres a minute while still delivering an invigorating shower.
Sydney Water runs a program called WaterFix under which a plumber will come to your house and for $22 will install a low-flow showerhead plus devices to reduce the flow through your taps.
Wash clothes in cold water
According to the Australian Greenhouse Office, the average washing machine in a year produces about 90kg of greenhouse gases while heating up the water to do the family load adds another 475kg of greenhouse gasses. The motto: wash clothes in cold water. Detergent, plus the efficient action of modern washing machines means a cold wash will do the job just as well as using hot water.
Dry clothes naturally
Used three times a week, the average clothes drier will add about $100 to your annual electricity bill and also generate about 500kg of greenhouse gases. It's pretty easy to get into the habit of relying on an electric drier but pegging out your clothes on a washing line the old-fashioned way is a very smart environmental choice. Obviously, it won't be possible with every load - especially when it's raining - but it makes sense to use the clothesline wherever possible. It's also kinder to your clothes.
Use air conditioners efficiently
If you're going to use an air conditioner in your home, there are things you can do to make sure it works as efficiently as possible and uses as little energy as possible. AGL recommends a summer setting of between 24 and 27 degrees. Every 1 degree cooler will add between 10 and 15 per cent to your energy costs. AGL also recommends turning off the air conditioner for about 15 minutes each hour, as well as only cooling the rooms that you use - other rooms can be sealed off.
Check your fridge
After your hot water service, the fridge is the biggest energy consumer in the home as it hums away in the kitchen all day, every day. So it's wise to make sure it is working as efficiently as possible and that the door seals are in good order. A dirty, poorly fitting or worn out door seal should be replaced.
The way you use the fridge - for instance by putting cold items back into the fridge immediately - also has a big effect on efficiency. According to the Australian Greenhouse Office, cooling a two-litre drink bottle back down from room temperature generates 10 times as much greenhouse gas as does opening the fridge door.
Get rid of the beer fridge
And while on the topic of fridges, the second or "beer" fridge that lurks in the uninsulated garage of many Australian households is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It's often an old, inefficient appliance that gets used only intermittently yet stays on all the time, steadily consuming power. If you don't really need a second fridge it's worth considering getting rid of it. Until recently the State Government operated a "fridge buyback" scheme that collected and recycled more than 3500 fridges. However, the scheme is not operating at the moment but may start up again in future. You can register you interest at their website
Walk don't drive
One simple thing almost anyone can do to cut emissions caused by driving is to choose to leave the car at home. For very short journeys, walking may be enough while for longer trips and even the daily commute, a bicycle may do the trick.
continue
Monday, 8 October 2007
Getting my carbon footprint down to size
My feet are still big.
But not as big as they were five months ago.
I'm talking about my ecological footprint: how much land, air and water my lifestyle takes up.
I committed last Earth Day to reduce mine, which, despite my self-assessment as a greenie, was a whopping 6.6 hectares, according to one website calculator. That's a hectare less than the Canadian average, but 4.4 hectares more than the global one.
"If everyone lived like you, we'd need 3.7 planets," the website (myfootprint.org) declared damningly.
Today, when I factor in all the changes I've made, my footprint measures 5.8 hectares – still not as small as I'd like it, but better.
How have I done it? Mostly by addressing the big stuff.
The three biggest drivers of a fat North American footprint are food, transit, and home heating and electricity, says William Rees, the University of British Columbia professor who pioneered the concept of an ecological footprint.
We live in suburbs without sidewalks and drive our SUVs to the corner store. As much as 80 per cent of our fruit and vegetables are trucked or flown in from as far away as China. Our homes leak heat and our appliances vacuum up energy – a lot of it from fume-belching coal-fired plants.
To change most of these things, we need to act collectively – building walkable communities and renewable electricity sources. But there is still room for small, individual changes. Baby steps.
To address my home's soaring hydro use, the first thing I did was replace all 52 incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescents. It's considered the first rite of passage for an eco-convert and it's relatively painless. Compact-fluorescent bulbs use a quarter of the electricity the old-fashioned kind suck up, and since lighting makes up 15 per cent of an average home's electricity bill, they save money in the long-run.
It took less than an hour and cost about $120 but, according to my calculations, will save us 779 kilowatt hours of electricity by the end of the year. That's almost a whole month's worth of electricity for us.
Step 2 was dealing with all the power vampires – the appliances in our home that suck energy even when they are off.
It turns out our computer was the biggest culprit. Even when turned off, it sucked 28 watts of power constantly. The Internet connection was also leaking energy. Multiply that over the year, and we were wasting more than two months' worth of electricity.
The solution was easy. We have now plugged the computer, televisions and DVD player into power bars. When we aren't using them, we turn the power bar off. So simple, and part of the reason our electricity bills have been cut in half.
Next was the clothes dryer. It was the biggest energy-sucking culprit in our home. You can't buy an EnergyStar model, because, as the program's federal manager in Ottawa, Anne Wilkins, told me, "basically, they're big heating elements in a drum. The real EnergyStar dryer is a clothesline outside."
So that's what we did. This winter, we will decorate our basement with drying racks and, by the end of the year, we figure we'll have saved another month's worth of electricity.
Finally, I called an energy auditor. They are like home doctors who diagnose your house's energy ailments. He said our 1930s home was about 43-per-cent efficient – meaning more than half of the heat, or cool air, we pump into it is wasted. He gave us a list of treatments, the first of which called for a new furnace.
This week, we are ripping out the huffing 76-per-cent efficient model and putting in a new, 96-per-cent efficient one. We've paid dearly for it – about $4,000 after government rebates – but our calculations suggest we'll make that money back in less than five years.
We've also hired contractors to seal the cracks in the walls and ceiling and pad the insulation in our attic – so our furnace no longer heats the street outside our home.
In total, with those changes, the auditor tells us our home will be 64-per-cent efficient. That should mean we'll cut our heating bills by a fifth.
Catherine Porter
continue
But not as big as they were five months ago.
I'm talking about my ecological footprint: how much land, air and water my lifestyle takes up.
I committed last Earth Day to reduce mine, which, despite my self-assessment as a greenie, was a whopping 6.6 hectares, according to one website calculator. That's a hectare less than the Canadian average, but 4.4 hectares more than the global one.
"If everyone lived like you, we'd need 3.7 planets," the website (myfootprint.org) declared damningly.
Today, when I factor in all the changes I've made, my footprint measures 5.8 hectares – still not as small as I'd like it, but better.
How have I done it? Mostly by addressing the big stuff.
The three biggest drivers of a fat North American footprint are food, transit, and home heating and electricity, says William Rees, the University of British Columbia professor who pioneered the concept of an ecological footprint.
We live in suburbs without sidewalks and drive our SUVs to the corner store. As much as 80 per cent of our fruit and vegetables are trucked or flown in from as far away as China. Our homes leak heat and our appliances vacuum up energy – a lot of it from fume-belching coal-fired plants.
To change most of these things, we need to act collectively – building walkable communities and renewable electricity sources. But there is still room for small, individual changes. Baby steps.
To address my home's soaring hydro use, the first thing I did was replace all 52 incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving compact fluorescents. It's considered the first rite of passage for an eco-convert and it's relatively painless. Compact-fluorescent bulbs use a quarter of the electricity the old-fashioned kind suck up, and since lighting makes up 15 per cent of an average home's electricity bill, they save money in the long-run.
It took less than an hour and cost about $120 but, according to my calculations, will save us 779 kilowatt hours of electricity by the end of the year. That's almost a whole month's worth of electricity for us.
Step 2 was dealing with all the power vampires – the appliances in our home that suck energy even when they are off.
It turns out our computer was the biggest culprit. Even when turned off, it sucked 28 watts of power constantly. The Internet connection was also leaking energy. Multiply that over the year, and we were wasting more than two months' worth of electricity.
The solution was easy. We have now plugged the computer, televisions and DVD player into power bars. When we aren't using them, we turn the power bar off. So simple, and part of the reason our electricity bills have been cut in half.
Next was the clothes dryer. It was the biggest energy-sucking culprit in our home. You can't buy an EnergyStar model, because, as the program's federal manager in Ottawa, Anne Wilkins, told me, "basically, they're big heating elements in a drum. The real EnergyStar dryer is a clothesline outside."
So that's what we did. This winter, we will decorate our basement with drying racks and, by the end of the year, we figure we'll have saved another month's worth of electricity.
Finally, I called an energy auditor. They are like home doctors who diagnose your house's energy ailments. He said our 1930s home was about 43-per-cent efficient – meaning more than half of the heat, or cool air, we pump into it is wasted. He gave us a list of treatments, the first of which called for a new furnace.
This week, we are ripping out the huffing 76-per-cent efficient model and putting in a new, 96-per-cent efficient one. We've paid dearly for it – about $4,000 after government rebates – but our calculations suggest we'll make that money back in less than five years.
We've also hired contractors to seal the cracks in the walls and ceiling and pad the insulation in our attic – so our furnace no longer heats the street outside our home.
In total, with those changes, the auditor tells us our home will be 64-per-cent efficient. That should mean we'll cut our heating bills by a fifth.
Catherine Porter
continue
Is this what the world's coming to?
With climate change placing increasing pressure on environmental resources, it is now being viewed as a threat to national security. Amanda Leigh Haag reports.
History is littered with lessons from once-budding civilizations that crashed from their peak of prosperity. From the Anasazi of the southwestern United States to the Mayans of Mesoamerica1 and the ancient dynasties of eastern China2, environmental change has sounded the death knell throughout time for once-thriving civilizations already stressed by factors including high population growth, overexploitation of resources and excessive reliance on external trade. In many cases, severe drought or extreme cold has been enough to push societies to the brink of civil unrest, mass migration and warfare.
Averting disaster
So far, no comprehensive cost estimates exist for the type of global-scale military preparedness that would be needed under severe climate-change scenarios. Yet it appears that, irrespective of conflict and the potential for national-security threats, the goals of assisting vulnerable nations and at-risk regions in the face of climate change are synonymous with the need to achieve global sustainable development. Citing East Timor in southeast Asia as an example, Barnett says "what you would do to reduce vulnerability and adapt to climate change is what you would do to provide sustainable development and improve the lives of people anyway". With the majority of the population having no access to electricity, clean drinking water, shelter or proper food standards, he notes that many of these basic services could be fulfilled through the commitment made by wealthy countries under the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992. Developed countries vowed long ago to giving 0.7% of their gross domestic product to aid developing countries, but actual contributions fall far short of that, with donations from both the US and Australia hovering around 0.2%, for instance. "For the most part, we're talking about things that we already know how to do, things we already know we should do, things that we've already committed to do, it's just that we don't do them", says Barnett.
However, Fuerth points out that in the case of extreme climate-change outcomes, more radical measures might be needed. He cites examples such as the potential development of superior materials through nanotechnology and suggestions for planetary 'geoengineering', such as erecting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight. There seems to be a "philosophical split" between those who believe that the system can be rebalanced through proper adaptation and mitigation versus those inclined to approach the solution as a "civil-engineering problem on a cosmic scale", Fuerth says. "If it becomes clear that we are headed toward the severe end of the range, then those who have these bigger schemes in mind may get a much more serious hearing."
Amanda Leigh Haag is a freelance writer based in Denver, Colorado
continue
History is littered with lessons from once-budding civilizations that crashed from their peak of prosperity. From the Anasazi of the southwestern United States to the Mayans of Mesoamerica1 and the ancient dynasties of eastern China2, environmental change has sounded the death knell throughout time for once-thriving civilizations already stressed by factors including high population growth, overexploitation of resources and excessive reliance on external trade. In many cases, severe drought or extreme cold has been enough to push societies to the brink of civil unrest, mass migration and warfare.
Averting disaster
So far, no comprehensive cost estimates exist for the type of global-scale military preparedness that would be needed under severe climate-change scenarios. Yet it appears that, irrespective of conflict and the potential for national-security threats, the goals of assisting vulnerable nations and at-risk regions in the face of climate change are synonymous with the need to achieve global sustainable development. Citing East Timor in southeast Asia as an example, Barnett says "what you would do to reduce vulnerability and adapt to climate change is what you would do to provide sustainable development and improve the lives of people anyway". With the majority of the population having no access to electricity, clean drinking water, shelter or proper food standards, he notes that many of these basic services could be fulfilled through the commitment made by wealthy countries under the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992. Developed countries vowed long ago to giving 0.7% of their gross domestic product to aid developing countries, but actual contributions fall far short of that, with donations from both the US and Australia hovering around 0.2%, for instance. "For the most part, we're talking about things that we already know how to do, things we already know we should do, things that we've already committed to do, it's just that we don't do them", says Barnett.
However, Fuerth points out that in the case of extreme climate-change outcomes, more radical measures might be needed. He cites examples such as the potential development of superior materials through nanotechnology and suggestions for planetary 'geoengineering', such as erecting mirrors in space to reflect sunlight. There seems to be a "philosophical split" between those who believe that the system can be rebalanced through proper adaptation and mitigation versus those inclined to approach the solution as a "civil-engineering problem on a cosmic scale", Fuerth says. "If it becomes clear that we are headed toward the severe end of the range, then those who have these bigger schemes in mind may get a much more serious hearing."
Amanda Leigh Haag is a freelance writer based in Denver, Colorado
continue
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
