The latest store opened in Cabra, Dublin is the first in Ireland and their fourth “zero-carbon store” to be opened since 2009. Others are located in Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Powys in the UK.
In order to meet “zero-carbon” standards the supermarket has been designed to require a very low energy demand and to avail of all onsite renewable energy technologies installed instead of inward draws of energy. The building design ensures that over the course of a year it exports as much energy to the Grid as it consumes – i.e. it’s energy neutral.

The Cabra store features a biomass-fuelled combined heat and power (CHP) system to provide electricity, heating and cooling to the store, as well as advanced lighting controls that reduce lighting demand based on the ambient sunlight available.

Daylight to the shop floor is maximised by roof windows. Super efficient refrigeration units containing LED lighting have been installed.
LED lighting in the underground carpark saves approx €44,000 per year in running costs for the external car park and lowers energy consumption by 70% in comparison to traditional linear fluorescent lighting.
Every little modificatiopn along the way will help Tesco become a zero-carbon business by 2050, which is their aim. All of us in the Green button Campaign congratulate Tesco on their commitment.
Let’s hope many more retailers follow their example.

Academy schools are the darlings of the current UK Government. They tend to be progressive and want to make their mark quickly. But is their rush to establish themselves with the latest technologies having an unintended environmental impact?

Well, a recent study published by Building Research & Innovation points a finger at their modern buildings being responsible for higher energy consumption and rising carbon footprint as a result.

The study , entitled ‘ Using Display Energy Certificates to quantify schools’ energy consumption’, was released on Oct 31^st 2011 and  suggests that these new academies have ‘significantly higher’ energy consumption compared to traditional secondary schools, because they tend to be ‘new builds’ with more ‘state-of-the-art’ facilities.

But this could apply to all newer buildings in any School however and it may be unfair to single out the Academies for criticism.

The teams of researchers, from the University of Cambridge, Shinawatra International University  and Thammasat University, in Thailand, made the conclusions by trawling through  over 12,000 School buildings Display Energy Certificates (DECs) produced between 2008 and 2009.

They found that:

• Overall energy use in schools is on the increase and with this comes rising CO2 emissions despite a fall in demand for heating (due to better insulation).
• That newly built buildings have not been constructed with energy efficiency as a top priority.
• After allowing for different pupil densities related to School type, typical CO2 emissions per pupil were found to be 47% higher in secondary schools and 116% higher in academies, compared with primary schools.
• That design strategies to reduce heat loss have been moderately effective but these gains have been offset by increasing electricity demands, for mechanical ventilation, lighting or  ICT equipment (which is fast becoming a major source of energy consumption as Schools add more and more computing and electronic teaching aids).
• Another worrying finding was that CO₂ from English schools has been rising steadily over the last 9 years. Given the reasons outlined above, this may continue to rise, suggesting that significant work needs to be done if the UK is to meet its CO₂ reduction targets for 2050.

The study establishes the need for continued monitoring and research into the relative roles of building design, heating systems, electrical and ICT systems and occupant behaviour to ensure that the emissions trend is downwards.

 There are many ways that Schools can address this increase. For example lighting retrofits to cut lighting energy and ICT power management systems such as ‘ The Green Button Campaign’  will cut energy waste on two key areas.

The full findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Building Research & Information. Access to the report is available here

Let’s see what happens if the Gas price falls…don’t hold your breath for a rebate!

But there IS something you can do to strike back and turn these increases to your  benefit.

With a price increase like this it means that energy savings solutions save even more cash for you. Take the  following example of a 100 PC School that user Energy Watch IT to cut wasted power used by idle PCs. Well under the old price levels that School saved a nett €4450 per annum by using the product as part of their Green Button Campaign activity. Now that saving reaches €4730 per annum (based on the same criteria such as 115W consumed per PC, over 38 weeks).  That’s a €280 increase in saving for NO extra work. The Energy Watch IT licence is fixed and does not increase so your savings will always improve as Electricity prices increase. Work out what you could save for your own school (just take the 100PC model as the basis).

There really is a silver lining sometimes!  To pocket your savings contact the folks at www.energywatchit.com right now and stop wasting your precious School funds.

So we’re following the trend with a special School’s Autumn price drop. 

For the first 10 days of October we’re taking 10% off our regular Schools price for new orders.

(Regular price €450 +VAT).

   That means you can now join the Green Button Campaign for €405 + VAT

(saving €45 + VAT) off our regular price. Remember our

 Green Button Campaign price for Schools is for UNLIMITED numbers of  School PCs.

BONUS.

Your licence renewal will also be fixed forever at this price. That’s 10% off each and every year.

With an estimated €4,000 saved every year for every 100 computers in your School , your investment in EnergyWatchIT yields almost

1,000% annual return on investment right now and this will grow with rising electricity prices….but your costs

will remain fixed at our discounted School 10-10 price.

So why wait any longer?

Call us now at 021 -4368540 or reply to this email , and quote ‘CODE 10-10′ to avail of this offer.

Addressing a conference on retrofitting in Ireland, today Sept 23rd Energy Minister Pat Rabbitte announced  a “pay as you save” scheme is to replace the current grants for retrofitting old housing stock with insulation . As always with these Ministerial announcements the details must yet be teased out with the relevant parties.  Since only 30,000 homes availed of grants this year to have work done we need to significantly boost our adoption rate to meet  2020 targets of reducing energy consumption by 2020.  As cash is very tight both for the Government and the householders and  current grant aids run until 2014 we would expect that the funds may not reach that far. So a ‘ Pay As You Save Option (PAYSO) is the only way to achieve these goals.

Schemes similar to this method are already in operation in the USA and Ireland, by product suppliers  (e.g. Energy Sense Ireland Ltd operate a PAYSO scheme for Public Sector clients). The scheme is a win -win for both with the environment the biggest winner. The energy savings get activated immediately, the consumer benefits by lower bills , a portion of the savings pays back the cost of the work. Over a defined period (e.g.  3 years) all costs are paid back and the full 100% savings are to the benefit of the client. the neat trick is to enlist the utility suppliers to actually collect the money.

SWITCH ON AMBITION

We should however , be more ambitious with the scheme. If every house and business  was upgraded to the most efficient lighting such as LEDs,(which are expensive in comparison with CFL bulbs)  ,  or lighting retrofits, there would be up to 90% power savings in many cases. The costs of the products could be recovered over 2-3 years through electricity bills still leaving consumers with big savings immediately. But the big winner is the CO2 reduction which will see instant reduction as electricity demand drops. Remember every kwh of electricity generated from fossil fuels is responsible for 520g of CO2 (ESB figures).

The SEAI back in April 2010,  reckoned that simple energy housekeeping actions would result in over €300 million savings for the SME sector  alone which has over 200,000 businesses. 

So how much can householders save ?

 According to the SEAI , average Irish household is responsible for emitting approximately 8.1 tonnes of CO2 ,  4.8 tonnes of those CO2 emissions are from direct fuel use with the remainder relating to upstream emissions from electricity usage., that’s  3300 kgs.Let’s say you use the bulbs an average of 5 hours a day with 16c/kWh tariff.

CFL savings : Each 100W bulb costs €29.28 per year in electricity or €1758 over the six year lifetime of  a CFL bulb. By replacing 10 ordinary bulbs with energy saving CFL ones an average family household could save €1407 over the bulbs lifetime on electricity charges. (ESB figures). Take out the cost of these 10 CFL bulbs of approx €40 and we have a net saving of €1367 over 6 years or €281 per year.

• LED savings :If we replace 10 ordinary 60W bulbs with 6W Pharox LED lamps these savings are a whopping €3164 over the lifetime of the bulbs. Each 60W bulb costs €17.58 per year in electricity or € 3516 over the 20 year lifetime and the 6W Pharox will reduce this by 90%. Factor in the cost of the 10 x LED at €250 approx and the net savings are €2914. Each LED bulb costs a paltry €0.15 pm to run. In the 20 year period you would also save the costs of replacing 20 incandescent bulbs and 5-6 CFL bulbs. Total CO2 savings are 12352 kg over the lifetime or the equivalent of 7.3 years total household CO2 emissions due to electricity use.. i.e you are avoiding the average household’s total annual electrical CO2 emissions for 7 years.

 So if each household saves approx 617 kgs per year from their 3300 kgs that’s already 19% saved  just from lighting changes.  There’s the 2020 target in sight from day 1 !

 Just work this out for the nation as a whole and the results are pretty impressive. And it’s easily done……just provide the bulbs on a PAYSO  scheme now to householders.

In addition to the national benefit, a lighting  retrofitting programme will create many jobs.

The Sustainable Energy Authority’s cost benefit analysis concludes that for every €1 it spends on the current retrofit scheme, the economy benefits to the tune of €5.

The scheme is, they say, self-financing . The new PAYSO scheme can be even better, yielding a triple win. So why wait?

We would like to see this scheme kicked off right away, with lenders committed and energy suppliers facilitating the cost recovery. The nights are getting darker and energy costs are rising….

Well, there is some thruth to the fact that once electrical equipment is operating at its designed ambient temperature it is operating optimally. Maintaining the working temperature also puts less stress on the myriad of electrical components that make up the device. Also a steady ambient room temperature will reduce thermal stress at startup and shutdown. This will impact the PC and Screen’s usefull life and help to prolong it due to lower possibility of component failure over its lifetime.

energy saving question

However while it may prolong the usefull  life in theory, it still uses power while switched on, even with screensavers running,  and still generates heat that air conditioning units must handle (which require more energy to dissipate in sunmmer).  The reality is that with PC equipment and components they become obselete long before their usefull lifetime end  is reached. How many of you have thrown out perfectly good CRT screens to replace them with Flatscreens?  Since PCs and components are replaced long before their end of life, due to technology advances then the argument for prolonging the life is not applicable.

In practice most PC screens are thrown away , not because they have broken down, but because they have been superseded by more modern technology? So the energy waste question remains.

According to the National Energy Foundation in the UK,  PC screen consumption can often represent at least a third of the electricity consumption in a modern office – think of those trader desks with multiple large monitors.  Most of the wasted energy is given off as heat, and in an air-conditioned office half as much energy again can be used in getting rid of this waste heat in summer. (www.nef.org.uk)

So how much energy will be saved if screens are switched off?

The answer is ‘quite a lot in little chunks’. Most CRTs (cathode ray tubes) and  flat screen panels  use between 30W and 200W power depending on their screen size.  In an average office,  with say, 50 Pcs, this is going to add up to quite a bit of energy over a working year (48 weeks with 5 days/week). Researchers from University College Cork in 2009, found that on average PCs were left unattended for two hours during an average office workers day. That’s  time away for lunch, coffee, meetings, watercooler moments, toilets, cigarette breaks etc etc.

So over a working year your average PC screen, (lower end 35W device) left on for those 2 hours chunks or an average working day will waste approx  17kWh per year. With a kWh price of , say, 14c, that gives saving of approx  €118 per year for  50 office screens. That’s the lower end of savings.  And that’s just for idle PC Screens during breaks in work. There will be a beneficial impact on air conditioning consumption also but this is harder to quantify directly. There is a significant extra saving from automatically turning them off each night along with the computers themselves. Products like  Energy Watch IT  , with its Green Button, automates this whole process and reports your  savings in real time. (see www.energywatchit.com for more details)

Of course many PCs will go into sleep mode if they are not being used, but do not assume this will happen unless you have configured this mode.  Screens do not use less energy when they are in screen saver mode (that’s just designed to stop screens being damaged).  When they power down into sleep mode (typically after  20 minutes) they still use some energy while in  sleep (2-5 W).  The Green Button facility provided in the Energy Watch IT product eliminates this necessity. The user simply presses the Green button when leaving the desk and within a few seconds the PC is put to sleep and machine locked securely for future logon.  

Enjoy the short break !

Shocking figures released by the IEA yesterday (May 30) show that carbon dioxide emissions in 2010 were the highest on record according to their estimates.
After a two year lull due to the recent poor economic conditions globally estimated emissions rose  to a record 30.6 Gigatonnes (Gt) – up 5%  from the previous record set in 2008.

Taken on a per capita basis, OECD countries collectively emitted 10 tonnes, compared with 5.8 tonnes for China, and 1.5 tonnes in India.

Now with new electricity generation plants under construction around the world the growth is locked in for the future higher levels. 

This  latest estimate is yet another serious wake-up call to us all . We are moving relentlessly in the direction of the 2020 emissions targets 8 years ahead of time. This will blow our predicted  2ºC temp rise target right out of the water and render meaningless any new limits we set in the coming years.

The time to act it now, at every level. Begin with what you can do personally, what your school can do, what your employer can do what your local authority can do , what your governmenmt can do. Take decisive action to act right now to halt this slide..e.g. change lighting to low energy bulbs at home, join the Green Button Campaign at school, get your employer to take action on computers , only use power from renewable sources, lobby your local authority to upgrade public lighting to low energy lamps. There’s a lot you can do when you think about it.

The  global goal agreed at the  Cancun summit must be taken seriously at every level by citizens of planet earth.

Read the full story here.

3PRO EnergyWatch and sister company Energy Sense Ireland are launching The Green Button Campaign to reduce IT energy waste in Irish Schools. It is part of a wider climate change campaign that will ensure all Irish schools play their part in reducing Ireland’s CO2 emissions whilst also saving each school approx €35 per pc per annum on power costs.

The Campaign

The Green Button Campaign will be delivered through the installation of new IT power management software developed by UCC in partnership with Enterprise Ireland and Energy Sense Ireland.

The software, called EnergyWatchIT, provides schools with a Green IT power saving schedule and automatically powers down the school’s PCs at times that they are not being used.

Additional energy savings are made when a student hits the instant hibernation Green Button on their keyboard before leaving their computer.

The Benefits

Cost savings on power reduction of approx €35 per PC Per year  Energy waste reduced Encourages collaboration: Staff and pupils participate in cost savings and Co2 reduction No extra work: No IT support needed by the school (we do the IT administration) Boosts the school’s social responsibility reputation Students get positive feedback by seeing the impact of their actions Enhance the school’s profile in the Green Schools campaign No up-front fee as costs are covered from the savings Free annual report showing annual Energy, Co2 and Cost savings Instant Real Time Data: Students can check at any time what their computer’s current accumulated savings figures are using the Green Button icon on their computer

The Bottom Line

Cash-strapped schools have the option to pay for this tool AFTER their first month’s savings have been made so that they can use the savings to pay for the software. This way they are also guaranteed to save money before they pay.

Costing just 0.75 cent per PC per month means the school pays only €9 per PC for the year for a tool that will save them €35 annually.

Alternatively schools can pay just €299 for the first year’s license fee (no matter how many PCs they have) and pay just €149 per year from the second year onwards. The License fee covers technical support and maintenance.

By taking personal action to reduce power wastage every PC user in the school is playing their own part in minimising school running costs and reducing the school’s CO2 footprint. Take part in The Green Button Campaign today by contacting info@energywatchit.com