Home Energy Analysis

The long awaited “Draft Report” into climate change by Ross Garnaut was released yesterday. I’m not among the few who have read it (537 pages) so any comments are based on newspaper and internet reporting and analysis.

It seems to be conveying the same general message as the Stern report: the science says climate change is inevitable unless drastic CO2 emission reductions are achieved. Devastation to the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu flooded and further damage to the Murray Darling basin are all envisaged. Since Stern, science is coming to the view that change is happening more rapidly therefore the costs of inaction have also increased.

 Garnaut (an economist like Stern) has proposed an emission trading scheme (ETS, another TLA we will all become familiar with). Stern seemed to say that emission reductions could be made with little economic pain, but Garnaut is less optimistic here. He discusses the need to compensate those parts of the community which will be most affected. 

The report was commissioned when the Labor Party was not in power and was to be the blueprint for future actions if Labor achieved government. Now that Kevin Rudd is Prime Minister,  the report is “just one input into the Prime Minister’s thinking”. Garnaut’s response that “he’s just one input into mine” highlights that the Government has moved from full commitment. The political challenges in implementing any of the recommendations are formidable, especially for Rudd who shows a disinclination to make any decisions that might upset any group. The opposition party is still expressing caution and pushing the line that as a small nation we should not take risks that might hurt our trade. The recent drastic rises in petrol prices have made clear that our energy spending is an important part of the household budget.  

The report envisages the ETS beginning in 2010: I am not optimistic that anything will happen so quickly. If it wasn’t so important, I’d enjoy watching the politicians squirm as they try to reconcile effective action and getting re-elected.

Garnaut has recommended spending on renewable energy research including a major effort in “clean coal” technology - another area I’m less than confident about.

I recently speculated that the 2008 Australian budget would announce increased funding for green initiatives. Now that the budget has been tabled, the solar panel industry is reeling from the decision to reduce the upper limit of family income for eligibility for the rebate - it was $150,000 and now is $100,000. Even with rebates, solar panels have a long economic pay back period but without rebates few people will ever see a positive financial return.

My home state of Victoria had weeks earlier reduced its feed-in tariff for people generating solar electricity. The combined effects of these decisions has seen a large number of cancellations of orders.

Both these decisions point to the reality that governments are willing to promise to achieve carbon dioxide savings by, say, 2020 but are much less willing to do something with impacts in 2009. The signals being sent are not promising. 

The title of the post is copied from an article onThe Oil Drum blog. The two main points made are that Europe is heavily reliant on natural gas, and that the production from the European fields is either declining now, or will start to decline soon.

Natural gas provides 29% of Europe’s primary fossil fuel. Demand has increased by a factor of 19 over the last 40 years.

A supply shortfall is predicted to occur around 2013. Even the massive Russian fields are no longer increasing production, and with internal demand increasing, exports to other European countries are likely to lessen.

European demand peaks in the Northern winter, putting pressure on supplies world-wide. Even in Australia LPG prices as an automotive fuel rise in our summer because local fuel prices are set according to the Saudi contract price. Australian gas does not appear to reach Europe, but is exported mainly to Japan and China.

This title of the post is a heading in Melbourne’s Sunday Age. It refers to the the first budget of Australia’s new government, one which is committed to actions addressing climate change.

Half a billion will be devoted to the development of “clean coal” technology. As a country we love coal because we export it and we have been indifferent to the amount of CO2 that results from its use. I am sceptical about the practicality of the proposed technology but reluctantly agree that we should invest some dollars so that research can be undertaken.

I am more enthusiastic about the proposed support of commercialisation of renewable programs.

I am most enthusiastic about funds to help businesses become more energy efficient, and of course would love to see a section of the budget providing a copy of the Home Energy Analysis System for every Australian small business. It would need a few changes to supply information required by business but this is a small challenge, certainly when compared with clean coal technology.

As an Australian, I am a spectator of the US election process. From this distance, Obama is the most attractive candidate on many levels.

No youngster myself, I am bemused by the thought of the 71 year old John McCain seeking this most aging of jobs. His suggestion that one solution to rising fuel prices is to rebate fuel taxes for a period gives rise to astonishment. And I’m disappointed that Hillary Clinton has said “me too” and also supports the rebate.

I like this quote from Obama: “This isn’t an idea designed to get you through the summer, it’s an idea designed to get them through an election.”

It is extremely disappointing that the World’s most influential nation could be lead for another four years by someone whose environmental commitment is no better than that of George W Bush.

One of the features missing from HEAS is the ability to update the readings database using a file. With smart metering in our future, many of our energy suppliers will be able to supply readings as computer readable files. This will be a welcome relief from the need to visually read meters, and update the Home Energy Analysis System databases manually. Most of these devices will deliver frequent readings, perhaps by the minute or the hour. Having data at this level means that HEAS will be able to produce new graph types. For instance, it will be possible to create profiles showing consumption by hour or by day of the week.

A beta test version is now available for anyone who is interested to download and try. It is based on data published on the Brultech web site. (This version of HEAS is not officially endorsed by Brultech Reseach Inc.)

The Brultech format is the only one that HEAS will currently process correctly, but other formats will be added in the future. If you have a format the you’d like added please contact us. Sample files help, and a formal specification helps.

This Youtube presentation by Professor Naomi Oreskes describes the history of global warming science then steps through the reasons many citizens of the USA are unconvinced that global warming is accepted by the vast majority of scientists in the area. It isn’t brief at nearly an hour in length, but is well worth watching.

One of the resolutions I intended making for 2008 was to pay a little extra to purchase some or all of our household electricity from green sources. All the major suppliers offer greenpower in some way or another. One motive was so that graphs from the Home Energy Analysis System would illustrate the decrease in carbon dioxide from our electricity use.

GreenPower is defined as coming from “any generator built or commissioned after 1 January 1997 that is GreenPower approved”. Most of Australia’s 8% power from renewable sources is hydroelectric and was in place prior to 1997. Approximately 0.4% of total electricity fits the GreenPower definition - electricity generation facilities are not built overnight but 0.4% in ten years is a modest record.

I was a little puzzled that some suppliers offer a fixed cost irrespective of consumption rather than an increase in the rate per kWh. The  author of this blog post was also curious and has created a detailed analysis of this question. He has exposed the many inconsistencies of the Australian green power market.

For instance, the various retailers had customers in 2006 purchasing 4.8 times the accredited GreenPower produced. This doesn’t make sense, and means that anyone paying for 100% renewable energy cannot realistically claim to be adding zero CO2 to the atmosphere. 

A couple of posts ago, I bemoaned an apparent lack of interest from Australia in the Solar Decathalon, a competition challenging home builders. Australia does have the World Solar Challenge which requires cars to travel 3000 kilometres North-South across Australia powered entirely by the sun. There have been nine races since the first in 1987. Average speed then was 67 km/h but this year’s winner averaged 91 km/h and was restricted by road and other rules from achieving a higher speed.

Each year the rules become tougher as technology improves. For instance solar collector area was 25% less in 2007 than in 2005 and drivers were required to sit upright lessening the aerodynamic efficiency of a prone driver. Teams are mainly from universities. For the fourth consecutive year, a team from the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands) produced the winning car.

We won’t ever be seeing any of these mobile laboratories disguised as cars  in car showrooms for sale, but high end technologies have a way of percolating down. (Can you imagine the 2012 Formula 1 series requiring cars to be electric and fuel cell powered?)  The team members involved will be taking their knowledge and enthusiasm into diverse industries.

Yesterday I went to work a little early, and because it was the first Monday in November traffic was light. (For those who don’t know, the Melbourne Cup is run on the first Tuesday in November, and it is a public holiday. Many workers give themselves a four day weekend by taking Monday on Annual Leave. Hence, little traffic.) In the couple of months since I have been driving our “new” car to work, I’ve played a game of minimising fuel consumption, keeping score by watching the car’s computer. Yesterday was a record.

This made me think of the role that analysis of performance plays in my life. One area is that each year I run the Melbourne Marathon, and every year I recognise that training must commence immediately if I want to run an acceptable time. When I start training, distances are short, times are slow. Nothing is written down. When fitness increases, I start recording training in a diary - now Excel but originally a paper diary. The fitter I get, the more detail and analysis goes into the spreadsheet which becomes a motivator - “I can’t miss training today, because the 7 day rolling average would drop.” A couple of years ago, my training was so bad that no diary survives. In a slightly different class, Robert de Castella went over 1000 days in a row where he ran at least twice.

I assume the Weight Watchers organisation uses the weekly weighings for a similar reason. Those participants who succeed will do so at least in part because of seeing the achievement of weekly successes, each of which will be small, but the cumulative effect can be the desired weight reduction.

Here comes the commercial. The Home Energy Analysis System can operate in the same way by enabling monitoring of energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The graphs available will soon show changes by day, week or month. Stick them on the refrigerator so that the whole family can see what is happening.