RED: Future Currents
November 15, 2005, Nick Morton
The final outputs from the RED: Future Currents project can now be found at www.futurecurrents.org. This marks the conclusion of the RED investigation on energy and forms the record of the ideas developed. For any comments on this work please use the comments and suggestions pages on the website.
If this work has inspired you, or if you are interested in developing ideas arising from this work and want to meet other people who could help, please feel free to use the comments section on this blog to start conversations.
CATEGORY: ENERGY PROJECT
Sarah Darby, November 24, 2005
I thoroughly enjoyed last Monday's presentation, and your parallel projects look equally interesting. I think you're absolutely right to link demand with supply and focus on more visibility for energy, as we used to have in the days of woodpiles and candles. Also to home in on
the social dimension.
I did want to add that paying for energy in advance (as prepayment customers and those using keypad meters in Northern Ireland already do) is a good way of concentrating the mind on how much you're using. At the moment, for most of us, the defaults are that we pay in arrears.
It's also far too easy for 'on' to be the default setting on heating, lighting and appliances. The time was when you could go away for the weekend leaving hot embers in the hearth, but no fuel would be burned in the home while no-one was there. That's no longer the case - it couldn't be easier to go away and leave the heating on, as easy as leaving a room with the lights, computer and TV on. There are technical solutions to this, like sensors and automatic switch-offs and powering down when equipment isn't in use; and non-technical solutions such as altering the payment system. If we all had to pay for fuel in advance, there would be more incentive to remember to conserve.
The keypad meters in NI are worth checking out if you haven't already. They have been very popular - keypad users are charged slightly less for their electricity than users of standard meters(rather than more, as is normally the case with prepayment meters).
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I thoroughly enjoyed last Monday's presentation, and your parallel projects look equally interesting. I think you're absolutely right to link demand with supply and focus on more visibility for energy, as we used to have in the days of woodpiles and candles. Also to home in on
the social dimension.
I did want to add that paying for energy in advance (as prepayment customers and those using keypad meters in Northern Ireland already do) is a good way of concentrating the mind on how much you're using. At the moment, for most of us, the defaults are that we pay in arrears.
It's also far too easy for 'on' to be the default setting on heating, lighting and appliances. The time was when you could go away for the weekend leaving hot embers in the hearth, but no fuel would be burned in the home while no-one was there. That's no longer the case - it couldn't be easier to go away and leave the heating on, as easy as leaving a room with the lights, computer and TV on. There are technical solutions to this, like sensors and automatic switch-offs and powering down when equipment isn't in use; and non-technical solutions such as altering the payment system. If we all had to pay for fuel in advance, there would be more incentive to remember to conserve.
The keypad meters in NI are worth checking out if you haven't already. They have been very popular - keypad users are charged slightly less for their electricity than users of standard meters(rather than more, as is normally the case with prepayment meters).