Top tips for saving energy as cost rise looms

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It's not often you get something for nothing, but that really is the offer from Herefordshire-based rural services company, 7Y.

The company is involved in a project called RE:think Energy, which is all about rolling out green technology in the Rural Regeneration Zone of the West Midlands.

powerlines

The project, which is being co-ordinated by the Marches Energy Agency, aims to raise awareness about renewable energy technologies and provide grant funding for small-scale installations such as biomass boilers.

Within this process, 7Y has been charged with the job of conducting energy audits, providing a free assessment of a farm's current energy use and advising on how to improve it.

This is all very good news if you happen to farm in Herefordshire, Shropshire and even parts of Worcestershire - not so useful if you do not.

But there are still some important messages to emerge from 7Y that everyone should be thinking about.

The first is that on most farms, there are some very easy wins when it comes to energy cost savings. Lighting is an obvious one. Figures from 7Y show how a single low energy light bulb costing £3 can save over £15 in electricity usage over the course of a year... 

Investing £50 in a Smart Meter is another great way of understanding a farm's peak energy usage and then taking steps to adjust consumption. Moneysupermarket.com reckons on electricity bill savings of up to 15% by using Smart Meters.

Other "quick wins" include upgrading insulation on the farm, shopping around for the best deal on all energy contracts and harvesting rain water to cut consumption of the expensive stuff that comes out of the tap.

Increasing numbers of farmers are also looking at green energy investments. Woodchip boilers are making a valuable contribution to cutting heating costs on many units, while small-scale wind and solar power are well-established technologies.

With the cost of oil now back up to $60 a barrel (when did that happen?!) and expected to go much higher next year, there is no doubt that the economics of green energy is going to look more interesting.

And, with 50% grant assistance also now available, either through schemes like RE:think or under the various Rural Development Programmes, now is definitely the time to be looking at ways of generating power on the farm.

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Do you have a blog feed I can subscribe to? I looked around but couldn't find it, thanks in advance.

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This page contains a single entry by Philip Clarke published on May 20, 2009 2:18 PM.

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