As a film technician, for me the most noticeable impact of climate change in Ireland has been the increasing wind speeds – in the past 18 months I’ve been on two commercials that were closed down because it was too windy to shoot; that had never happened to me in the previous 15 years. However, there are may be some positive side effects to this new phenomena, energy independence being chief among them.  (more…)

Would you like a quick and free way to ‘green’ your electricity?

The trick is simply to change when we use electricity. And especially, now that winter evenings are on the way, to avoid the electricity ‘rush hour’ of 5-7 p.m.

Let me explain . . .

The Eirgrid control room

Electricity consumption in Ireland rose so much over recent years — all those new homes, all those new appliances, all those switched-on lives — that demand has almost outstripped supply, and new power plants are planned. (Although Eirgrid’s latest report shows demand down 6% on last year as the recession bites.)

Demand is highest from 5-7pm on cold winter week nights,  when supply from power plants has trouble meeting demand. The heating is on, everyone is cooking dinner in homes across the country, and all the power stations have to be brought on stream, including older and more polluting and inefficient ones.

In other words, it’s the dirtiest time for electricity generation.

(And the most expensive: commercial customers can be charged more for this rush hour electricity. So CERN’s LHC experiment will normally shut down each winter: particle accelerators are heavy power users, and winter electricity is just too expensive, even for the world’s biggest experiment.)

Power production is cleanest and greenest, on the other hand, when demand is lowest – usually late at night.

So, if you want greener electricity, and can’t generate your own, here’s a simple tip: spread your electricity use more evenly across the day, and try to reduce what you use from 5-7pm.  For instance . . .

• Leave the dishwasher and clothes wash till later
• Use a microwave instead of a conventional electric oven
• Listen to the radio news instead of the TV

By reducing peak demand, you’re helping to reduce the number of new power plants we have to build!

Look how much we were using this evening!

You can monitor Irish electricity demand and supply in real time on the Eirgrid website. Here’s a recent snapshot of the system (left), taken on the evening of October 20 2009.

Remember: night-time electricity is cleaner and greener. So, spread the workload, and spread the word.

And if you like this simple tip, there are lots more in my practical guide to sustainable living, Drive like a Woman, Shop like a Man.

(c) Mary Mulvihill 2009

Splash! That's 2 millivolts, thank you!

“Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain…” What if our beloved Irish rain was actually a national energy asset? Following on from my last post about piezoelectricity generated from foot and car traffic, brilliant minds at CEA/Leti-Minatec, an R&D institute in Grenoble, France, have recently developed a system that can harvest energy from falling raindrops.  “Our work could be considered as a good alternative to power systems in raining outdoor environments where solar energy is difficult to exploit,” Thomas Jager told PhysOrg.com, and he could be speaking specifically to Ireland, where, especially in winter, we can’t guarantee the sun, but can expect a healthy dose of rain.

For those of you with a technical bent, this is how it works: the scientists use a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) polymer, a piezoelectric material that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. When a raindrop impacts the 25-micrometer-thick PVDF, the polymer starts to vibrate. Electrodes embedded in the PVDF are used to recover the electrical charges generated by the vibrations, thus converting the raindrop’s mechanical energy into electrical energy.

Slow falling, large raindrops generate the most energy because raindrops falling at high speeds often lose some energy due to splash.  The scientists haven’t yet developed the mechanism for storing this energy, but surely with developments in wind and wave power this can’t be far behind?

A number of other organizations are working on piezoelectric devices as well: Zhong Lin Wang at the Georgia Institute of Technology has devised a sensor that can harvest mechanical energy by bending zinc oxide nanowires: he wants to put it in a shoe, so as you walk you generate power. There’s also Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio, who designed and used a piezoelectric boot to power his mobile phone during a hike across the Namib desert.  TEXON International is looking to raise £1m to further develop these electric shoes.

One of the beauties of piezoelectricity is that the tools involved are not beyond the reach of a clever diy inventor: while not everyone has PDVF lying around, the essence of piezoelectricity is a copper wire, that when bent produces a negative/positive charge; when the pressure on the wire is relieved, an electrical current can be detected.  So who’s up for singing in the rain?

How many volts from a dog on a trampoline?

Imagine generating electricity with every step you take; that every time you drive or cycle, energy is sent to the national grid; and that even your workout is powering the lights and heat of the gym, replacing fossil fuel – sounds great, right?  Well, piezoelectricity is here.

Piezoelectricity is basically the use of certain materials to transform kinetic energy into electricity.  I wrote in another blog about the development of piezoelectric floor tiles that turn foot traffic into electricity; now the first practical installation of this kind is in place at a Sainsbury’s supermarket in Gloucester, England, where “kinetic road plates” are being used to produce 30 kW of electricity every hour. The company’s press release describes the process as a more physical process (plates are pushed down by passing cars to create rocking motions that turn generators) than a piezoelectrical one, but the broader concept of using transient motion to generate electricity is the same.

There’s no reason why this simple, cheap and sustainable type of energy conversion can’t be used in businesses and homes all over Ireland.  And genius scientists are also working on an even more Irish-friendly form of energy conversion: raindrops into electricity, in my next post!

How would you like to get your electricity from wind power, and at cheaper rates than the ESB?  It’s really easy to switch to Airtricity online, all you need is your ESB account number (on your bill), and if you have the number of the meter reading to hand it makes things even quicker.  Within 5 minutes you can be finished with ESB and fossil fuels!

Airtricity is owned by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE).  The renewable-energy company, established in 1999, was the first independent supplier of green energy to customers both in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  It has now built up a considerable infrastructure of wind farms across Ireland, with 17 onshore wind farms generating 878 mega watts of electricity – enough to power 180,000 households. At present, the company provides green energy to just over 60,000 customers across the island of Ireland, of which 45,000 are SMEs and 15,000 are domestic customers.

Airtricity has also just announced that they are to create 200 jobs in the Irish market, in the areas of sales, customer support, billing and support services. Fifty of the positions will be created in Airtricity’s headquarters in Sandymount, Co Dublin, with the remaining 150 comprising outsourced roles.  Green, clean, and profitable: these are the kind of green shoots that matter.

The Volvo S40 1.6D DRIVe featuring the new Start/Stop technology has scooped the top honour and been named Green Car of the Year at the prestigious 2009 What Car? Green Car Awards.

The Volvo S40 DRIVe beat the BMW 118d and the Renault Megane to the top spot in the Small Family category and then stormed ahead to achieve victory over all the other category winners, including the Audi A8 and MINI Cooper S, to be awarded the prestigious overall What Car? Green Car of the Year title.

Offering exceptionally low CO2 emissions of just 104g/km and returning up to 3.9L/ 100Km on the combined cycle, What Car?’s judges praised the S40 DRIVe’s unique combination of low emissions, practicality, safety and driver enjoyment as key reasons for the win.

The overall What Car? Green Car of the Year title was handed to Stuart Kerr, Regional President of Europe, Volvo Car Corporation by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson and Steve Fowler, editor of What Car?

Steve Fowler, What Car’s editor, heaped praise on the car. He said: “Volvo’s S40 DRIVe is one seriously appealing eco-friendly car. Its low emissions don’t come at the expense of quality, safety or driver enjoyment and it’s great value, too. It’s everything we look for in a Green Car of the Year.”

Upon receiving the award, Stuart Kerr said “Volvo has a strong commitment to its environmental activities and we have worked hard to reduce the carbon footprint on all our cars by focusing on health, resource utilisation and the ecological consequences right through from production, use to disposal.

“The recent launch of the DRIVe range enables Volvo to offer mid-sized cars with the same fuel consumption and CO2 emissions as competitor’s small cars. For customers, this means that they don’t have to compromise on anything when they choose a Volvo. This highly important award is recognition of Volvo’s desire to build the most fuel efficient cars possible” he concluded.

Whatever the outcome of the UK government’s strategy for the various proposed eco-town projects (it will probably be late summer before the final shortlist is announced) the eco-town initiative has generated some good ideas that may become standard solutions for future buildings. The principal message (as we all know by now) is that lifestyle

European Initiatives …  Architects, engineers, planners and sustainability experts are looking progressively more to the eco-towns on the continent as models of what could be achieved in Ireland or the UK . Projects in Germany (Freiberg), Denmark (Copenhagen) and Sweden (Malmö and Hammarby Sjöstad – suburbs of Stockholm) all demonstrate how lifestyle changes lead to reduced environmental impact. Check out architecture week for Tango Housing in Malmö by Moore Ruble Yudell Architects.

Green Lifestyle … People have changed the way they travel and the way they live domestically and they have managed to cut their energy use and carbon footprint without affecting their quality of life. This has persuaded the British government to cite them as inspiration for the UK’s own eco-town initiative.  In Ireland and the UK, we use power stations, import our fuel from outside the country and then throw all the heat away. In Holland and Germany, they are not afraid of being accused of taking the sensible approach and try to keep their energy within the community. In Sweden, historical ownership is not allowed to impede rational measures for sustainable development. We have much to learn from these approaches.

In Europe, there is also a major difference in the approach to solving national issues such as the one of reducing carbon output from housing. There, the initiatives tend to be directed by local authorities, with much greater emphasis on collaboration between the private developers and the local authorities. Here, our local authorities mostly do not possess the resources or funding and developers are not given the same encouragement, back-up or indeed, incentives. The big house-building firms in Ireland and the UK  do not believe that large scale development using the Passivhaus standards is commercially viable here at present, and so use this as an argument for aiming towards lower standards than can actually be achieved. I would have thought that the main objective when designing an eco-town would be to achieve the best possible standards of energy efficiency.

Transition Towns Initiative …  For those of you not already aware of this movement, have a look at the question posed on the Transition Towns site  for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”

Big question – but change will be achieved if enough people want it.

What’s a green building?  One covered in solar panels and bristling with turbines?  One that proclaims its greenness by looking different?  One that costs 15% more than a ‘conventional’ building?

For British architect Howard Liddell, the answer is none of the above.

At a one-day symposium on sustainability in TCD recently, Liddell outlined his ideal green building: it looks conventional, costs no more to build, but is so well insulated and airtight that there is almost no need for heating, and certainly no need for what he calls “eco-bling”.

The main problem, as he sees it, is that technologies are an expensive add-on with a long payback time.  The sensible and cost-effective route to a green and eco-building is effective insulation.

Unfortunately, eco-bling is flavour of the month, and Liddell was particularly critical of new building regulations in some British local authorities that now require a minimum 10% of on-site renewable technologies — expensive and ineffective wind turbines on top of buildings, when they should be on remote, windy sites.

In an inspiring presentation, Liddell,  principal architect with the British-based Gaia Group, argued that we need to make insulation sexy. “Eco-minimalism, not eco-bling.”

Effective insulation alone, he said, could halve the energy demand, and significantly reduce fuel poverty.

The main challenge, in Ireland as in Britain, will be to retro-fit a high standard of insulation to existing buildings. What’s more, each building will need an individual solution.

And you can’t just fill cavity walls with foam, he argues: those walls were designed to breathe so, if you block them up, you simply create a moisture problem on the inside.

Likewise, it is not enough to seal every crack with gunge.  For a start, the gunge will crack, so you won’t get an airtight seal. And again, you have to worry about moisture buffering.

Other issues that he identified are: effective testing of a building’s air tightness; and indoor air quality in an airtight building (especially moisture content, and off-gassing from materials and furniture), making choice of materials essential.

To be truly ‘green’, he recommended using sheep’s wool insulation, as he felt there were issues with the chemicals used to treat insulation made from recycled newspaper.

In a wide ranging and fascinating talk, Liddell also recommended: mass-timber construction (not just beautiful to work with, but also good for sequestering carbon dioxide); ‘nail-free building’ (securing well designed, well fitting pieces with just a few screws), which doesn’t damage the wood and makes repairs and alterations, and recycling much easier; and low-flush toilets that use less than 2 litres of water — already achieved on aircraft toilets.

If Liddell is right, and every building leaves a customised solution, then on the plus side this would be a major job creation project architects, and the insulation and construction industries.

For more on Howard Liddell’s eco-minimalist architecture, check out his new book here.

Mary Mulvihill’s new guide to easy, sustainable living is Drive Like a Woman, Shop Like a Man (2009).  Click here to suggest a tip, and be in with a chance to win a copy of the book.

(c) Mary Mulvihill 2009  http://marymulvihill.net/

We are not a big carpooling nation. Despite high petrol prices, appalling traffic congestion and crazy parking costs, Irish commuters have been slow to embrace the idea of organised car sharing. But with recession upon us, a new site has come on board to help revamp carpooling in Ireland.

Tripmi.ie is a new all-Ireland website that connects drivers and passengers for carpooling and drivers with other drivers to car-share: work commutes, school-runs, weddings, music festivals, sports fixtures, conferences – wherever you’re going, chances are someone else is going your way.  Carpooling cuts drivers’ travel costs by at least 50%, reduces carbon emissions and traffic congestion and eliminates the stress of competing for car park spaces: it’s an idea whose time has come.

Tripmi.ie users can create profiles in which they choose their preferences regarding talking, smoking and music.  They can then find TripMates, communicating through the site without revealing any personal details. If a match isn’t made straight away, Tripmi will save the trip details so that future TripMates can get in touch.

Tripmi also caters for groups: both private (by invitation only – like a school run or wedding) or public (open to all, like a music festival or sports fixture). Companies, institutions and organisations can also benefit from the private group facility, creating greener workforces, improving colleague interaction, reducing pressure on parking spaces and lightening their carbon footprint. 

To find out more log onto tripmi.ie

If you are planning any eco-building scheme, then you will place green energy somewhere near the top of your list. It is very easy to simply look at the descriptions issued by the manufacturers of renewable energy production systems, but how do you equate the figures with what you actually need? This is a question that I am frequently asked and there is no other way to answer it than to use …

…Simple Mathematics …  The following is simply an exercise in statistics and does not address the ethical issues of choosing energy supply, but all the same it is a task which must be tackled before any sustainable building can be successfully designed. For those of you who grow pale at the sight of calculations – then accept my apologies; but the concept is an essential element in good eco-design, and if need be, you ought to obtain balanced professional guidance.

Energy Units … You should calculate energy requirements by using units of energy – kilowatt hours in terms of time (kWh/day) – in other words the amount of power used over 24 hours. In the UK, the total amount of energy consumed * by each person is reckoned to average about 125 kWh/day, but this figure obviously covers all power usage. Depending on the source of information, it is estimated that the average UK home uses electrical power of between 3300 kWh/year (or just over 9 kWh/day) and 4700 kWh/year (about 13kWh/day). Northern Ireland’s domestic consumption for 2007 averaged 4400 kWh/year (12 kWh/day). Ireland’s consumption per capita is roughly equal to the UK. Check your electricity bills to see how you compare.

To give an example of how appliances measure up, if your home uses an average of 500 W (0.5 kW) then it will consume 12 kWh/day. If left switched on all day, an energy-efficient (11W) light bulb uses (0.011 x 24) = 0.264 kWh/day and a desktop computer using an average of 125W will consume (0.125 x 24) 3 kWh/day. It is not so simple to calculate the power consumption of some appliances just by checking out the wattage since power demands can fluctuate, e.g. fridges use power according to their ‘chill’ setting in relation to the ambient room temperature. Don’t forget that other non-electrical appliances such as stoves or oil burners also need to be included.

Renewable Energy … Renewable-power generating appliances need to be compared to see what they can achieve for you. Roof-mounted micro-wind turbines are probably not very effective in providing for your overall electrical needs. It has been estimated that a “600 W” micro-turbine mounted on a typical roof in England generates only 0.04 kWh per day – about 7 per cent of the power used by an 11 W light bulb.
In contrast, roof-mounted solar water heaters make good sense. Even where the sunlight levels achieve only about 30 per cent, a 3-square-metre panel can supply on average about 3.8 kWh per day (i.e. perhaps half of a typical family’s hot water).

Other technologies are often viewed as ‘less green’, such as heat pumps; but if they drew power solely from renewable sources (i.e. wind farms, etc) then they would be a logical environmental choice. Some of the newer ones can deliver as much as 4.9 kWh of heat in the form of hot air or hot water, using 1kWh of electricity to do so.
A final thought… before paying out money to provide energy, first put into action ways of reducing your power requirements.