Category Archives: Green

Defining the social grid

February 4, 2010 – 1:31 pm

behaviour_graph

I’m not sure if there has been any talk about the Social Grid but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about it. When I say Social Grid, I mean managing and sharing energy usage online. Bleeding edge developers and early adopters of technology are not averse to sharing their energy usage online. But if the internet is going to be a reliable and secure tool for managing energy usage by the mass market, there are various attributes required.

The social grid is a reality now, with the Government about to start trialling a social networking type system for a small sample of communities spread across the UK. Each community will compete and compare energy usage.

So with this in mind, here is my attempt at defining the social grid. This is very much a work in progress, which no doubt will be added over time and discussed and criticised etc. I look forward to peoples thoughts on these initial points. Let’s try and shape the future of energy monitoring.

In the Social Grid

1.  The user is boss and can restrict or share energy usage data as they wish
2.  Data is anonymous for public consumption on the internet and in comparison tables
3.  Monitoring devices and hardware must be low power
4.  Integration with online services for mashup analysis of data like the AMEE API
5.  A user can share real, anonymous, randomised or event driven data to users or groups of users with online services
6.  Cross platform and cross device

By chris dalby | Tagged , , , | Comments (8)

Whatever Happened to the Plastic Bag Tax?

September 24, 2009 – 10:07 pm

The plastic bag tax is due to increase in Ireland and is planned to be 40p per bag.  When the plastic bag tax was introduced a few years ago in the Republic of Ireland, I really thought this would be adopted in England very quickly.  Now, Ireland plans to double this tax to further deter shoppers from using plastic bags.  Yet still not one political party in Britain has picked up on this as a possible double whammy to take the environmental high ground and to solve all the budget cut issues and revenue raising in one hit.

The time is right for a plastic bag tax, even with all the environmental and climate change awareness that has been so high profile over recent months, I still see the majority of supermarket shoppers indulging in multiple plastic bags week in week out, while supermarket staff continue to try and ram plastic bags down your thoat.  As a serial fabric shopping bag fiend, I have genuinly had numerous occasions with supermarket checkout staff where I have had to almost argue I don’t need bags because I have my own shopping bags.

So the time is right for a plastic bag tax and I welcome it.  We need to raise revenue for the country, and a plastic bag tax is trivial and gives the individual a choice.  Those prefering to avoid the tax, can easily use their own shopping bags and can sleep easy at night knowing that they are saving the planet.

Maybe administering and implementing the system is less than simple.  For instance, self service checkouts are commonplace in supermarkets nowadays, but lessons can surely be learnt from the Ireland model.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Culture, Politics | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

HomeCamp 2 is this Saturday

April 23, 2009 – 9:15 pm

Following hot on the heels of the first HomeCamp, so HomeCamp 2 happens. For the uninitiated, HomeCamp is the home hacking, automation and green technology community. Think smart meters, monitoring and graphing energy usage.

HomeCamp 2 is on Saturday 25th April 2009, 10am until 6pm at Bash Creations, 65-71 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4PJ.  A map of the venue is here.

HomeCamp 2 aims to build on the success of the first event, with an OpenSim event running alongside for virtual participation and to demo the RealWorld and VirtualWorld modelling and automation that the community has been doing.

I’d like to say a big thank you to our sponsors, CurrentCost, Greenmonk, Pachube , ReactionGrid and Onzo, as without them this event would not be happening.

theattick.tv are the official Media Partners for HomeCamp and will be streaming the event over on the HomeCamp ustream.tv channel and also streaming into the HomeCamp sim on ReactionGrid.  They will also be interviewing people thoughout the day and putting together video footage from the day for HomeCamp TV.  So if you are coming to the event, be sure to get yourself on film!

So far have around 75 people signed up.  If you can’t make it, then you can tune in either on the live video ustream, or sign up on ReactionGrid and join us virtually on OpenSim.

More details and videos on the blog http://homecamp.org.uk

For the wiki, which includes signup and is the main portal to all the online activity: http://homecamp.pbwiki.com/

Live video stream on the day of the event and recordings from the first HomeCamp: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/homecamp

By chris dalby | Also posted in User Groups, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (2)

Virtual HomeCamp meeting today at 3pm BST

April 23, 2009 – 9:38 am

We have a Virtual HomeCamp meeting today on the HomeCamp sim on ReactionGrid.  It is a planning session for the real event which takes place this Saturday.

As we have people attending the session today from all over the world, and what with all the daylight savings, I have been scratching my head about this.  So I decided it would be best to put a clock somewhere and I came accross these excellent clocks.

So the meeting today is 3PM BST (GMT+1).  Here is the time now in BST:


Here is the time in Second Life Time (SLT) is in (PST / GMT -08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada):

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Home Camp Looking Back Looking Forward

February 15, 2009 – 4:13 pm

Last weekend we silently opened up registration for the next Home Camp in April 2009.  We are yet to confirm the exact date and venue.  However, head over to the wiki and sign-up and suggest session topics.

http://homecamp.pbwiki.com/

This week, we released some video footage over on the Home Camp wiki, which was originally shot for the fridaymorningreport.tv 24 hour Marathon in aid of Medicines sans Frontiers.  Sadly, this was postponed, as Craig has seriously done his back in.  Get well soon Craig, look forward to seeing you back to full speed soon.

We’re still planning on contributing to the FMR marathon when it does go ahead, in the mean time, indulge in some of the footage that we shot.

The first Home Camp TV video is a brief chat with Martin Dix from CurrentCost about how the company’s technology is moving forward.

The second video is an interview with Andy Piper, looking back at the first Home Camp and looking forward to the next one in April. General rambling about software and hardware hacks.

We cover a lot of subjects in this conversation, including home automation, Current Cost, Google Power Meter, Pachube, Nokia Home Control Center, arduino, Home Easy to name a few.


Home Camp from chris dalby on Vimeo.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch, Video | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (2)

David Cameron’s Low Carbon Economy

January 20, 2009 – 1:35 am
Low Carbon Economy

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: smart carbon)

David Cameron launched the Conservatives ‘Green Paper’ on the Low Carbon Economy (LCE) on Sunday 18th January 2008.  You can also watch the video of the LCE launch on the Conservatives Mogulus Channel.  I would have embedded the video, but it insisted on autoplaying and there did not seem to be a permalink for the video.

The main points of the LCE are as follows:

An electricity internet – we will add computing intelligence to electricity networks by introducing a smart grid and the use of smart meters in homes. This will allow demand and supply to be intelligently managed, and pave the way for large-scale use of renewable energy sources.
A system of feed-in tariffs – we will create a decentralised energy revolution by paying people who produce energy from renewable resources
A new national recharging network – this will enable Britain to lead the world in replacing traditional cars with electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles
New low carbon energy sources – we will enable biogas, methane produced from farm and food wastes, to replace up to 50% of our residential gas heating
Low carbon buildings, transport and commerce – including a new entitlement for every home to be fitted with up to £6,500 of energy efficient improvement

Having watched the webcast, David Cameron massively emphasizes the policy of smart meters. As I pointed out in a post last week, smart meters have been written into English law and energy suppliers will be obliged to provide smart meters to customers.  So I see no benefit in the Conservatives emphasizing smart meters as though they are the great inventors of a new found technology. It is a matter of course that they will be installed, whether the Conservatives come into power or not.

The Green Paper also includes a vision for encouraging people to generate their own energy and sell back to the national grid.

We will create a decentralised energy revolution by paying people who produce energy from renewable resources

The system of feed in tariffs is an interesting idea and the future of energy generation.  Although as far as I am aware, the rates for feed in tariffs are already scheduled to be increased to encourage micro energy generation, so there is nothing new here also.

The claims of tapping into farm and food methane waste are over ambitious at this stage.

we will enable biogas, methane produced from farm and food wastes, to replace up to 50% of our residential gas heating.

I am not sure of the timeframe quoted to meet the 50% claims, but clearly this will not be a fast move.  Even if the Conservatives win the next general election, I find it hard to believe that these sorts of figures would be ahieved with 3 terms of Government.

While I welcome the general thinking behind the LCE ‘Green Paper’ policies of the Conservative Party, I have to say that I agree with Nick Clegg on the substance of this new ‘Green Paper’:

This announcement is like David Cameron riding his bike, but what is important is what is in the car behind him.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Video | Tagged , , , , | Comments (1)

Smart Meters Just Became Smarter

January 14, 2009 – 9:06 pm

After the oil is gone

Image Licensed under Creative Commons from Identity Chris is’ Photostream

A new utility company in the UK called First:Utility announced the launch of a new smart metering service for customers today.  The service means an end to estimated energy bills, no overpaying, and more importantly will prevent customers from getting unwelcome surprises when bills arrive.

Enjoy complete control of your energy usage enabling you to cut costs and reduce your carbon footprint

The smart meters are connected to First:Utility via mobile phone, and send one reading for gas every day, and 48 readings for the electricity each day (once every half an hour).  The data is used by First:Utility to produce accurate bills without the need of meter readers.  The customer has access to a realtime chart developed in flex (by the looks of it I think), along with a current cost meter for the customer to track their energy use both online and by looking at the current cost meter in the home.  Although with only one gas reading per day, it is unclear whether the gas metering will allow the customer to make any meaningful analysis of their gas usage at different times throughout the day.

You can see a video from BBC2’s Working Lunch programme that shows the new system from First:Utility.  This is not on iPlayer, so I think it should be fine for non UK viewers.

If you do not live in the UK, you probably do not realise that energy bills are a huge bone of contention. The energy companies were privatised starting with British Gas in 1986 and the electricity companies were reorganised and privatised in 1989, thereby creating commercial entities focussed on making profits for shareholders.  Which leads us to the situation the country finds itself in today with the big six energy companies having a strangle hold on the domestic energy market, rocketing energy prices and 4.4 million households in energy poverty.

According to oilbarrel.com, Brent Crude Oil is currently trading at around $45 a barrel, more than $100 below peak pricing in July.  Gas and electricity prices are linked to oil prices and while the wholesale pricing of gas and electricity has tracked the falling oil prices, the energy companies have still not passed any savings on to customers.

The Energy Act 2008, along with the Planning Act and Climate Change Act, form the basis of legislating the delivery and management of the UKs energy supplies.  This Act allows the licenses granted to the energy companies to be altered, requiring the energy companies to install smart meters in various customer sectors, including the domestic sector.  So the energy companies have no choice.  They will need to be using this technology.

This is good news, as customers will be able to get real time data of their energy usage, but more importantly, the technology will eventually allow the consumer to sign up for deals that enable their smart meter to make choices throughout the day regarding the best tariff and supplier, switching for the cheapest option on demand.

While we are not quite there yet with the idea of dynamic supply and pricing, this does pave the way for the type of geekery being developed at Home Camp to actually make a difference by being useful to everyone.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Pachube Air – The First Release

January 10, 2009 – 2:37 am


Pachube Air from chris dalby on Vimeo.

I have been developing an Adobe Air application for a few days using Adobe Flex 3.  It has been a steep learning curve all round.  But I am pleased to have finished the first release of Pachube Air, a cross platform Air app that can organise your Pachube (pronounced patch bay) charts and is available for download on pc, mac or linux.

I have spent the last week trying to work out flex.  It has been an interesting journey.  As this is relatively new technology, there is not much documentation around.  So you find yourself having to write the manual.  So I’ll be releasing a coding tutorial over the weekend of binding a TileList to a sqlite database in Adobe Air.  There simply wasn’t an example of binding to a database anywhere online as far as I could find.  I also had a look in Waterstones, and apart from not having any of the O’Reilly books that I wanted, all examples used XML to demonstrate a TileList.

So I spent a few days twiddling, and thanks to Critter for helping me out.  I am planning to further devlop this to incorporate a more tabs containing charts and controls for the home automation hub and RSMB.

[ Update 17/03/2009 - you can now download a copy of Pachube Air, although I still haven't added the delete button.  But feel free to have a play ]

Download Here

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How Green Is Your Home?

January 9, 2009 – 12:13 am


Photo by Ozyman Licensed under Creative Commons

Last night BBC 2 aired the latest of episode of It’s not easy being green.  The show features Mr bushy tash himself Dick Strawbridge and his team of eco house experts that show you how to be green in the home.

From weddings to funerals, shopping to off-setting and solar to soap-nuts, this series is jam-packed with everything you need to know.

I was amazed to hear on the show that concrete accounts for an eighth of the world’s carbon footprint.  Who needs to worry about long haul?   They also featured a natural swimming pool producing water good enough to drink.  This adds a completely new dimension.  Almost like a grown-ups version of swimming in the river.

The show also featured the installation of solar panels on Strawbridge’s house.  I also want to get one of the handheld gadgets used for measuring the current wattage of the available solar power.  I have been intending to start playing with solar panels, but just haven’t managed to organise it yet.  Hopefully more to come on that soon.  But make sure you check out the show’s website, which is jam packed full of resources and information for home energy efficiency and generation and general greenness.  So head over and take a look.

After playing with my current cost meter for a few weeks, I have reduced my average daily electricity usage from 21.5 units per day to 9.5 units per day.  A staggering reduction, just from a bit of shuffling around of devices and remembering to switch things off.  I am now in credit to my energy company to the amount of £215.  Quite unbelievable.

So I have reduced the electricity as far as possible for the moment.  To make further reductions, I need to look at replacing the halogen spots that I thought were a fantastic idea in the bathroom, kitchen, dining room, study and up the stairs.  How I regret having these lights put in now.  One way we have got around the issue in the dining room is to use a lamp with a low power bulb that only sucks about 8 watts.  Quite a bit different than the 160 watts the spots draw.

If I am to reduce my gas usage, I first need to start monitoring the gas supply.  So, I will take a look at doing this with a bit of arduino geekery.

By chris dalby | Comments (4)

Meeting the Slug

June 18, 2008 – 12:26 am

If you read this blog, you will realise from my previous couple of posts that I have been taken with the Current Cost craze that has hit town. That’s right folkes, I’ve put my house online and I’m monitoring energy usage in the name of saving money.

Today I received delivery of my Linksys NSLU2, also known as a SLUG. Advertised as network storage for less than £60, the specs are ok. But then with a relatively easy firmware flash, you have a linux server for only 4watts of electricity and a home automation hub or IP phone system on your hands or whatever you want to use a linux server for.

I have literally only played with this for a couple of hours and I am amazed how easy it has been to flash the firmware and setup Unslung, a linux distro developed specifically for this device.

The flash upgrade to the Unslung firmware is well documented and very easy. I also attached a 40GB external hard drive and changed the system into Unslung mode which was a breeze. Simply follow the readme file and all is explained.

I now have a 40gb mobile hdd attached via USB to the slug. More than enough for my needs. Next up, general config, the nanobroker, MySql and reporting. All I need now is a cable.  Stay tuned.

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New Toy: Saving energy with Current Cost

June 12, 2008 – 6:40 pm

So I had a new toy arrive today, a Current Cost meter that monitors your electricity use and gives a huge amount of readings out the box. They were on special at www.ecogadgetshop.co.uk. The really cool thing about this gadget is tht it also has an RJ-45 socket on the bottom, allowing you to link the system to the internet

I am looking forward to playing with this. Apart from the obvious cost savings in energy use that I will make, it will also be the start of automating the house and outputting data into twitter. I am also hoping I can build some commands into twitter allowing me to control the house form anywhere.

So here is a quick video that I put together where I show the meter.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Culture, Video | Comments (0)

Where is Microsoft’s Green Policy?

November 14, 2007 – 11:24 am

I was having a read over on Greenmonk, a blog by James Governor following his visit to the Microsoft TechEd IT Forum held at Barcelona this week.  James raises a valid point about Microsoft’s policy on environmental issues.  Like, where is it?

I recently attended a Microsoft partner event at Reading about Central and Local Government.  One of the speakers – sorry I forget his name – was talking about the desktop proposition for Government and the vast opportunity for licensing the new desktop products – Vista, Office 2007 etc.  He also mentioned that he could talk for a day on how Vista is the most green Operating System out there and that Mcrosoft is doing mre than the other vendors on green issues.  I must admit, I was taken back by this bold statemet, but nonetheless, it would be good to see the stats and the theory behind that.

Whatever your view on the environment and green issues, it is a hot topic in the UK and one that should be seen as an opportunity.  The other big vendors, like Sun and IBM are putting out green policies and also setting the framework and forums for helping businesses address green issues. It would be good to see Microsoft make a stand too.

By chris dalby | Also posted in Tech Watch | Comments (1)

Saving energy, every little helps

September 14, 2007 – 1:41 pm

I was reading an article this morning while on the library written by Richard Ehrlich in last weeks Saturday times magazine. He was looking at the 3 main ways for cooking sausages:

1. Frying pan 10 -20 minutes
2. Grill 10 – 15 minutes
3. Roasting 20 -40 minutes

These are all ways that we are familiar with for russling up a tasty banger. The problem is, that we get into habits of doing things the same, passed down from parents, habit and lazyness or comfortableness.

His point was that sausages can be cooked in frying pan with a lid on the pan using 3 minutes of cooking time and 2 minutes of residual heat cooking at the end with the stove turned off. Plus pork can be eaten slightly pink nowadays.

So we’re looking at a minum saving of 7 minutes cooking time. Sounds like nothing, but imagine if this caught on and became the new way to cook sausages. Imagine how much electricity would be saved if adopted World over.

You could apply this concept to boiling the kettle – only fill up a mugs worth of water when boiling. Saves water and minimises electricity required to boil less water.

This pricinciple is the same as turning off your production servers when you don’t need them, like at night and over the weekend.

IMAGE_409

By chris dalby | Also posted in Culture | Comments (1)