Owls can help you wise up to your power usage

Published on Saturday 19 December 2009 18:23

WHEN wondering what to buy the man or woman who has everything, we usually end up in the gadget department. Pre-paid dongles, to allow internet access anywhere, are a favourite stocking filler this Yuletide.

But you could do worse than opt for an Owl wireless energy monitor, which could bring the double seasonal joy of cutting your electricity bills while keeping loved ones from under your feet over the holiday, as they go around the house checking consumption.

Or, looked at another way, for around 30 you have a readymade party game. Guess how much this appliance costs per hour to run, with appropriate rewards and forfeits.

Using an Owl to check and hopefully cut your electricity consumption is strongly recommended by lobby groups such as Which? and uSwitch, who are curiously more lukewarm about the benefits of energy company's and the government's favoured solutions: smart meters.

Smart meters should be installed in all homes by 2020, and will allow suppliers to read consumption from a distance, thereby cutting billing and meter reading expenses. Ultimately they might be able to talk to appliances and encourage them to switch off over peak periods.

But a Which? spokesman argues that claims that smart meters will save money for consumers and cut their usage are dubious.

He said: "Energy providers will make the biggest savings. According to the government's own figures, smart meters will reduce staffing costs and save 36.7 million a year, but that represents a cost reduction of 1.43 per home.

"And while companies will pay for the meters to be installed, over time they will seek to recoup this cost from customers.

"The biggest problem with smart meters is they won't give consumers any more real-time information than we have now about how much energy is being consumed and by what. For that you need wireless energy monitors."

USwitch spokesman Wil Marples agrees: "These monitors are relatively cheap to buy and an excellent way to help you take control of your electricity usage. Unfortunately, they are only available for electricity, but hopefully gas will follow.

"But they are easy to use, and you can carry them around with you from room to room. They help you locate appliances which are greedy, but also see when your overall cost is rising. This can encourage households to think about switching off items that are not in use to bring their total cost down."

The monitors are available from electrical retailers, department stores, home and ware sections in supermarkets and can be bought online. Which? recommends as its best buy the Owl Micro CM130, at 25, which it says is a bargain, but warns there is no memory function to compare usage over time.

For those looking for something a bit less basic, there is the Owl CM119 at 34, which can be used with up to four tariffs. Finally, Which? likes the Eco-Eye Elite at 40, although it can only be used with a single tariff and the researchers found it tricky to fit.

Overall, Which? reported the readings were 71 per cent accurate for the Owl CM130, 80 per cent for the Owl CM119 and 78 per cent for the Eco-Eye.

To get the unit up and running, you have to clip a sensor around the cable to the meter which carries incoming electricity. This is then plugged to a monitor, which sends the wireless signal to the portable display unit.

You must have set up the portable monitor with information regarding your current electricity tariff, which would include unit price and any special rates for, say, nighttime usage.

USwitch's Marples says: "Using one of these monitors is one of the single most significant things anyone can do to cut their electricity usage and bills and become more fuel-efficient. The other thing is obviously to switch to the cheapest supplier for them."

Which? is campaigning for companies to automatically roll out these monitors. Although the government agrees that such monitors could help cut fuel consumption, there are no plans to compel suppliers to distribute them for free.

Electric shock shows I'm guilty as charged

THOUGH a complete gadget phobe, I was fascinated and surprised by the Owl when I tested it at home, writes Teresa Hunter.

The bottom line is it showed clearly, and in simple price per hour numbers, the difference between my annual energy cost with almost nothing running – a tad over 100 – and the 1,400 sting to the bank balance of letting the power roar.

It also humiliatingly revealed my many misconceptions about what costs and what does not.

Most valuable of all was the simple portable monitor, which constantly tells you what is being used. It proved an indispensable prompt to get me out of the chair to switch off the source.

Will it change my behaviour? Almost certainly. For example, I was shocked to find my computer, which is left running around the clock, 365 days of the year, costs 3p per hour, or 262 annually.

True, when not in use, it goes into sleep mode. Still, I reckon I could make savings by shutting it down when not in use on evenings and weekends.

By contrast our televisions were much more economic than I anticipated. The 27in flatscreen in the lounge, which I thought would be an energy guzzler, sucked up 1.4p an hour, with the stereo adding 0.4p and the DVD player 0.4p. Given it's only on a couple of hours a day, that's not prohibitive. The newer 22in in another room was even cheaper, costing 0.8p an hour.

The kitchen was my energy trap. The kettle gulped 22p an hour, and my electric oven 27p. The large rings on the top cost 20p an hour and the smaller ones 17p. The microwave gobbled up 19p an hour.

The lowest I could get my electricity price with everything switched off was 1.41p per hour. So that must be the cost of our two fridge-freezers and electrical controls for the boiler.

Energy-saving lighting is also dirt cheap. One energy-saving light pushed the unit price up to 1.77p, indicating a 0.3p increase. By contrast, the halogen lights in the kitchen fired through 4p an hour. And the fan heater whizzed out warmth at 38p an hour!

The Owl is not perfect, as readings fluctuate. But it gives a good guide to usage and how to make savings.

When I went around the house and switched on all the lights and gadgets, as if all the family were home, usage soared to about 150p with one fan heater on. Or 1,314. Not a bill I will now have to face, thanks to my Owl.