Go ahead and sleep, I’ll save the planet

We all love the idea of being energy efficient, reducing carbon footprints and saving money. However, one thing that usually stops us from being energy efficient is…well, us. How can we commit to saving energy when it can’t be a priority over basic human needs such as sleeping or eating? Wouldn’t it be nice if we had someone stay home closing windows, turning off lights or making sure you didn’t leave the iron on?

That someone is here, and it’s called an automated home control system. This system provides an intelligent way of unifying the lighting, heating, and ventilation systems.

Not sold? Wait, it get’s better.

Using outdoor weather meters, the control system can harvest weather patterns to adjust internal temperature without using conventional methods such as air conditioning or central heating.

For example, if it’s a hot day in July, why not close the blinds and open up the windows – automatically. Let the control system do the heavy lifting and you can sit back and relax, or even leave the home knowing your carbon footprint is being reduced without you having to stress over switching off the light in the kitchen.

Smart Meters are coming…

With Britain’s campaign to roll out 46 million smart meters by 2020, your home control system and the smart meter will be able to control exactly how much energy you would like to use – or budget.  Smart metering is not fully available in the UK, however when the national roll out of the program comes into effect, it will already be fully compatible with your home control system.

This means that cutting your spending for energy costs can be done intelligently by the control system and in most cases you won’t have to sacrifice comfort.  The control system will work harder to make sure outdoor weather patterns are harvested to their maximum potential while high energy appliances are used only when needed.

When we switch off our computers and televisions, we’re assuming they’re are off and not consuming electricity. Interestingly enough, these electrical appliances are continuously using energy in standby mode, also referred to as vampire power or a phantom load. This can cost the average household 5 – 10% more on electricity bills each year. This is one of the ways home automation can take the hassle out of saving energy and detect the computer you’ve just turned off, and actually stop it from consuming energy.

Saving Money

When it comes to energy prices in our own home, we have a general idea of how much the bills will be at the end of the month. Let’s take general out of the equation and replace with exact.

At the end of the day, we all want to save money on everything we do. However, this can be a monumental task when it comes to energy bills, simply because most of us don’t know how much energy each load of laundry will consume, or even leaving on that TV for a few hours after we’ve gone to bed.

In comes smart metering technology. Think of it as a very responsible parent that will always turn off the light you left on in the bathroom last night.

The Control 4 system will allow you to set an energy consumption point (how much energy you would like to use in a time period), and act accordingly to help make this number possible.

Let your home automation system decide whether to dim the lights to use less energy, only allow you to use your washing machine during off peak times, or supplement the heating on a sunny winter’s day by opening the blinds and lowering the heat.

Here’s an example of the “responsible parent” at work:

1. Every Wednesday morning you do your laundry, by 10 pm you get home from work and hang your clothes to dry.
2. Little do you know, each time you wash your clothes you consume approximately 9 kwH (approximately 1 hour of washing time)
3. According to average rates, you can expect to pay approximately £0.15 per kwH in the UK. Washing your clothes every Wednesday morning will cost you £1.35 and over 52 weeks it will cost you £70.2.

You receive your new smart meter!

1. As you go to put your laundry in on Wednesday, you notice some funny numbers on the control panel. It says “off peak rate: £0.06 5pm-8pm”
2. Knowing how intelligent you are, you decide to put the soap and clothes in the washer, but you don’t turn it on. Instead, you tell your smart home to turn on the washing machine at 5pm.
3. Your new cost per wash is £0.63 and over a year it’s reduced to £32.76!
4. You’ve just saved 46% per wash, and you didn’t even notice the change. Well done.

Google has a much simpler 1:10 explanation:

Home automation is the next wave in energy efficiency, mainly because it takes out the human element and uses cold hard logic to save you money. The initial cost of investment is only a down payment to saving money in the long run, and you can rest assured that you’re doing your part to help the environment.

Image Credits

Image 1: http://gadgets.boingboing.net
Image 2: http://www.ukhomeideas.co.uk
Image 3: http://www.lansingmi.gov