Climate Change Series: How to cut carbon out of your heating, P8
- Shidonna Raven
- 7 hours ago
- 3 min read
By Shidonna Raven, Chief Editor
& Laura Cole, BBC
November 16, 2020
Source: BBC
Photo Source: Unsplash,
This Year we are bringing you Our 12 Months to 12 Climate Change Goals & New Habits Series. The series is designed to help you begin making simple and easy habit changing goals that can have a huge impact on your pocket and the environment, you are leaving to your children. We hope that you will be inspired to make your own Climate Change Goals and share them here with the community.
Climate Change can seem daunting as a whole, however, we are many. When we each make our own contribution, we believe these add up to huge numbers. Be inspired, encouraged and most of all enjoy yourself. Involve your children and help start their own space online where they can engage in Climate Change Habits.
We recently brought you the Cooling (Homes/Buildings/Office) Series for the July & August Climate Change Habit Changing Goal to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, This change can have a huge impact on Climate Change and is important Habit for Corporations and Community (Individuals) alike.
September is all about EnergyEfficiencies (at home, in the office and other buildings), which can have a huge impact on the environment. In September the 12 Month Habit forming Climate Change Goal is Solar Panels. Even if you decide to go another route, we invite you to learn more about Solar Panels. Solar Panels are having a huge impact in states and locations like California, that lead in such energy efficiencies. Choose carefully, in some cases Solar Panels have other environment impacts, some associated with production and longevity of usage. Heating and cooling can require a huge energy load depending on where you live and the weather differential.
Enjoy this Series, Apply what you have learned here and share the Journey with the community here by making posts and submitting photos and video to us. It could be featured on our eZine here. Also be a Climate Change Community Champions and share with your community and help empower them to make New Habit forming Climate Change Goals also in the community you share.
Smart heating
In the remains of a coal mine in east Belgium is a laboratory which is experimenting on another potential solution for keeping carbon emissions down. This is the EnergyVille complex where Chris Caerts researches “smart” fixes to improve energy efficiency. He’s often asked, is intelligent technology the answer to emitting less carbon?
“Compared to having a boiler switched on all the time, a remote app which turns it off when it is not needed will appear revolutionary,” he says. “But a well-programmed ‘dumb’ thermostat could achieve near the same savings.”
“We need systems that work automatically and learn how to make the most of changeable energy such as wind and solar.” That might mean a hot water system that activates when it receives a strong signal from the solar panels, or even knows when to expect one.
In theory, an intelligent heating system should be able to make similar decisions on a daily basis, with information from regional wind and solar farms. Consumption could be timed when there is the greenest energy mix forecast.
For those with gas boilers, a smart thermostat which learns which rooms you use and when could also help to reduce your carbon footprint some, says Caerts.
While truly intelligent, flexible systems that adapt to the energy mix might still be some years away, a change in mentality can start now. The National Grid, for example, launched an app earlier this year which allows users to work out when the greenest time to use electricity is. One website even offered those taking up baking during the pandemic lockdown to decide the best time to crank up their ovens in order to have the least environmental impact.
“We need to be thinking about how we can steer consumption to maximally coincide with times in the day when the carbon intensity is the lowest,” adds Caerts.
With many of us likely to be spending more time in our homes this winter, it could make a big difference.
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