One of a series of articles about electricity and alternative energy by Derek Andrews

EDF - reducing costs                            

Remember EDF cannot be legally disconnected, except by EDF… so… there are other ways to skin the dinosaur.  

I am working on one of Baldrick’s most cunning plans… how to shunt EDF and use the power that you generate from your turbine and PV plates…. You still have to (unfortunately) pay EDF the ‘abonnement’, but in the likely event of the odd power cut that EDF say is entirely probable this Xmas due to their apparent mis-management of the National Grid, the lights will stay on and everyone will keep nice and warm.  

This project should be ready during the beginning of 2007  

How not to pay EDF all that they think you should  

On going from the first instalment, I noted that although you consume in KW and the meter is in KVA (artificial loading of up to 20%), there are numerous ways to reduce the actual cost of what you pay EDF.  

Let’s start with lighting, unless you reserve most of the evenings beside an open roaring fireplace and candlelight! Not like me… in a HLM! (No chimney!)  

Economy is the watchword: Don’t use those standard French light bulbs and if you have arrays of halogens filling your homestead, you’re multiplying the CO2 emissions every time you light up!  

Standard Tungsten light bulbs are energy efficient… NO… efficiency of 2%

This means that for a 100W bulb, only 2W is used to produce the light and 98W is heat  

Halogen light bulbs are energy efficient… NO… slightly better efficiency of 5%

A 50W spot uses 2.5W for the light and 47.5W in heat  

CFL… a real power saver… ‘LBC’ en Français… 11W gives the same light output as a 60W standard bulb and is efficient at over 60% (7W for the light and 4W in heat)  

For an example of savings, in the office here in Saint Malo, I have removed all but one of my 50W halogens and changed to a new ‘Megaman’ light unit, available form Leroy Merlin and others, slots straight into the GU10 base, are 9W, efficient at 72% and give a better light than a 50W spot.  

Result: a reduction of my electricity bill of 80%.  

I used to pay over €100 a month here in the office, now I pay €25.  

The next generation of CFL have already arrived, power efficiency of 72 to 75%, but the real arrival for 2007 is my new range of GU10 replacements in LED. These are exactly the same size as a GU10 50W halogen spot… light is better than the Megaman 9W and are efficient at 92%, but, as usual cost more (you gotta pay more for technology)  

Taking a standard 2 bed HLM (like mine); there are a total of 20 light points in the flat. The wife likes lots of ambience lighting, so 20 is her ideal. Counting up the total of watts, I came to 1360W of standard light bulbs…. Ouch... this has a cost of €0.10 per hour and she lights, on average, for 2100 hours per year. Cost… €210 per year in inefficient lighting  

If I install CFL/LBC lamps in the house, 9W =40W; 11W=60W and 15W=75W, the consumption during 2006 fell to 260W… Cost €0.02 per hour… or €42 for the year!  

In my brother-in-law’s hotel in Nîmes, I changed all standard light bulbs for him in summer 2005, his electricity bill fell by 80%, this hotel will be first to try out the new LED packages, and in a comparison with 2004-2005 bills, I have already estimated that there will be a reduction of almost 91% in lighting costs alone.  

Imagine what EDF economies could be made if everyone did this! EDF would go to the wall!  

In the USA, a member of Congress announced not long ago that if every household in the USA installed two CLF lamps… the Government could shut down one nuclear power plant!  

Another saving is in the economy of raw materials and the increasing costs in recycling  

A standard tungsten filament lamp has a life of 1000 to 1500 hours, or 6 months in our house

A CFL has an average life of 10 to 12000 hours, or 5 to 6 years in our house

My new range of LED spot lamps have a design life of 100 000 hours… imagine….NEARLY 50 YEARS  

This will almost certainly give some of you the ideas to change standard habits… go buy some CFL units and see for yourself what reductions can be made.  

In later issues:  

Wind power; Solar hot water; Heat Pumps for house and Pool and loads of energy efficiency ideas to make French Life so much more economical.  

Derek Andrews  

Derek Andrews

A.M.I. eurl

02 99 82 15 99

http://amifrance.monsite.orange.fr

derek.andrews@wanadoo.fr

Derek Andrews, is a happily married ex-pat Brit living and running a small company based in Saint Malo specialising in the economy of energy, the production of electricity in all its forms and the safe usage of this energy. His website is here.