How Solar Power Can Save Lots Of Wasted Energy by Garfield Hodgson

Let's face it, we waste energy all the time. I do it. You do it. We don't even realise we are doing it most of the time.

To highlight this fact, a survey was recently commissioned about the energy habits of 5,000 Europeans which found that 71 per cent of UK consumers leave devices on standby at least once a week. This costs the average household £37 ($60) a year.

And 65 per cent leave their mobile phone chargers plugged in at least once a week - almost three times as often as Germans.

This on its own wastes more than £60 million ($90 million) - enough to supply 66,000 homes - and is responsible for 250,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year.

Yikes! That's a lot. And that's just in the UK, a relatively small country. I must admit, it's something I used to do myself. Not any more though!

I now own a great little solar energy battery charger that both cuts down my electricity bill and reduces my carbon footprint.

You see, solar energy can offset a fair bit of wasted energy. Whether that be for saving electricity or for heating hot water, the difference can be substantial.

UK households also use £1.9 billion ($2.7 billion) worth of electricity every year on lighting. Yet more than 60 per cent of us forget to switch lights off when leaving the room.

However Britons believe that there are things which could be done to help curb their energy habits.

Over half of those surveyed said they would support the government introducing 'environmental health' warnings on products that are not energy efficient and cause a high level of carbon dioxide emissions.

The government's long-awaited energy review, will signal a clampdown on the wasting of e nergy in the home with more use of alternative energy, such as wind turbines and solar energy.

Figures contained in the review show that gadgets left unnecessarily on standby or connected to chargers squander electricity worth £740m ($1.1 billion) each year and are responsible for 4m tonnes of excess carbon dioxide emissions each year.

About The Author

I run the popular total solar energy website. I also run a blog on solar training

http://www.totalsolarenergy.co.uk