1. What is the no2co2 Minimise Calculator
The no2co2 Minimise Calculator is your next step in the low-carbon journey.
The frist step in this journey is diagnosis. The no2co2 Carbon Footprint Calculator enables diagnosis by calculating your personal carbon footprint.
The no2co2 Minimise Caculator is a set of tools through which you can explore the and evaluate between the various ways in which you can reduce your current carbon footprint.
The no2co2 Minimise Calculator comprises three steps:
Step 1 - Opening a no2co2 account where your current and Minimisation Profiles will be stored. This will ensure that you can always access the data in your profile.
Step 2 - Recording your current use profile - this is your 'baseline' profile - the starting point of your journey.
Step 3 - Creating your Minimisation Profile - the Minimise Modellor lets you change both the usage pattern of appliances as well as change the technology itself, and everytime you do so, you can see how it will effect your carbon footprint, your expenses (e.g. your monthly electricity tariff), and the resource consumption (e.g. units of electrical energy).
Once you save your Minimisation Profile, it will be emailed to you for your records.
2. How do I know which section of resource consumption in my life (food, travel, energy use) I should tackle first?
Minimisation of resource consumption is possible in most spheres of our lives. Where we begin is often dependent on various factors like our personal habits, our priorities, resources available to us and the current state of the technology. The no2co2 Minimise Calculator will focus on those areas where current technology makes possible significant resource minimisation and where such minimisation is within the inidividual's control to a great extent.
The first version of the no2co2 Minimise Calculator lets you study, record and minimise your electrical energy consumption.
3. What kind of minimise interventions can be assessed/ modelled through the no2co2 Minimise Calculator?
Broadly speaking, minimise interventions can be of 2 types:
Changing technology - adopting more efficient technology, like energy efficient electrical appliances, are effective minimisation interventions but will usually require some capital investment.
Modifying usage pattern - this simply means changing your behaviour patten in such a way that you use less of your existing resources.
The no2co2 Minimise Calculatore lets you explore minimisation through a combination of both these methods.
4. Is there an ideal value for carbon footprint? How much should I minimise?
no2co2 believes in equipping the inidividual with information so that they can set targets and roadmaps for themselves. Standard carbon footprint numbers ( e.g. the world average, the Indian average, UN target) are provided where such data is available, so you can set your own benchmark.
Whereofficial data is not available, no2co2 will analyse the data in its own database to come up with reference numbers. However, this will only happen with time as more individuals use these tools and the size of no2co2's database increases.
On the Electrical Appliance Module
5. Why do I have to do an inventory of individual electrial appliances in order to minimise? Isnt it enough to just look at my electricity bill?
Your electricity bill gives you an overview of your monthly electrical energy use. It is possible that your service provider also does an analysis of the seasonal variation in your electricity consumption. However, unless you examine the use patten of the appliances in your home, you will not know where most electrical energy is getting used and where the most potential for minimising exists.
6. Why are Air Conditioner, Refrigerator, Water Heater, Television, Light Bulbs and Ceiling Fans the only six electrical appliances whose power consumption is modelled through the no2co2 Minimise Calculator?
Selection of appliances for the Electrical Appliances Module of the no2co2 Minimise Calculator is based on their electrical energy consumption and their usage. All these six appliances are commonly found in urban homes. Air Conditioners and Water Heaters have high electricity cconsumption, even when used for a short period of time (indicated by their high Power or wattage ratings). On the other hand, appliances like Ceiling Fans, Bulbs, Refrigerators & Television have low Power ratings but high usage across the year.
7. What do BEE's Star ratings for electrical appliances signify?
The objective of the EnergyStar Labelling Program from Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) is to help the consumer make an informed buying choice of electrical appliances. The simple and easy-to-understand 'Energy Stars' rate appliances on a 1 - 5 scale in increasing order of electrical energy efficiency. Higher stars mean energy savings, and therefore, cost savings, for the consumer.
8. Some of my appliances do not have BEE Star rating. Does it mean that they are not energy efficient?
Currently, BEE mandates star labels for Air Conditioners & Refrigerators. Other appliances can opt for the BEE Energy star rating voluntariily. Even for an AC or Refrigerator, if your appliance was purchased before BEE Energy Start rating became mandatory, it might not have such a rating.
Absense of the BEE Energy Star Rating does not mean that your appliance is energy-inefficient, just that the manufacturor has not put the appliance through the testing process.
9. Why am I asked to enter the temperature at which I set my Air Conditioner?
The electrical energy used by an Air Conditioner depends upon the temperature at which you set it. Other things being equal,there is a 4% increase in energy consumption when youdecrease the temperature setting of your Air Conditioner by 1 degree Celsius.
10. Doesn't the electrical energy consumption of an Air Conditioner also depend on the outside (ambient) temperature?
Yes. The larger the difference between the outside (ambient) temperature and the temperature at which you have set yourAir Conditioner, the more electrical energy is used by the Air Conditioner. So, an Air Conditioner set at 20 deg C will use more electrical energy when the outside temp is 40 deg C, and lesser electrical energy when the outside temp is 30 deg C.
11. Do temperature control appliances like Air Conditioner, Refrigerator and Water Heater consume electricity at a constant rate?
No. Temperature control appliances like Air Conditioner, Refrigerator and Water Heater go through 'cycles' of electricity consumption. They usually have a built-in thermostat - a temeprature sensor - that maintains the target space (your room, the inside of a refrigerator, the water in the water heater) at the desired temperature by cycling through ON times and OFF times. One of the things that effects the ON time of these appliances is the temperature at which we set them, more accurately, the temperature difference between the outside (ambient) temperature and the temperature at which the appliance is set. e.g. on a summer day when the outside temperature is about 37 degree C, an Air Conditionerset at 20 degee C will have a higher ON time (and therefore higher electricity consumption) compared to one set at 24 degree C.
12. If resource conservation usually translates to cost savings, why do I have to spend money in buying new appliances?
Switching to energy efficient technology can mean buying new appliance and therefore, additional cost. However, your energy efficient appliance will start contributing towards energy saving immediately through lower operating costs. This will mean a reduction in your monthly electricity bill. After a certain period, these monthly savings will add up to the money you spent in buying the energy efficient appliance. This is known as the payback period. Once your investment cost is recouped, you will only derive cost savings due to the lower operating cost of your energy efficient appliance.
13. If energy efficient appliances always have lower resource consumption and operating costs, should I junk all my old appliances and buy the most energy efficient appliance in the market?
No, that would be a very narrow way of looking at resource utilisation.
Resource consumption happens not only in the use-phase of an appliance, but also in its extraction, manufacture and disposal phases. In the case of your Air Conditioner, resources are consumed to mine/ extract all raw materials, in transportation, in manufacturing, in packaging, more transportation, and after you junk it, resources are used in still more transportation, and its disposal in a safe manner. This is the complete lifecycle resource utilisation of your applicance. In some cases, the resource consumed in the use-phase of an appliance (i.e., the time it spends in your home) is much lesser than the resources used in its extraction, manufacture and disposal phases. Therefore, it is important to consider the entire lifecycle of your appliance when making a buying/ replacement decision.
no2co2 does not recommend junking old major appliances unless they have run for a significant proportion of their useful life - 5-6 years for major electrical appliances (but depending on several factors like maintenance, the state of the technology etc.). Future versions of the no2co2 Minimise Calculator will attempt to provide the Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) figures for these large appliances and recommend a break-even period based on embodied carbon etc
14. What is payback period and how is it calculated?
The length of time required to recover the cost of an investment is called the payback period.
Energy efficient electrical appliances lead to monthly savings in the electricity bill due to lower power consumption. But often, their higher capital costs act as deterrent in purchasing decisions. Here, payback period is a useful tool to decide between different options. Any buy that has a positive payback period is economically viable. In the context of electrical appliances, payback period is the period of time that it takes for the savings on electrical bill due to an energy efficient electrical appliance, to compensate for the extra capital expense of buying such an appliance. After the payback period, the extra cost of the investment for an energy efficient appliance has been recovered and subsequently, the user only enjoys the benefits of the savings in the electricity bill.
How payback period is calculated can be easily understood through an example:
When you want to switch to from a 25 watt incandescent bulb to an LED bulb, you would need an LED bulb of 3.5 watts.
The cost of such a bulb will be approximately Rs 1042 while the cost of a 25 watt incandescent bulb is only Rs 7.
However, an LED bulb saves cost in 2 ways that are to be considered for calculating its payback period:
- An LED bulb lasts much longer than an incandescent bulb and thus has a lower 'Replacement Cost'. An LED bulb lasts for 55,000 hours while an incandescent bulb generally lasts for 1125 hours. You would need 49 incandescent bulbs (55,000/1125) to last as long as one LED bulb.
The total cost of 49 Incandescent bulbs will be (49*6.95) Rs. 340.
Therefore, over its entire lifetlime, the ADDITIONAL COST of an LED bulb over an an incandescent bulb is (1042-340) Rs. 702.
- An LED bulb uses less power (wattage) and thus results in lower electricity bill. If you are using an incandescent bulb of 25 Watts in a certain area of your home for 6 hrs/ day, you will use (25 X 6 X 365/ 1000) 55 kwh of energy annually due to this bulb.
If you replace this 25 watt incandescent bulb by 3.5 watt LED bulb, your annual electricity consumption will be (3.5 X 6 X 365/1000) 8 kwh.
Assuming an electrical tariff rate of Rs. 4.2/Unit, you will be saving (55-8=47 X 4.2) Rs.197 annually by changing over from incandescent to LED bulb.
Dividing the Additional Cost (Rs. 702 ) by money saved due to lower electricity bill (Rs 197), gives the payback period of LED bulbs which is 3 years and 7 months. After this period, the extra investment on the LED bulb is recovered and you will experience the cost savings beacause of it.
15. Why doesn't the no2co2 Minimise Calculator ask for more details on my refirgerator use?
The no2co2 Minimise Calculator assumes that your refrigerator is turned on for 24 hours a day, and 365 days a year.
16. How is electrical energy measured?
The commercial unit of electrical energy is Kilowatt-hour.
While the 'hour' in this unit is the common unit of time, 'Kilowatt' is a unit of electrical 'Power'. A smaller unit of electrical power is watt. If 1 joule of energy is used per second, energy is used at the rate of 1 watt. 1 watt of energy used for 1 hour is equal to 1 watt-hour. However, a watt-hour is a very small unit of energy and for commercial purposes, electrical energy is measured in kilowatt-hours. The cost of electric current is also fixed per kilowatt-hour. One kilowatt-hour of electric energy is called one 'Unit'. Your monthly electricity bill gives your electricity consumption in terms of 'units' of electricity.
17. How is carbon footprint measured?
18. Once I save my Current Use and my Minimse Profile, can I retrieve them again?
Your last-saved Current Use Profile and Minimse Profile can be retrieved any time by clicking on the link on the top right of the screen in the respective sections. However, at any time, only one Current Use and Minimise Profile will be on record . Also, when you click on 'Save Data' in the Current Use or Minimise screen, the newly saved data over-writes the previous data.
