U.K. energy regulator Ofgem said Monday that 5.1 million customers switched gas and electricity suppliers in 2007, the highest level of switching in five years. Customers are switching in order to save money after all of the U.K.’s six major energy suppliers raised their energy bills this year, Ofgem said. Ofgem said customers who have yet to switch could still save on average GBP92 a year if they pay by standard credit, or rather by check or credit card. Customers could save even more if they also switched to cheaper payment methods, such as direct debit, Ofgem said.

http://www.home-save.co.uk

It will cost every household in the UK at least £2,000 to comply with the new European Union target of producing 15 per cent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020, according to a report commissioned by the government. The report also says the UK will have to spend far more to meet the target than other EU countries, because the UK lags behind the rest of Europe on renewables and is a heavy energy user. According to energy consultancy Pöyry, the bill for the UK to meet the target would be at least €5bn a year for more than a decade, compared with just over €3bn a year for France and Germany, and well under €500m for most other countries. Energy companies are expected to pass on to consumers – who already face soaring utility bills – the costs of building the necessary wind farms, biomass plants and solar generators.

Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low-Carbon Life, says even these estimates are conservative, and fail to take into account the huge investment needed to connect new renewable and micro-generators to the national grid. A government spokeswoman admitted that meeting the EU target would be challenging, but added: ‘We must make these hard choices if we are to tackle climate change.’ Tomorrow, German firms Eon and RWE, Spanish-owned Scottish Power, and Scottish and Southern Energy will enter the government’s competition to build the world’s first large carbon capture and storage test plant. Centrica has already dropped out.

The company, which owns British Gas, has joined Gaz de France and First Oil to study the feasibility of converting the Bains gas field, in the Irish Sea, into a storage site. advertisementBritain’s lack of storage capacity is blamed for contributing to high domestic gas prices. British Gas has to buy in the wholesale market more frequently during peak winter demand, when “spot” prices are at their highest. More storage would help Centrica manage demand, enabling it to buy and store more gas in the summer when wholesale prices are lower, the company says. However, the proposed site, close to Centrica’s Morecambe Bay gas fields, is only one fifth the size of Rough, the UK’s largest storage site, which accounts for 70pc of the UK’s total capacity. And the UK’s total storage capacity can meet only 5pc of annual gas demand. France and Germany have enough capacity to store about 20pc of their needs. Sam Laidlaw, Centrica’s chief executive, said: “We believe Bains has real potential as a new gas storage facility, being close to existing infrastructure and having the right reservoir characteristics. “As the UK becomes increasingly reliant on imported gas and flexibility from North Sea fields declines in the coming years, investing in much-needed storage facilities, which will boost this country’s security of supply, forms part of Centrica’s long term programme of investing in a range of gas, power and renewable projects to supply our British Gas customers.” The company estimates that the cost of the project would be between £300m-£350m, and be online by the winter of 2011-12. The gas field is named after John Bains, the geologist who discovered the Morecambe Bay gas fields in the 1970s.

Cambridge based Zigbee specialist, Ember has teamed up with Energy Optimisers in Grimsby to develop a new wireless plug-in electricity meter that the partners say could help companies and households shave hundreds to thousands of pounds off their electricity bills. The device, called the plogg, allows home and building owners to monitor how much electricity is being used by individual appliances and electronic devices so that energy efficiency can be improved. Recent studies by the British government and the Carbon Trust show that people can save five to 15 percent of the electricity they use by using smart meters to manage energy demands. The plogg is a combined smart meter plug and data logger, based on Ember’s ZigBee wireless technology running on a Telegesis module. It can be attached to any electrical appliance or device that uses a standard UK 13 Amp or European 16 Amp plug. A plogg for the North American market is currently under evaluation. The plogg stores the measured electricity data and wirelessly communicates this information to a PC, mobile phone or building management system anywhere in the world through an Internet-linked Ethernet gateway. One possible application according to the two companies, is in the catering industry, where ploggs could be used to monitor energy use by refrigeration and air conditioning units, with all the information collected at a central point via the internet. Upon discovering that some air conditioners were left on after business hours, the plogg would allow them to switch off air conditioning units by remote activation, or alert a manager that a unit needs servicing. The plogg meters can support a range of other wireless-based energy saving devices as well, such as temperature and light level sensors. Using Ember’s EM250 ZigBee “system-on-chip” transceiver and EmberZNet PRO wireless mesh networking software running on a Telegesis module, a network of ploggs can self organize to provide robust coverage of the home or building. The plogg can act as an end device, a router or ZigBee coordinator. It is available as a stand-alone end-user device, or part of an energy reporting network, or as an embeddable device for OEM products. Ember is headquartered in Boston in the US and has its radio development center in Cambridge. The Cambridge operation was formed after the company acquired ZigBee intellectual property, along with the development team behind it, from Cambridge Consultants in 2004. The company reported a record year in 2007 in product shipments, new customer wins and widespread commercial deployment of its technology.

Global demand is forcing LNG suppliers to divert tankers from Britain to countries happy to pay more, which will have knock-on effects on homeowners’ power costs. When the Ramdane Abane set sail from the Algerian port of Arzew on February 5 with a £15m shipment of liquefied natural gas, the captain thought he was heading for Kent. The 300 metre-long tanker had been booked into the National Grid’s Isle of Grain terminal, where the cargo would be pumped into Britain’s gas network. But she did not get far into her four-day voyage before being forced into a three-point turn. A message reached the bridge from Sonotrach, the Algerian gas producer that owned the cargo. Don’t go to Britain, it said, go to Turkey instead. Iran had cut off Turkey’s gas supplies and Turkey was now willing to pay twice the market rate. The customers in Britain would have to wait. The story is a familiar one. The Isle of Grain is Britain’s only import terminal for LNG. Although the Kent plant is set up to receive at least one shipment a week, the last ship that actually turned up docked on January 29. LNG shipments that had been expected to help smooth Britain’s winter heating demand simply have not turned up. The gas has gone to higher bidders elsewhere. Japan has been paying over the odds for gas to keep its power plants running since an earthquake last year knocked out much of the country’s nuclear power stations. Korea, China and Taiwan are also offering better prices. Only four years ago there was more than enough gas being pumped from the North Sea to meet our domestic demands, with the excess being piped to customers in continental Europe. In two years’ time, roughly 40% of the UK’s gas supplies will need to be sourced from overseas as North Sea stocks run dry. LNG imports from Qatar and Algeria are expected to account for roughly 11% of our supplies. By 2020, it is hoped that more than 30% of Britain’s gas supplies will be sourced from LNG with tankers arriving from other producers such as Egypt, Nigeria, Trinidad and Oman. As Britain becomes more dependent on these supplies, the cost of keeping the lights on could well be dictated by events on the other side of the world. “Ten years ago, there was no way that a Japanese earthquake would have had any impact on gas prices in the UK,” said David Cox, managing director of Pöyry Energy Consulting in Oxford, an adviser on energy affairs to the government. “But now, as the market shifts to being more global, that potential exists.” Billions of pounds are being invested in new LNG terminals around Britain and by next winter’s coldest days, the capacity to import gas will have increased almost sevenfold. Simon Fairman, manager of the Isle of Grain terminal, gestures towards one of four enormous concrete storage tanks being built on the Medway marshes to support a huge expansion of his empire. “You could fit the Albert Hall in one of them, with room to spare,” he said. “One of those tanks would be able to keep the whole of the West Midlands supplied for about five days, if they were five cool spring days like this.” National Grid is spending £800m on the development of the Isle of Grain, where construction will continue until 2010. More than 1,500 people are working on the site, one of the country’s biggest civil-engineer-ing projects. Once completed, it will be able to receive 240 ships a year, four-and-a-half times present capacity. By 2010, the site alone will supply up to 20% of Britain’s gas. On the opposite side of the country, two huge new terminals are being built at Milford Haven, in South Wales, both of which are due to come on stream this year. BG Group and Petronas, the Malaysian oil company, are investing £250m in the Dragon LNG project, which could meet about 5% of Britain’s annual gas demands. The neighbouring South Hook development is part of a $13 billion (£6.5 billion) project led by Qatar Petroleum, with backing from Exxon Mobil and Total. South Hook will also be capable of providing as much as 20% of the UK’s gas supplies.

Everything related to LNG comes in extreme proportions. The gas itself is cooled to -161C for transportation. Before it can be pumped into the British grid it needs to be piped through an industrial-sized Jacuzzi-type facility that warms it up to 5C, converting it back into gas. The equipment needed at both ends is very expensive, leading to huge costs in building LNG terminals. Just one pipe fitting that connects an LNG tanker to shore costs about £1.5m. LNG is potent stuff. One cubic metre creates 600 cubic metres of natural gas, so a shipment of LNG is an extremely valuable cargo. The newest tankers have a cargo worth about £30m. “There’s quite a lot of kudos attached to being the captain of one of these LNG tankers,” said one shipping-industry source. “It’s about one rung down from being captain of a cruise liner.” In the boatyards of South Korea, the slipways are full of half-built LNG tankers. Across the world there are 258 LNG tankers in circulation, and there are 129 new ones on order, waiting to be delivered, according to data from the ship broker Braemar Shipping Services.

The new tankers are being built to the highest standards. The 30-strong crew can expect single bedrooms with en-suite facilities and satellite TV. Hiring one of these ships costs about $50,000 a day. Qatar is building bigger and better ships than anyone else to shift its vast LNG reserves. Six of eight so-called Q-Flex vessels are already in use; they are roughly 60% bigger than other LNG tankers. Even bigger ships, Q-Max tankers are being built in Korea’s Samsung yards. These $290m ships will carry some 265,000 cubic metres of LNG, twice as much as standard tankers today, and are due to begin docking at Milford Haven by the end of the year. “We saw UK gas prices come under pressure a bit last year,” said Frank Harris, head of LNG at Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultancy. “There was a view that as the terminals in Wales come on stream and the capacity at Grain increases that prices would crash. That was based on the simple economics of supply and demand. But the way the global fundamentals are moving mean that nothing like the volumes of LNG that could potentially flow through the UK are actually going to arrive.

“Look at South Hook, where you have these new facilities that are going to be capable of taking 15.6m tonnes a year. I reckon, realistically, we’re not going to see more than about half of that come to the UK. The rest will be sent to meet higher spot prices all over the world.” Expectations of an LNG-led gas-price slump have well and truly abated. Next winter, wholesale gas prices are expected to jump 25% to about 69p a therm, based on today’s forward prices. The gas price has a straight feed through to the electricity price. Britain’s gas consumption has soared about 70% since 1992, largely due to an increased dependency on gas-fired power stations. Gas now generates about 40% of the UK’s electricity. National Grid forecasts that UK gas demand will continue to rise by 2% a year until 2015 and presumably beyond. Meanwhile, Britain’s own gas supplies continue to fall. North Sea gas production slipped 12% last year, according to Oil & Gas UK, an industry trade body.

While there are several gas pipelines linking Britain to the Continent, these are still being used primarily to export British gas. Most of the gas in countries such as Germany and the Nether-lands is secured from the likes of Russia’s Gazprom on long-term contracts that are priced relative to oil. Soaring crude costs have pushed gas prices higher across continental Europe. So European utilities have been sourcing UK gas at lower prices via the pipelines.

But if remaining North Sea supplies are being exported, the nation’s dependence on imported gas can only increase. “A lot of what happens to the gas price in the UK depends on what is happening to the price of gas on the Continent,” said Cox at Pöyry. “That in turn will have a say in how much LNG actually turns up in the UK.” Trading LNG cargos is a lucrative business for the world’s energy companies. BG Group, which has global LNG interests, has contracts to ship most of its supplies into the American gas market through its Lake Charles terminal in Louisiana.

BG was scheduled to bring 48 LNG shipments into the US in the fourth quarter of last year. Only 11 actually reached Louisiana, with the rest diverted to other points around the globe. BG’s profits from LNG jumped 48% last year to £521m, partly as a result of this type of trading. In spite of all the money being ploughed into the UK’s new LNG terminals, they are not guaranteed to receive gas. The financing of these plants has been structured so that terminal owners get paid for each available unloading slot, irrespective of whethera tanker turns up or not. The likes of BP and Centrica have signed 20-year deals ensuring that they have access to the Grain terminal whether they need it or not. As Ofgem, the gas regulator, continues its probe into the UK gas market, after recent record price rises, one thing seems clear.

“The unfortunate truth for British consumers is that we are about to enter a period of much more expensive energy,” said Mike Tholen, economics director of Oil & Gas UK. “That’s going to feed back to everyone’s gas and electricity bills.”

UK homeowners have been urged to prepare for a further squeeze on their household budgets, with the news that energy bills could be set to rise for a second time by the end of the year. Since March all of the UK’s big six energy providers have announced double digit price increases on gas and electricity tariffs, prompting outrage from consumer groups. However, with wholesale energy costs set to rise throughout the year, it now looks increasingly likely that a second round of price increases could be due, according to Tim Wolfenden of uSwitch.com. Moreover, these could be as high as ten per cent, bringing the average bill up from £1,048 to £1,153, he added. Mr Wolfenden said: “Increases in the cost of gas on the forward market will make further price rises inevitable before the end of the year – the industry has margins to protect and shareholders to satisfy. “It will not meet all the cost out of its own pockets and is likely to ask customers to help cover the burden.”

Can you imagine a situation where your grocery shopping involved you having to guess the cost of food you were buying, with an accurate bill not arriving until three months later? It may sound ludicrous and yet this is the way that the vast majority of us currently shop for our gas and electricity! Our latest Green Barometer IV research report, launched yesterday, highlighted that nearly eight out of ten Brits don’t know what they’re paying for their gas and electricity. I am not surprised – have you ever tried to read your electricity or gas meters? Normally they’re hidden away in a cupboard under the stairs, in the garage or in my case at the bottom of the food cupboard – hardly conducive for helping you to keep track of your energy usage!

Our study finds that energy bills are the most difficult for us to understand of any household bill: twice as hard as phone bills and four times as difficult as bank statements or credit card bills. This lack of transparency surrounding energy usage is one of the biggest problems holding back the UK’s fight against climate change. This is where smart meters come in. They include a portable display unit that can be taken anywhere in the house and which would allow you to monitor how much energy was being used at any time – as well as over days, weeks, or even months.

All well and good you might be thinking, but how will simply knowing energy consumption help people to save energy? Well, this is where I believe that the energy suppliers will have an important role to play. Unlike so-called clip-on displays, smart meters offer a two way communication system between the householder and the energy supplier. What does this mean? Well, it would allow the energy supplier to monitor and assess your home energy use, and then based on this they could offer tailored energy saving recommendations that were relevant to your needs and situation.

International trials, in places such as Sweden and the United States have shown smart meters offer an energy saving potential of between 5 and 10 per cent. Even, using a conservative five per cent baseline, if everyone in the UK switched to smart meters British householders could save £1.2bn a year and the equivalent of 7.4 million tonnes of CO2 emissions – figures that can’t be ignored.

Gas and electricity giant Centrica is reported to be examining a £10 billion bid for nuclear power generator British Energy. British Gas owner Centrica hopes it can provide a “British solution” for the future of the energy provider, which last week confirmed it was in talks with potential suitors, the Sunday Times said. Among the possible bidders for British Energy (BE) – whose eight nuclear sites produce around one sixth of the UK’s electricity – are French nuclear giant EDF, Germany’s RWE and Spanish industrial group Iberdrola. The company is Britain’s main nuclear power provider and will play a major role in any development of the country’s nuclear power supply. Its current market capitalisation is £6.4 billion. Last week the Government announced it was considering selling its 36% stake in BE, with Centrica, understood to have been one of several companies contacted on behalf of ministers about the proposal. A spokesman for Centrica declined to comment about any proposed bid for BE. The group’s eight nuclear power stations are Dungeness B in Kent, Hartlepool, Heysham 1 and 2 in Lancashire, Hinkley Point B in Somerset, Hunterston B in Ayrshire, Sizewell B in Suffolk and Torness in East Lothian. Decommissioning dates for nuclear sites range between 2014 and 2035. BE also owns a coal-fired power station at Eggborough, East Yorkshire. Last year the Government sold a 25% stake in the company, raising £2.08 billion. Chancellor Alistair Darling said the money would go towards the Nuclear Liabilities Fund, which will help meet the cost of decommissioning the group’s nuclear power stations.

Gazprom, the world’s biggest gas group, has bought a stake in a British smart meter supply company, hoping the energy efficiency product will make its supplies more attractive to UK customers. The Russian company, which yesterday ended another damaging stand-off with Ukraine over wholesale gas supplies, said the stake in TruRead would help it “differentiate” itself by offering innovative services, though it refused to disclose the size of the stake or its cost. “With rising public and regulatory concern about the need to reduce carbon emissions, this proprietary technology will enable multi-commodity consumers to be more energy efficient and to control their energy use more easily and cost effectively,” said Vitaly Vasiliev, chief executive of Gazprom Marketing & Trading. This is the first acquisition in Britain since the summer of 2006 when Gazprom bought a small Cheshire gas supply firm, Pennine Natural Gas, which has recruited 10,000 UK customers, including the steelmaker Sheffield Forgemasters. Gazprom says it expects to expand further although expectations that it would soon buy a major utility such as Centrica have faded. The British government is keen to encourage the use of smart meters to reduce carbon emissions. Wednesday’s budget statement included a commitment to introduce them in medium and large companies over the next five years, by providing greater incentives for businesses to reduce the energy they consume. Simon Slater, managing director of TruRead, said Gazprom’s involvement gave it the green light to develop its products and services further, in the UK and globally. In the longer term the government would like to see 45m gas and electricity meters replaced by smart equivalents, which can be read remotely by energy companies and allow users to monitor consumption.

British Energy is in talks with a number of rivals, which could lead to a tie-up or a takeover offer that some say would value the country’s main nuclear power generator at more than US$14 billion. Shares in the British company soared by nearly 20% after it confirmed the discussions but declined to identify any of the potential partners or predators. EDF of France, E.ON of Germany and Centrica, owner of British Gas, are among the key players known to have been holding partnership talks that have turned into something more substantial. British Energy is in demand because it generates about a sixth of Britain’s electricity but, more importantly ,has the most attractive potential sites to build a new generation of nuclear plants. The move comes as the UK government announced that the four new designs being considered for future nuclear reactors in the UK (the European Pressurised Reactor, Westinghouse’s AP1000, ESBWR and Atomic Energy of Canada’s ACR1000) have all passed initial safety tests.

Analysts are expecting further residential energy price rises in 2008 as UK energy suppliers seek to maintain their margins in the face of rising wholesale prices. Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) became the last of the big six residential energy suppliers to raise its prices, announcing today that gas and electricity bills will rise by 15.8 pct and 14.2 pct respectively from April 1. Like all the UK suppliers, SSE cited high wholesale prices as the reason for the increase, saying in a statement wholesale electricity prices have gone up 90 pct and gas 100 pct since March 2007. While the energy companies have declined to comment on potential further increases ahead of next winter, analysts are predicting another rise as wholesale prices continue to go up. ‘Given the strength of forward prices for winter 2008/09, the industry will need additional price increases in September to maintain margins in the 5-7 pct range. Price increases of at least another 8 pct may be necessary,’ Citigroup analysts said in a note. Another driver for potential price rises is the subsidies for vulnerable customers, the analysts said. The government said it wants energy companies to spend 150 mln stg on social tariffs, up from 50 mln stg currently, and for prepayment meter bills to go down in line with direct debit bills. These measures are seen having an effect on bills for other less vulnerable customers. ‘Any subsidies would need to be recovered from the wider customer base,’ Citigroup said. The large energy suppliers are keen to talk to the government over possible subsidies, although none has given its opinion on the proposed 150 mln stg figure. If prices do rise again this year, more questions are likely to be asked about the state of the UK energy markets. Regulator Ofgem and a government business department committee are already investigating the energy market separately, reacting to concern about the lack of competition with only a small number of large suppliers, following the price rises this year.

Shares surged in Lancashire-based Bglobal, which supplies smart meters to help businesses monitor their energy consumption and reduce their bills, after the company announced a £3m deal. Bglobal, which has its headquarters in Blackburn, said it had won a contract for meters and data collection services with Opus Energy, which supplies electricity to small and medium-sized firms and larger corporates. The news prompted a 5.2 per cent rise in Bglobal’s shares. They rose 2p to 40.5p. In a stock market statement, Bglobal said Opus was planning a fast rollout of the service and has begun installing the first batch of 5,000 meters. Tony Stiff, commercial director at Bglobal, said: “This contract provides further endorsement of the financial benefits and associated environmental advantages of using smart meters. “Opus Energy is taking an innovative approach by providing their meters for free and this represents a landmark agreement in the industry.” Opus has more than 40,000 customers, including Deloitte, Yell and Thorntons. It is based in Oxford and Northampton.

Energy firms are charging pre-pay meter users an average of £255 a year more than online customers, it was revealed today. The higher cost of pre-payment meters for gas and electricity is penalising the poorer households and pensioners who typically use them, according to Energywatch. The industry watchdog is calling on companies to stop charging punitive rates. Energy firms are making a £400m profit from the pricing system, according to Energywatch figures. And one in three households in fuel poverty, where more than 10% of income is spent on heating, has a pre-payment meter. Graham Kerr of Energywatch said: “We have hard evidence of £400 million of excess profits being taken off the poorest members of society just at a time when fuel poverty is continuing to rise. “Instead of taking from the rich to give to the poor, it seems that energy companies are taking from the poor to give to the rich.” It comes as Ofgem continues to investigate the UK’s gas and electricity markets in the wake of a series of price hikes. The inquiry, which was launched last month, is being carried out under Ofgem’s Enterprise Act powers, with its initial findings due to be published before the end of September. Energywatch said it wanted Ofgem to use its investigation to set out how the industry would stop using pre-payment meter tariffs to exploit the poorest. In January British Gas announced average price increases of 15% for its customers, with regional variations for the increases to its electricity tariffs. Rival energy firm E.ON revealed increases of 9.7% for electricity and 15% for gas last month. That followed price hikes from npower of 17.2% for gas and 12.7% for electricity. EDF increased its gas prices by 12.9% and electricity by 7.9%. And Scottish Power pushed up electricity prices by an average of 14%, with gas prices up by 15%. The last of the big six suppliers, Scottish and Southern Energy, has said it will hold its prices until the end of March at least. According to today’s Times, Chancellor Alistair Darling is ready to deliver an ultimatum to the major energy companies to tackle the inequality in his Budget next week. The Treasury would not comment last night on what it described as “Budget speculation”.

“You’re destroying the planet, Daddy,” my seven-year-old daughter shouted as she stared into the display unit of my new smart meters. It had seemed an ordinary Sunday morning until then. The tumble dryer was whirring downstairs, the kettle was boiling for my second mug of tea, and a few lights were on here and there. The meters, however, told the true story. Our household was generating the equivalent of 40 tonnes of CO2 a year, from electricity alone. I had no idea how much more was coming from the gas-fired central heating. They also told me that, right then, I was spending more than 50p an hour on power. And that’s before the implementation of the recently announced rises in power prices that could push bills up by 17%. As Eliza and her brother Tim, 12, rushed around flicking switches off, that amount suddenly went down. By the time they had finished, we were consuming just 1.2p per hour. Electricity meters have long been unloved and misunderstood devices. We may spend an average of £453 a year per household on power, and rising, but the meters that oversee how and when we spend it remain among the most mysterious of household gadgets. Their spinning dials and displays may as well be written in Chinese. If you think about it, that’s rather bizarre. How would you feel if your favourite shops stripped all the prices off their goods and instead made you wait months for your bill, then demanded you pay without complaint? If you were shopping, you’d go elsewhere, but, even though you can switch energy supplier these days, you are far less likely to do so. What’s more, it has been very much in the utility companies’ interest that we should have no idea how much we are consuming. My electricity and gas meters are hidden away in a cupboard in an old coal cellar, and I had no idea what impact switching on the tumble dryer was having on my bills. The new power-display units are, however, bringing electricity metering out of the closet. There’s a raft of them on the market, but all aim to turn energy-company gobbledegook into easy-to-understand figures. How much are you spending per hour? Per day? Or in a whole year? And how about carbon dioxide? Working out how much CO2 is produced by generating a given amount of electricity is easy. The energy companies could have printed it on our bills for years, but have refused. Display meters give a way around such environmentally unfriendly obstinacy. So, how do they work? All of them use a transmitter that clips to the incoming power cables to measure how much energy enters a home. The data is then transmitted to a display unit that can calculate the overall energy consumed, its cost and the amount of CO2 generated.

There the similarities end, however. The parts of these devices that matter to consumers are the display units themselves – the bits that tell you how you are doing – and they vary a lot.

THE OWL: A bizarre name for a brilliantly straightforward device. The Owl’s display unit is about 4in square, with a nice large screen that can be read from several feet away. This is important. What you want to do with these gadgets is plonk them somewhere that lets you check the figures with a casual glance, perhaps when walking by. The mode button lets you flick from checking your cost per hour to seeing your CO2 output in tonnes a year – which seemed ridiculous until my children discovered it. That figure made much more sense to them than the cost or the kilowatts.

EFERGY: Superficially, this is quite similar to the Owl – a white box with a display screen, smaller than its rivals, and some buttons. The Efergy is, however, a very different device. You can scroll back through past days, weeks or months to see if your energy consumption has risen or fallen, or you can view your total consumption since the last time it was reset. This is a grown-up device for someone who wants to track their energy usage and keep records.

WATTSON: The iPod of display meters. The Wattson tells you how much energy you are consuming at a given moment and turns this into an annualised cost. This gave me the startling information that my washing machine, tumble dryer and electric oven, when operating at once, were temporarily using the equivalent of £3,500 worth of power a year. The Wattson even changes colour, glowing a restful blue when you’re using just a little electricity, but turning red when you’re consuming a lot. It also has an electronic memory, so you can save your consumption records to a home computer, using software downloaded from the DIY Kyoto website.

The devices will appeal to different markets, but if you have children and want to make them think more about saving energy, then the Wattson and the Owl have the simplest displays. If you want detailed information, the Efergy is the cheaper option, but the Wattson will do that job too.

There are several studies showing that display units can cut average energy bills, and hence emissions, by about 12%. For the average small family home, this means it would take about three years to recover the outlay on the Wattson – compared with one year for the other gadgets. What I found really illuminating was being able to measure the impact of everyday appliances on our bills. Switching on the kettle, for example, sent consumption up by 35p an hour. Fortunately, kettles boil quickly, but the tumble dryer added 23p an hour – and that gets used for several hours a week.

Our kitchen spotlights were another shock. The nine 35-watt halogen bulbs consumed about 4p an hour – seemingly a small amount, but they are in almost constant use through the winter. When you remember that each penny per hour translates into an extra £87 a year on the bill, it makes you keener to switch things off.

The downside – depending on my mood – was that the Owl turned the children into a kind of eco-police force. “You’re committing crimes against the planet,” Tim shouted when I left a computer on one evening. The solution, however, was simple: put the display unit on a high shelf whenever I’d had enough of green guilt trips. Or threaten to turn off the kids’ computer games – all in the fight against global warming, of course.

Buy an energy display

A decision by Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) to hold out against industry-wide price increases this winter has cost the company £400 million in lost potential revenues. But even as energy suppliers anticipate punitive Budget measures next week in response to consumer outcry over perceived excessive profits, Scotland’s last remaining energy utility is expected to raise its prices later this month. Pressure on the Treasury to deliver a windfall tax has mounted after average rises of 15% by ScottishPower, British Gas, npower, E.ON and EDF Energy were followed by stellar full-year profits from British Gas owner Centrica. Its residential arm saw a fivefold increase in pre-tax profits to £570m. “Scottish and Southern promised not to raise its prices until the end of March when British Summer Time begins, but everybody expects it to increase its prices after that,” said Angelos Anastasiou, an analyst at Pali Capital. He predicted that the Perth-based company would raise its prices by just below the 15% average, while emphasising its decision to protect customers over the winter. At a time when price rises have seen an extra 500,000 households sliding into fuel poverty, SSE is expected to continue with a price-led marketing strategy. When the company, whose brands include Scottish Hydro Electric and Southern Electric, unveils its full-year results at the end of May, analysts will be looking closely at how the estimated £40-to-£50 per customer saving is offset by a growth in new business. The firm’s strategy of undercutting rivals on price has seen it almost double its customer base to 8.2 million in the past six years, at the cost of huge potential revenues. Denis Kerby, a spokesman for SSE, confirmed that its price freezing strategy had cost the company £400m: “that is the potential gain if we had charged what others have charged, but we have our own pricing policy which reflects fair pricing to customers.” Asked about the prospect of price rises after March 30, he said: “It has yet to be decided, but we are pleased to have kept our prices down for the winter and we will continue our responsible approach to pricing.”