Our proposal revolves around the idea of creating a better situation for the energy aspect of both the producer and the user. We plan to reduce the overall energy usage by the customers, therefore also reducing energy usage and peak loads on the utility companies’ generators.
The first step is creating a contract with energy supplier (preferably a NPO), we would gather funding from them in exchange we would work on reducing the load on their system over a set time frame.
The resulting effort would mean the energy supplier would not have to push as much money into buying generators and upkeep, they could instead invest the extra money back into renewables. This is an essential part of the contract, as we could tailor it in such a way that, after they have generated savings equal to the grant, they initially gave us, they can start funding their renewables projects better.
The business could also be expanded to include extra items such as solar panels, energy efficient lightbulbs and dishwashers. The solar panels could allow students to have no electricity bill. The excess electricity could be sold back to the grid and profits returned to our company which could assist with expansion. Dishwashers use an average of 1/9th of the water compared to washing up by hand under running water.
A financial example:
We spend £1000 on the insulation of a house.
If we assume for a household to save £100 a month on heating cost due to the new insulation, we would expect to get a lower fee of e.g. £60 a month back from it until the cost of insulation has been fully covered. This would save the household £40 a month until the cost of insulation has been paid off and the full £100 a month afterwards.
There are 2 options to choose from:
· We receive the payment directly from the tenants. In this case there will be a cap on rent increase (e.g. £10 a month increase) until the insulation has been paid off ensuring that the tenant still saves money overall (e.g. £30 a month).
· We receive the payment from the landlord and there is no cap on rent increase.
In conclusion we appeal to the acknowledgement of the bigger picture regarding the climatic crisis and our responsibility to reduce climate change. More importantly we encourage public to consider the positive impact on the environment in reducing CO2 emissions and at the same time tenants, landlords and energy industry benefit for our idea.
Hi team, so sorry for the delay in my response, a covid related travel nightmare meant that I haven't been able to have access to a reliable internet connection until now, so huge apologies for that. I hope that my feedback can still be of use to you all. My name is Kate and I study Chemical Engineering at the University of Sheffield.
I think that you've come up with a really interesting idea! I especially like that your suggested source of funding is from the energy supplier - often energy-saving measures have to be accompanied by a financial incentive from the government. I really like the way that you are looking for methods to combat flaws in our current energy industry, providing a missing link type of solution. Now more than ever it is vital that we as a society look to reduce our energy consumption and evaluate how we can reduce our environmental impact, this is a great idea to do so, while simultaneously reducing the proportion of consumers' income spent on energy.
My biggest question to you would be, assuming that the energy supplier profits from higher energy consumption, charging by the kWh, how can you make the changes financially beneficial to the supplier providing funding? I agree with Emily when she says that you need to convince the supplier that your solution is the right investment to make for them as a company, as well as for the environment. I also really like the idea of a video to communicate your idea, this could be very visual making the context of the problem clearer throughout.
Your 2 pronged approach to the problem is fantastic! Firstly reducing the energy consumption required, and then considering how to make the energy still needed greener - no energy is even better than the most environmentally friendly power source! Which one of these would you like to be your biggest focus? I really like the idea of putting responsibility into the hands of the renters, it would be good to make a stronger point about this as it makes our idea really unique.
I think that Emily has already covered everything else that I'd like to say. Please get in touch for any more feedback/if I can help in any way. I will see your posts now and so will reply as quickly as I can. Keep up the great work!
Kate