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This week is Scottish Renewable Energy week. At the annual conference for Scottish Renewables today, Stuart Reid from HW Energy said he was urging consumers to swap their current boilers for newer technology. Boilers are beginning to get a bit of a reputation for not being energy efficient and given that most power companies are making the necessary changes to reduce their carbon footprints, it’s no surprise that we are now being urged to introduce new technology into our homes and workplaces.
Renewable energy is the simplest, most effective way to reduce yours or your business’s carbon footprint. Renewable energy is around you all the time; think solar powered homes, wind farms, recycling- things that are now every day things, especially in Scotland. However, as great as it is financially in the long run, it’s not entirely possible in the short-term.
New boilers are expensive just to buy without the consideration of the expense to install them into a building and remove the old one and based on the BBC’s survey released today, the average consumer’s main concern is energy costs which implies that the average consumer doesn’t have the kind of money to install an entirely new heating system.
If that is you and you feel that going green is too expensive or unrealistic at the moment, there are other ways you can easily be environmentally ethical without spending much money that will actually save you money. SSE has a great section on their website with energy saving tips that are both easily to apply to your life and are incredibly cheap.
On a final note, in terms of saving money when it comes to energy providers, a great new (so new that their Twitter account was started only last week!) website has arrived called The Big Deal which suggests energy providers based on your own circumstances and current energy costs. It’s a great resource for anybody who is uncertain about switching provider and because it is unbiased and simply provides facts, it could set to be revolutionary in a world of energy price hikes.
