It is 3:30 in the morning as the cold winter air paws at the roof tiles, and the drizzle softly obscures the blind windows of our sleeping house. In a chilly annex, unseen, a valve opens, and the water begins flowing; the gentle ticking of the water meter in the kitchen disturbs no one. I turn over and continue my sleep, warm and dry under the duvet. The water continues flowing, 3 litres, 4..5…for minute after minute, creating a deep, warm pool, soaking everything it touches. I am unaware, dreaming of things I will have no recollection of upon waking.

It is 7:20 in the morning. I ease myself from the bed and pad downstairs. The ground floor is cold, I need a coffee and a shower. I stop and notice a tiny unobtrusive light out of the corner of my eye through the small panes of glass in the back room doorway. “Please Remove Washing”, announces the LCD array – polite, if ever a machine could be so. I decide to have my coffee and shower, and then hang out the clothes that completed their overnight wash cycle 3 hours ago.

The fridge and freezer are still humming away, and on dark mornings I need some light, a burst of news on the radio and a mug of coffee for my wife and I. Actually, I say “need”, but really it’s “want”; although by the looks on the faces of some people who come to visit, and the determination to keep their coats on because my thermostat is set to a balmy (for me) 17°C , you would think my house was located somewhere in a world without power. Actually, it’s probably located somewhere in the 1960s, when lighting, heating and home appliances in the industrial West were used far more frugally than now. Between 1970 and 2004, according to the UK government, the amount of energy used for space heating and water heating in the UK increased by 22%. In the same period the energy use for lighting and appliances increased by a massive 148%.

The more significant change has been in the fuel type used in this period. Solid fuels burned at home, like coal and wood, decreased in usage from just over 18 to less than 1 million tonnes of oil equivalent. At the same time natural gas increased from 9 to 34 mtoe, while electricity from the national grid increased from just under 7 to nearly 10 mtoe. Overall, people in the UK have increased their domestic energy consumption by nearly 32%; and this in a land without air conditioning. It is to the USA that we have to go to see some really fascinating figures.

According to the US Department of Energy there has been a massive shift in the way energy used in the home is produced. In 1970 United States homes used 206 million tonnes of oil equivalent in “primary consumption”, meaning that the fuel – such as coal, wood or butane – was burnt in or around the home. In the same year 135 mtoe was drawn from the national grid in the form of electricity. By 2004, the figure for primary consumption had gone down by 16%, reflecting the move away from solid fuels. By 2004, the consumption of electricity had gone up by 160% or, if you like, the USA consumed 2.3 times as much electricity in 2004 as it did only 34 years earlier. The USA consumes a lot of electricity!

Ok, so what has that to do with a washing machine running during the night? For the answer to that, we need to look at the way electricity is produced.


Demand Issues

I grew up in the 1970s in the UK, during a time when power cuts due to industrial action, or more commonly due to equipment failure or damage, were pretty common, much as they are now in many poorer countries throughout the world. I remember playing Monopoly by candle light, and vaguely recall television programmes sometimes only running for a short period during the day to reduce power consumption. I don’t remember being cold and miserable – we had clothes to put on for when the weather became uncomfortable, and we had fun, playing games, telling stories, and would have played music if any of us had been able to.

In 2007, in the industrial West, a person who switches on a light expects it to work immediately, and stay working. The demand (amount of electricity required) varies tremendously throughout the day; the graph for the UK is relevant for most industrial countries with a normal working day, although there are seasonal variations.

[See graph at top]

The “base load” can be seen by the red block, moving up and down gradually depending on the weather. The daily load is demonstrated by the vertical lines which show that the highest demand (around 5.30pm) is something like 75% higher than the lowest demand (around 6am).This is a big problem.

This demand for constantly changing amounts of electricity contrasts with the way in which that electricity is produced. For the USA, where 50% of electricity is produced by coal, turning up the power is not like turning on a light switch. A source at Drax Power Station (which provides 7% of the UK’s electricity, and produces 4% of its carbon dioxide) told me that a coal-fired power station stores high pressure steam, which allows about 10% more power to be generated in a matter of seconds. After this initial burst, enough coal has to be available to produce the steam for that additional load until it is no longer needed.

In the UK, coal and gas each supply about 37% of total electricity. For a gas-fired power station the response time is less than 5 minutes – no good at all if everyone in the country instantaneously turned their kettles on, but good enough for the real world. In France, where over 78% of electricity is generated by nuclear power stations response times are much trickier to deal with. A nuclear power station doesn’t respond quickly to demand – 2 days is about the fastest time the power could be made available. The way France gets round this is by having 20% or so in the form of hydro electricity, which can be produced on demand, along with other methods, such as having agreements with large users to reduce their demand when required.

Nuclear power stations do not stay running all the time, in fact they are a major source of intermittency due to their large size and tendancy to develop minor faults. Wind turbines – which have gained an unjustified reputation for intermittency – are not really a problem as wind can be predicted accurately; as such they could provide as much as 25% of electricity in many countries. But there is a problem, and it’s a big one: if a 90% reduction in carbon dioxide by 2030 is going to be achieved by industrial nations (yes, it is necessary!) then there is only so much tinkering in the electricity infrastructure that can take place. We need large amounts of renewables; we need to dramatically cut the use of coal and gas (in that order); we are generally unhappy about having pools of nuclear waste lying around; and we want to keep the lights, our refrigerators, our TVs, our computers, and everything else that requires electricity on. It’s not going to happen without some drastic changes in thinking.


Changing Behaviour

The way that variations in electricity demand are dealt with is known as Load Management, and in its way it is a very clever system. But that assumes that we are prepared to put up with vast quantities of carbon dioxide emissions – we may, but the planet certainly isn’t, and it will rebel if pushed too far! In fact “load management” is no more managing the load than a water company “manages” it’s floodwaters by opening more sluice gates. The load is merely being coped with. Management must take place at the demand side as well.

First of all, and I cannot stress this enough, the overall demand must go down, down, down. A 90% cut in carbon emissions by 2030 is just over 9% a year for the next 23 years. An initial 9% cut is very easy: just change all of your lights to energy saving versions and watch TV less – that should do it. The next year’s cut is a bit more difficult: switching every light bulb off that you don’t need, only boiling the precise amount of water you need, making sure nothing is left on standby – that kind of thing. It gets progressively harder as the “quick wins” are used up – you may have to move the fridge and freezer into a cooler room, change appliances, change your lifestyle. But in fact it’s not really that hard when you think about it, because although the first 9% cut is easy, it is also the largest cut of them all: 9% of your original total compared to the 3rd cut which only needs an extra 7.4% shaved off your original consumption.

You are also getting used to the idea of using less energy and are, without realising it, undergoing a shift in behaviour. Little changes can make a huge difference if they keep happening: “Doing your bit” is not a one-off activity, it is a continuous process of improvement through which your “bit” becomes a whole lot of dramatic change. In 2020 you will only need to cut a further 3% from your original total, which is dead easy when you think about it; especially for someone who has been changing their behaviour for 12 years.

And here’s a clever thing, and the reason for all the talk about load management: why not change the time during which you do things? The peak load will always be around 5.30 in the evening, and the lowest demand will always be in the early hours of the morning. Now, remember my washing machine which did its wash cycle while I was asleep? By moving the time during which appliances do their work, you could help be responsible for shutting down every coal-fired power station on your electricity grid. It’s not that difficult; simply by running your existing washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners and steam irons between 2.30am and 11.00am rather than in the afternoon or evening, the overall load will balance out, and the dirty coal-fired power stations will be out of a job.

If everyone did their clothes washing in the early hours of the morning then in the UK that would mean between 6000 and 7000 gigawatt hours of electricity a year wouldn’t need to be supplied by coal – that is 5.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, or a quarter of Drax Power Station’s entire annual output. One percent of the UK’s entire carbon emissions removed just by running washing machines overnight. If this was carried out in the USA another 27.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide wouldn’t have to be generated by coal. A Night Shift would be a great start to ridding the world of coal-fired power stations.

As I have said, the first priority is reducing your electricity demand, plus reducing your emissions from transport, water heating, space heating, the energy required to manufacture billions of consumer goods each year, and the energy wasted in producing and transporting food around the world. You can do that, bit by bit, until almost all of it is gone. But while you are doing that, think of the Night Shift, too.