Green and pleasant land

Britain’s landscapes play a vital role in creating a more sustainable national energy system, and thanks to smart meters, you can do your bit too

In this country, we’re lucky to have some of the world’s most beautiful rural and coastal landscapes to explore on our doorsteps. And Britain’s natural ecosystem would obviously benefit from the lower emissions that a more modern, sustainable energy network would bring. But often it’s our own environment that helps us generate renewable energy. Thanks to wind farms and solar energy harvesting, the UK’s energy network is less reliant on fossil fuels than ever.

So what can we do individually to help push the country’s infrastructure further into the future? Getting a smart meter installed by your energy supplier is a first step to doing just that. That’s because smart meters will help create a smart energy system. A system that could help us better plan the energy we need nationally, and that can pinpoint where faults are occurring more quickly. A system that will, in conjunction with smart meters, help consumers take action to lessen their carbon footprint.

Where there’s wind, there’s a way

Britain has a proud history of using its natural geography to produce energy, particularly wind. In July 1887, Professor James Blyth of Anderson’s College, Glasgow (now the University of Strathclyde) built the first wind turbine at his holiday cottage from which he was able to generate electricity. A slight snag was that the locals refused the power as they believed electricity to be the work of the devil.

Thankfully, attitudes had somewhat enlightened almost a century later in July 1955, when the first prototype wind turbine to be plugged into our National Grid was tested in the Orkney Isles at Costa Head. At the time there was concern over whether the wind would be strong enough, but in fact, Costa Head had the opposite problem. The turbine needed winds of 35mph to generate its target energy, but instead experienced winds of up to 125mph on its trial run!

Fast forward to the present day, and 2019 was the firts year in which renewable sources provided more energy for the National Grid than fossil fuels, and a sizeable proportion of that came from wind at 24%. And there’s set to be plenty more where that came from, with the world’s largest windfarm due to open in the North Sea in 2023.

Power to the future

Sustainable, smart technology goes hand-in-hand with the continuing roll out of smart meters to households in Great Britain. When you get a smart meter installed by your energy supplier, its handy in-home display will show you how much energy you’re using around the home in near-real time. That means when you start to make changes like switching to energysaving lightbulbs or washing at 30º, you should start to see your bills shrink.

This helps reduce wasted energy, and the more people who get a smart meter installed, the more efficient our national system will become, managing supply and

demand in different areas. What’s more, in the future, smart meters might soon even be able to interact with the smart, green technology in our homes and provide electricity when it’s at its cheapest and cleanest, ready to store up for use.

“Smart meters help reduce wasted energy”

Ultimately, getting a smart meter is just one of many everyday environmentally friendly switches required to help us reach our collective goal. While these devices may be a simple bit of kit, in the future they could transform the way we use energy.