Life with Energy: Brief Overview

Brief Produce an information pack for first time buyers about how to save energy and money within the household. Design a range of products to for the information pack. This should be aimed at life within the home and should identify ways in which homeowners can be more environmentally friendly and cut back on home bills. The products can take any format and include as much content as you like, but it must inform the reader about energy, energy within the home and ways in which they can reduce their energy and essentially cost of running their home. The products should be designed to engage the audience and use the correct tone of voice in order to capture their attention and to get them to interact with the products and the information given. Background Information Energy provides us with a means of using fun and convenient appliances. But what exactly is energy and where does it come from? Scientists define energy as the ability to do work. For example, we harness energy to run factories, provide heat and light in our homes and schools, power our cars and school busses, and many other things. Energy is very useful to us, but energy costs us money to use in our cars, homes, work, and schools. In addition, most of the energy people use comes from fossil fuels and this causes a lot of pollution as well as other problems. In todays climate everyone is trying to cut back on costs and save money, one thing everything knows that costs a lot of money is running your house. Heating, electricity, gas and water are all costs, which are generally increasing, so how can we save on this and decrease the amount we pay? Concept The concept of the information pack is firstly to inform the audience about various ways of saving energy within the home. This will be done through informative information and the use of simple but bold infographic illustrations. These illustrations will run throughout all the products of the information pack and make it more engaging to read and to understand. The information pack aims to get the audience hands on within the home and do simple things around the house to save energy and save themselves money in the long run. Audience The audience is first time home owners, that need to learn the knowledge about saving energy and energy suppliers in general. The age bracket is open as anyone can be a new home owner.

Tone of Voice The overall tone of voice is informative but in a conversational style to appeal more.

Deliverables 1. Information Pack 2. Supporting products to the information pack.

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Research
Researching into efficient energy, renewable energy and how this can be achieved within the home gave me more knowledge of the subject area, this will allow a greater understanding of the information and how to best present something that most people see as boring and uninteresting. Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature. Installing fluorescent lights or natural skylights reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared with using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Compact fluorescent lights use one-third the energy of incandescent lights and may last 6 to 10 times longer. Improvements in energy efficiency are generally achieved by adopting a more efficient technology or production processes or by application of commonly accepted methods to reduce energy losses. There are many motivations to improve energy efficiency. Reducing energy use reduces energy costs and may result in a financial cost saving to consumers if the energy savings offset any additional costs of implementing an energy efficient technology. Reducing energy use is also seen as a solution to the problem of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. According to the International Energy Agency, improved energy efficiency in buildings, industrial processes and transportation could reduce the worlds energy needs in 2050 by one third, and help control global emissions of greenhouse gases. Energy efficiency and renewable energy are said to be the twin pillars of sustainable energy policy and are high priorities in the sustainable energy hierarchy. In many countries energy efficiency is also seen to have a national security benefit because it can be used to reduce the level of energy imports from foreign countries and may slow down the rate at which domestic energy resources are depleted. Lovins Rocky Mountain Institute points out that in industrial settings, there are abundant opportunities to save 70% to 90% of the energy and cost for lighting, fan, and pump systems; 50% for electric motors; and 60% in areas such as heating, cooling, office equipment, and appliances. In general, up to 75% of the electricity used in the U.S. today could be saved with efficiency measures that cost less than the electricity itself. The same holds true for home-owners, leaky ducts have remained an invisible energy culprit for years. In fact, researchers at the US Department of Energy and their consortium, Residential Energy Efficient Distribution Systems (REEDS) have found that duct efficiency may be as low as 50-70%. The US Department of Energy has stated that there is potential for energy saving in the magnitude of 90 Billion kWh by increasing home energy efficiency.

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Efficient Energy within the home

Being energy efficient within the home can be fairly easy, there are small things that you can do around the household to save energy and save yourself money. This is the main content of the information pack; giving small simple steps that anyone can do around the house to improve there energy efficiency and save money on bills. Cut Down Lights Could you get into the habit of turning lights off when you leave a room? A family could save between 50 and 90 a year just by remembering to turn things off, if they dont already do this. Showers Having a shower instead of a bath uses only a third of the energy, so limit your long soaks in the tub and save them for days when you really need to relax and unwind. Beware of power showers, though, which are less energy efficient than standard showers. If you dont like the thought of standing under a dribble of water, get yourself a BodySpa Showerhead an innovative way to save energy, water and money without losing water pressure. Washing machines Check out your washing machines settings, see if theres a half load option for small amounts of clothes. With modern washing powders, you can usually choose a lower temperature on your washing machine too. Dont overfill the kettle Only boil as much water as you need. Heating water uses a lot of energy, and its easy to overfill the kettle for one cup of tea. Why not buy an eco kettle so you dont have to guess how much you need? We tend to boil twice as much water as we use - perhaps were just too lazy to revisit the tap every time we fancy a cuppa? The eco-kettle has an internal reservoir which holds up to 8 cups of water, and a separate chamber for boiling. So you fill the kettle, press the measuring button and, hey presto, the eco kettle boils just enough water for your needs. Turn Down Water temperature Check the thermostat on your boiler, see what the temperature settings are for hot water and think about turning it down just a couple of degrees. That will make a difference to the amount of energy youre using. Heating Turn down your general thermostat settings too: 21c should be plenty. You may be used to having your house much warmer than this, so if your thermostats set at 24 or 25c, turn it down one degree at a time over a couple of weeks. And just remember: every degree that you turn it down could save you around 65 a year on your heating bill. Radiators Switch off radiators in the rooms youre not using regularly and keep internal doors shut. Otherwise, draughts and poorly insulated windows will mean youre burning energy un-necessarily. Washing Machine Wash at 30. Washing clothes at 30 degrees rather than at higher temperatures uses around 40% less energy. Modern washing powders and detergents work just as effectively at lower temperatures so unless you have very dirty washing, bear this in mind. Shut Down Electrical goods When you leave mobile phones, laptops and iPod chargers on standby, they could still be using energy. Switching them off and unplugging them once theyre fully charged is a great way to be more energy efficient. And remember if your charger has an LED to show its in use, its still using energy until you switch it off at the wall. Appliances Do you use a dishwasher? Wait until its fully loaded before starting it, and remember that if you run it overnight itll be using energy until you switch it off in the morning. Why not invest in a timer plug and run it automatically for a shorter period of time instead? Taps A running tap wastes more than six litres of water a minute, so turn off the tap while brushing your teeth, shaving, or washing your face - and use cold water if you dont need hot. A dripping tap can waste more than 5,500 litres of water a year, so make sure your taps are properly turned off and change washers promptly when taps start to drip. Use seperate plugs Plug your appliances into sperate plugs so you can turn everything off at the mains that doesnt need to be left on, but you can still leave the appliances that have to running turned on. Even though one is still always on and running, its better than everything being left running.

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Design Aesthetics
For the design of the products within the information pack, I wanted to take a illustration route. The subject area of energy and being sustainable lends itself to iconography and infographic design styles, so this was going to be the approach I would take. Along with this I wanted the information within the products to be presented in a way that replicates that of a instruction manual / information given with goods and household equipment, I think this will work hand in hand with the infographic style.

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Information pack
The information pack will be the main deliverable for the brief, this will be made up of supporting products which communicate the information to the audience, this will be taken from the research carried out and combine all the illustrations created to form a comprehensive guide for first time home owners on energy efficient living and ways in saving money in the home.

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