Residential energy savings through multi-fuel use and energy efficient appliances

Abstract

Paper presented at the XXXIII IAHS World Congress on Housing, 27-30 September 2005,"Transforming Housing Environments through Design", University of Pretoria.

Housing delivery is one of the most critical issues facing South African government today. While a minority of the population resides in comfort, the vast majority live in self-built, metal shacks of scarcely twenty square meters. In an effort to scale up housing delivery to meet political targets, energy and environment issues associated with the dwellings have been, and are likely to continue to be, left behind. Government programs require utilities to supply power to new electrification customers that are long distances away from generating stations. The problem is worsened by the fact that utilities are fast running out of supply capacity on their power networks. Hence in order for successful electrification of these households, it is necessary to minimise utility-based energy consumption and maximize energy efficiency. Low-income urban households in South Africa exhibit a main feature in their energy usage patterns. Multiple fuel use is common and the mix of energy usage is different for different types of households. Patterns of consumptions are dynamic in response to factors such as changes in fuel prices etc. Integration of multi-use fuels can provide a means for the government to provide the energy needs of more households than presently possible. This can only be accomplished if safety issues in conjunction with multi-fuel use are used. The current trend in electrical appliance manufacture is on producing appliances with low energy consumption. Proper usage of these appliances can result in recognizable immediate and future cost savings. In this paper, methods for reducing utility energy consumption through multi-fuel usage and low energy consumption appliances are presented.