Tomorrow (Wednesday 27 February) sees the start of ‘E-Day’, or Energy Saving Day, a 24 hour event encouraging the British public to turn off non-essential household items, and aiming to show how even small energy saving measures can play a part in tackling climate change.
Everyone who wants to take part in E-Day is being asked to leave off household electrical items for as long as possible between 6pm tomorrow and 6pm on Thursday 28th. Direct feedback on the results of these actions on national energy demand will be available on the E-Day website at www.e-day.org, which will be updated on a minute by minute basis.
E-Day state that “given the number of non-essential household items which are left on, widespread uptake of this call to action has the potential to generate a 1-3% drop in the UK’s electricity demand”. The organisers estimate that if unnecessary electrical items were regularly turned off, this would equate to permanently turning off a medium-sized (500MW) coal-fired power station.