Frequently Asked Questions – imeasure
What is imeasure?
imeasure is a tool for you to accurately monitor your home energy use and carbon emissions over time. It measures your energy use based on the energy meter readings you enter. Each time you enter your readings into imeasure you will be given immediate results on your household's carbon dioxide (CO2) and money spent.
To help you know if your household's carbon emissions are high, low or typical you will see your per person results compared to others in imeasure. In your profile set-up options you can choose to compare yourself with people living in the same type of house and/or with the same number of people.
What is the benefit of me using imeasure?
imeasure is a quick way to keep on top of how much energy you are using before your energy bill comes. With energy prices going up imeasure will help you spot opportunities for saving energy and therefore money! Also, most times your energy bill will only be an estimate of your energy use, therefore, you can use your imeasure meter readings to tell your energy suppliers your actual energy use so you will be billed correctly.
How do I get started?
Simply follow the instructions for registering to imeasure. You can add as many meters as you like but it is important to check whether your gas meter measures in 100s cubic feet or cubic metres (or rarely kWh). Just remember to check the units on your meter when you take your first meter reading and then amend your meter entry if necessary.
How often do I need to enter my energy readings?
We recommend taking readings on a weekly basis because as this will help make home energy management part of a routine. In addition, you are more likely to remember what you did in the last week compared to the last month that will have affected how much energy you have used, for example: did friends stay? Were you out a lot? Did you buy a new appliance? Etc. You will get more out of imeasure if taking weekly readings, as results will be closer to real time.
However, imeasure works just fine if you want to update your profile periodically; for instance, every monthly.
We will send you a weekly email reminder for your meter readings (unless you do not want to receive this email). The bonus of the email is that we will share quirky facts about the results of the imeasurer community & plug you into the latest climate change research, policy and energy saving tips.
When do I start getting results about my energy use, carbon emitted & money spent?
After you have entered your second set of readings you will get results about how much CO2 your household is responsible for and an indication of how much you have spent on energy. imeasure presents your results in a mixture of ways.
What carbon emissions factors are being used in imeasure?
imeasure uses the 2007 emission factor guidance from Defra. The carbon emissions factor for gas is 0.206 kg CO2 / kWh for electricity is 0.523 kg CO2 / kWh (5-year rolling average). As you can see electricity is more carbon intensive than gas.
Does imeasure give me credit if I purchase a green (renewable energy) electricity tariff?
imeasure does not reduce your carbon emission totals if you purchase a green tariff because the Defra carbon emissions factor for electricity takes into the amount of renewable energy inputted into the national grid. Also, imeasure is about the opportunities to reduce demand for energy in the home rather than relying on supply-side carbon emission reductions.
What is the carbon label?
Our A-G carbon badge based on all the weekly energy use data from imeasurers for the week before the most recent week ending. The carbon grading goes as follows: A+ = > 80% below the average; A = 79% to 60% below the average; B = 59% to 40% below the average; C = 39% to 10% below the average; D = THE AVERAGE (range is plus or minus 9% from the average); E = 10% to 100% above the average; F = 101% to 300% above the average; G = over 300% above the average. The more people using imeasure the closer the average of the carbon badge average will be to the national average.
The number of people in my house has changed but the badge still has the old number
That's right. The badge reflects the status of your house the week before the current week. The change won't take effect until next week
How has the amount of money I spend on energy been calculated?
imeasure gives you an indication of how much money you are spending on gas and electricity each week as well as your running total spend since starting to use imeasure. imeasure applies a standard tariff rate per kWh of gas and electricity. imeasure used the defaults of 3p/kWh for gas and 10p/kWh for electricity. imeasure simply multiples your energy use for each gas and electricity by the pence per kWh. These standard tariff rates do not include standing charges or VAT nor do they take into account of dual fuel rates (i.e. rates offered by utility companies providing you with both your electricity and gas) or a 2-rate system (i.e. one rate for the first x kWh you use and a second rate once exceeding x kWh). You can specify your tariff rate by going to "add/edit/delete meters" on the meter reading page.
What is a carbon club?
imeasure lets you group together with people you know and want to compete with to reduce carbon emissions. A carbon club will gives you a ranking against your peers so you can compete for the top spot in your group! You can either be invited to a carbon club by someone who knows you or set up your own carbon club and invite others to join. The names of carbon groups are not publicly available so you will need to know the exact name of a group to join it or receive an invitation from someone you know whose part of the imeasure community. Once in a carbon club you can see the list of members (this is based on imeasure usernames) in your group(s). You can be in multiple carbon clubs – for example: a friends group, a workplace group or neighbourhood group etc.
Why has Oxford University's Environmental Change Institute created imeasure?
The research of the Energy Group at the Environmental Change Institute is focused on developing a better understanding how the UK can significantly and rapidly reduce energy use and carbon emissions through behaviour change, technologies and policy interventions. There is very limited good household data to do this work well so we designed imeasure to help the energy research community. imeasure users will contributing to cutting edge research in energy issues. We will definitely share our work with you as it progresses so you see the value of imeasure data. The more imeasure users there are the better our analysis of the data can be so please do get involved and encourage your friends and colleagues to do the same.
All energy data from imeasure is anonymised and aggregated for research purposes only. Please read the terms and conditions for more details on how your imeasure data will be protected, stored and used. Do contact us if you have any questions about imeasure.
Catherine.bottrill@ouce.ox.ac.uk.
imeasure has been funded by the UK Energy Research Centre, which is an interdisciplinary academic centre funded by the research councils to examine how the UK transforms to an low carbon and secure energy system www.ukerc.ac.uk
I want to know more about Internet-based energy and carbon measurement tools?
In preparation for creating imeasure the Environmental Change Institute did a detailed assessment of online carbon calculators. The findings of this assessment can be found by reading: “Internet-based carbon tools for behaviour change“
(http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/research/energy/downloads/botrill07-calculators.pdf)
What is next for imeasure?
This is imeasure is a beta version so it is still under development and in trial. We would greatly appreciate hearing your ideas for improving imeasure. Please join us in our forum, Carbontalk or send an email to Catherine.bottrill@ouce.ox.ac.uk
We have a number of plans to expand the features of imeasure. These will be added in due course and we will keep you posted.