Peterborough residents are helping to cut the city's carbon emissions and saving money on electricity bills thanks to an innovative scheme allowing them to borrow home energy monitors from Peterborough libraries.

The scheme has been so successful that Peterborough City Council is now doubling the number of monitors available to keep up with demand.

The city council initially equipped libraries with 20 energy monitor kits as part of a 'Your footprint counts' campaign designed to reduce the city's overall impact on climate change. The monitors have been so popular that a further 20 kits have now been distributed to local libraries.

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City Council Climate Change Officer Jenna Hiley said: "We're thrilled that the monitors have been so popular in helping residents identify how to reduce their energy consumption and power bills.

"The easy-to-use monitors are simple to operate and require no expertise or prior knowledge. A unit is attached to the household electricity meter while a hand-held portable display provides instant information on power use, energy costs and estimated carbon dioxide emissions."

Each kit contains an energy monitor, instructions for installation and use, a record sheet to monitor progress and an energy efficiency guide to explain how changing lifestyle habits can achieve cost savings. Residents can also discover how successful they are in cutting energy consumption by using the monitors to retrieve earlier measurements for comparison.

(CD/BMcC)