Nowadays, “there’s an app for that” is an expression that can be applied to almost anything – and cutting your carbon footprint and energy consumption is no exception. Your smartphone can be a handy tool in letting you know where savings can be made. Here’s a quick roundup our Top 3 favourite apps, all free to download:

Recycle App

Mining and refining raw materials uses massively more energy than recycling. Take a plastic bottle for example, producing one from recycled plastic saves 66% of the energy it would consume to make it from raw materials.

These days it’s possible to recycle just about anything, but unfortunately it’s not always easy to find where you can do it. Save your time googling and coming to dead ends by simply letting Recycle Guide know what you have. It’s only available in certain areas for now, but hopefully it’ll soon be available across the UK.

Available on Apple and Android devices for free

GridCarbon

When the electricity grid is under pressure, the dirtiest “peaker” power plants kick into action – meaning that every unit of electricity is producing more pollution than at other times. Now thanks to Grid Carbon, you can see exactly which fuels are being used at any given moment. Users can receive a notification when low or high carbon production kicks in, so you know when is this greenest time to put the washing on!
The interface may not be particularly fancy but this app from the University of Southampton is a great way to ensure that less CO2 is produced per kWH.

Available on Apple and Android devices for free

Appliance Calculator

Vampire books and films have become incredibly popular of late. Vampire energy on the other hand, is something you could probably do without. It’s the energy that drains your pocket without actually being used, things on standby such as microwaves, TVs and radios. It’s easy to ignore it because most of us are not in the habit of disconnecting everything and just accept it as a cost.

Several good apps such as The Power Cost Calculator and IGO Vampire Calculator have sadly died a mysterious death. Thankfully the Irish have stepped in with Appliance Calculator which is able to give you a much better insight into just how much money you are losing through a lackadaisical approach to unplugging appliances. Simply programme it based on your current expenditures and it will do the calculations for you. One downside for UK users is that its default currency is Euros.

Available on Apple and Android devices for free

Genius Hub smart heating app

And of course, we shouldn’t forget own Genius Hub app! You can easily save energy by switching off heating in empty rooms, from around your house or around the world.

You can have a play with the free Genius Hub app before you actually purchase a system – just get access to our demo system.