Moore leads the meter maids

AS WELL as lending books, libraries in central Sydney will soon start lending devices that give households a reading of their carbon footprint.

The "powermate" is a hand-held meter that plugs into plasma televisions, fridges, airconditioners and other appliances, measuring how much electricity they use and translating that into carbon emissions.

Members of eight libraries run by the City of Sydney will be able to borrow the meters under a program the council aims to have up and running in time for Earth Hour on March 28.

"Sydney could be a leader here, and these type of initiatives could be applied to other capital cities," the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore, said.

Cr Moore is lobbying the Federal Government to reshape electricity regulations so cities could be powered by many low-emissions power stations instead of a few large coal-fired plants.

After backing the first Earth Hour in 2007, the council started a program to cut energy use that involved refitting its Town Hall offices to save power and water, and issuing council workers with pushbikes so they could cycle around the CBD during work.

In its latest conservation drive the council wants 100 households to volunteer for a free "smart meter" that would measure power use at different times of the day for a year. The results would be analysed by the council and EnergyAustralia to work out whether people saved energy when they knew how much was used by appliances on standby, Cr Moore said.

A separate two-year trial in which 1200 "smart meters" were installed in NSW homes found that household electricity bills fell by an average of 20 per cent, EnergyAustralia said.

However, in some cases smart meters led to higher bills because utility companies began to charge more during peak demand periods.

Cr Moore said the smart meter experiment was a way to give people more control over their energy use.