Whenever you talk about renewable energy, it's impossible to avoid a very particular strain of reply-guy. The "Nuclear is really good actually" dude is convinced that you have critically misunderstood Our-Lord-And-Saviour Uranium. Nukes are clean! They are cheap! They are safe and healthy! They are brilliant! Nuclear power will save us all! Look, I 100% agree that nuclear power is theoretically better than every renewable power source. Nuclear totally clean! Fewer people die of nuclear…
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I recently came across a post about "The Energy Bill 2023 and the Fusion of Technology and Law - We are going to be governed under 'Law 3.0', and we won't like it one little bit". It is a superficial look at the "horrors" of being governed by technical measures. It starts off reasonably enough by describing the evolution of our legal system: Law 1.0 says "Thou shalt not kill". Law 2.0 says "Thou shalt not pollute. But, rather than specific legislation, we'll spin up a body to do the tedious…
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Our domestic solar panels have generated more electricity in a year than we have consumed. We installed 5kW of solar panels on our roof in 2020. Half are East-facing, half West-facing. Over a full year, they've generated 4,165kWh. By comparison, the average UK household uses about 3,800kWh of electricity per year. But working out exactly how much we've used is slightly trickier. We have a smart meter which reads our import and export. And a generation meter which shows how much we've…
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(Long and data-filled post ahead!) I've switched to energy provider Bulb (£50 off if you join using that link). They offer a "peak time" electricity charge which looks like this: 23:00 to 07:00 = £0.0815/kWh 07:00 to 16:00 = £0.1235/kWh 16:00 to 19:00 = £0.3263/kWh 19:00 to 23:00 = £0.1235/kWh By contrast, the standard tariff is £0.1359 per kWh. That means my electricity is 2.4x more expensive for 4 hours per day, during peak time. But cheaper the rest of the time. Let's look at a typi…
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A bit of future-gazing which I can't be bothered spinning into a 15,000 word Gartner report. In the UK we have a competitive electricity market. Only one set of wires comes to your house, but you can buy your electricity from a number of providers. Some only offer organic, corn-fed, Wind Farm power - others promise price stability - another gives you a discount at their electric car chargers - one gives you loyalty points at a supermarket. We increasingly have smart meters. Second-by-second…
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This is a necropost - resurrected from the now defunct blog of a previous employer. Sadly, most of the photos have fallen down the memory hole. So use your imagination. Energy efficiency is the next battleground for electronics. As the price of electricity soars, people will become less and less enamoured with charging their devices every single day. Even if cold-fusion brings us unlimited free energy - plugging your gadgets into a wall just seems so primitive! That's where BlueTooth Low…
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I've been a big fan of Ovo Energy since switching to them last year. They email me a PDF statement, pay me 3% interest on any overpayments, and have their call centre waiting times displayed prominently on their homepage. So, when they announced their new app, I was expecting something a little bit special. And that's exactly what I've got. An automatic torch to help you when you're rooting around in dark cupboards trying to read your meter. Brilliant. So, not only does the app fulfil its …
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Last year, Liz and I took the plunge and had Solar Panels installed on the house we rent out. I've been tracking their progress, and so now it's time for our yearly update. We based our estimations on the Europa Solar Calculator which estimated that they would generate around 2,700 kWh per year. Annoyingly, we haven't been able to hook the panels up to the Internet, so I can't get daily readings. So, every three months we have to manually look at the meter. Last month, after a year of…
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After my disastrous attempt to upload data under Ubuntu, I found a Windows laptop to upload my energy usage data. The good news is that Sam from Humm is actively working on making the Adobe Air upload application work under Linux. So, how does the process of uploading your data to the service work? All in one The Application is a real "one click" experience. It autodetects your SD card, sees which files are there, and sends them straight to the server after you click the button. Here we…
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So, I've hit my first snag with the Humm Duet Energy monitor. As I mentioned in my first post, the device doesn't have any Internet connectivity. Instead it records everything onto an SD card. In order to visualise the data, I have to manually upload the files to the Green Energy Options MyEnergy site. Rather than a simple web based uploader - GEO have decided to go with Adobe Air as their platform for uploading and viewing the data. Here are the steps I had to take to get the service wo…
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I'll go through all the features of the Humm Duet Energy Monitor as I figure them out, but there's one that I'd like to highlight because it's a perfect example of usability and how a little improvement can go a long way. The left half of the Duet is concerned with electricity. I want to focus on the "Speed Dial" on the top and the "Daily Counter" in the middle. The units can be £, kWh or Kg of CO2 - a click on the fascia buttons switches between the three modes. Cold Hard Cash As you will …
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My Humm Energy monitor is now fully set up. It's been churning away gently admonishing me for going over my kWh allowance for the day. As I mentioned in the unboxing - there's an integrated 2GB SD card for the Duet to record the energy usage. As the trial progresses, I should be able to upload the data to the website for them to analyse. They faithfully promise to send me a spreadsheet of the data if I want it. Well, what kind of geek would I be if I didn't have a tinker with it my self :-…
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