Time to do the calculations again after almost 2 years of operation of the solar PV.
We’ve written to our suppliers to ask why last year’s output (1.5Mw from the top 16 panels) is 20% down on what they projected/promised.
What’s also puzzling, as you can see from this reading, is that even at noon on […]
It seems that this issue has come out because companies have only recently been required to publish the fuel mix. And it’s going to shock a lot of people.
I had an authoritative response from someone in the business (who had better not be named):
“I am not surprised at this. Ecotricity is run by Dale Vince… […]
A new store has opened in a village garden centre in the UK
October marked the end of the first year with the heat pump and the other energy saving measures we have put in place. The results are very interesting and to some extent surprising. We can look at them in a number of different ways.
Our baseline was 2004 when our heating oil cost £2,431 and our […]
Two new gadgets are proving very useful.
The Cent-a-meter which we bought from Electrisave is a way to monitor our total electricity use in real time. The sensor clips onto a cable in the meter box and a read-out in a nearby room shows how much current is being used at any moment.
The display will show […]
On Thursday evening invited by Polly and Boo to go to an Oxford meeting on the Green House organised by COIN (Climate Outreach and Information Network). So many people turned up that they had to take over a second hall and rotate the speakers.
COIN have an interesting carbon calculator. It doesn’t do the maths […]
Franny tells me that low-energy light bulbs just start dim but then brighten up. She’s right, but I’m still not convinced that they are quite as bright even then.
We’ve just got back the ‘home energy check’ results from Thames Valley Efficiency Advice Centre. This was a good idea and free of cost, but in our case the advice they’ve sent is pretty general - insulation and more low energy lights. More surprising is that they rated our present oil-fired boiler as ‘good’. It […]
Two very interesting outcomes from our Birthday shramadana.
My present from Devi and Matthew was a carbon sequestering tree that they had paid to have planted. More details to follow.
Looking into the issue of carbon sequestration led to an interesting page from the Union of Concerned Scientists - Ten Personal Solutions. One striking example they give […]
Today’s step was putting in low energy light bulbs. These quad bulbs are 20w, which should be a good saving in joules. They are also guaranteed to last 10,000 hours, which would be a big improvement on our current ones. But the light output is disappointing. They claim to be equivalent to 100w regular bulbs, […]