Finding the chase and cutting to it

Few people like surprises. Some say they do, but when you ask them, it’s about fun things not things like a spider dropping down on a thread before their eyes while they watch TV.

Really, do you have to?

Sorry <shame>.

One of the things we were not expecting with our Smart Meter when we got it in 2014, I wasn’t expecting it to just work off one “reader” in the house. Or how much energy said reader would consume – we soon plugged ours in having had it chew through batteries in short shrift…

But a pleasant surprise came with our new house battery, as it gives us that basic information, and more.

We can see how much of the energy we’re consuming is coming off our solar panels or our battery, and how much we’re having to pay for. That’s to our phones, so making real decisions at the point we want to make them is trivial.

If fact, I find I am not longer using the meter application attached to the solar cells. One stop at the battery app gives me all that.

Of course, there are other surprises that are not so great. It has been a cold and, more importantly, dark winter so far. But from the look of things, we should be able to go completely off grid in the summer for all our needs. Heating, hot water, cooking, cleaning, and travel with the car.

What’s not to love?

Going off grid for the summer?

Probably not. I have had “standing charge free” tariffs, which tend to be more expensive per unit but if you don’t use anything, you don’t owe anything.

Those tariffs are few and far between. Especially if you just need electricity.

Our contract is £0.24 per kWh used and £0.4842 per day for the standing charge. During the summer, if we really don’t consume anything from the grid, we’ll be paying £15.01 for the 31 day months, and £14.33 for the 30 day months.

This is important because it helps the UK pay for power generators, transmission lines, fixing issues when storm damage happens, like today when the tail end of Storm Darragh is blowing across the UK.

Obviously, to help more people make the move to solar panels and more, a cheap standing charge and expensive price per unit is the way to make it happen. But I think we’re a long way from that being the case.

How tempted were you to call this piece “shocking things”?

Very, but let’s not go there….