Finding the chase and cutting to it

As you know, I’ve been passionate about making the most of the excess power generated in the UK during our peak solar periods.

I am sure I haven’t influenced Australia, but I love this idea and wish it were copied across the world: free-energy-while-the-sun-shines.

Power shifting is something I have spoken about and makes so much sense. Batteries can be up to 93% efficient, but making use of the electricity fresh off the grid makes a great deal of sense. Giving free electricity to all users is a no brainer, as per the example Australia is setting the world. Even if people use it to charge their own batteries.

Dishwashers, water heaters (something we do), washing machines, and tumble dryers are all prime candidates for doing the chores while we work. Slow cookers and timed cooking can do the same for food – making bread while the sun shines, so to speak. We set our heating timers to heat our water during peak solar time to use our water heater as a solar battery, we do a few of the rooms round the house too, dramatically reducing our costs on sunny days.

Rather than running these remotely, a simple timer delaying when the machine starts is a boon for achieving this while you are in the office. It was common in such machines between 2003 and 2015. Slowly the industry moved to wifi control, which is not as good because you are meant to start this at the right time! I don’t know about you, but I am a little busy while I’m working during the day…

What we have been doing that made a bit of a difference is ensure we’re not using power between 15:30 and 19:30 where at all possible – when the UK experiences its peak draw. Heating happens during the day, car charging, etc. Our hot water disinfectant cycle is done between 12:00 and 14:30 every Friday during the winter, and 13:00 to 15:30 during the summer – using Gemini, I work out the next week’s max solar generation times.

Of course, it’s not fool proof. Storm Claudia has been raging today, though the East of England. So I moved our disinfectant cycle to yesterday. Hence, our usage has been lower on the darkest day we’ve had in 2025.

We could hook up our solar diverter to our car – with the heat pump, even on a cold day it makes no sense to use an immersion heater. Why? Well, the immersion heater is 100% efficient (every 1kWh we put in we get 1kWh of heat) but the heat pump is at least 350% efficient, for every 1kWh we put in we get 3.5kWh of heat out. We do not use the solar diverter to heat water, as a result.

We’re at the point where it makes sense to do the right things for the right reasons otherwise you are not helping anything, or indeed making things worse! We’re getting close that being the case.

Optimising from here on in is not going to be trivial. We are going to have to make conscious decisions for each and every step.

Surely, you are doing enough?

Can anyone ever do enough? I ask as it always seems there is some area in which we personally can give a bit more. If enough people do that, we can achieve net zero as a nation, and wider, as a planet.

Call it our little gift over Christmas, and beyond. Merry Christmas, or hope you had a happy Hanukkah.

Please note: I wrote this before the massacre in Australia. I do not agree with what is happening in Gaza or what is happening in retaliation, like these events. I hope we can all find better ways to settle our differences in 2026.