Monday 19 October 2015

Scam Feed In Tarrif Calls


Getting an inordinate number of those calls on my mobile that ring for a second or two and then stop. Obviously some form of scam to persuade you to call back and get landed with a huge phone bill for calls to extortionately high premium rate numbers. Be warned - don't call back unless you know who it is. If they really want to talk to you they will call back.

Time for a quick look at the house's electricity consumption and what we're getting back on the Feed-In Tariff. The chart below is on a weekly basis:


You'll have to click on it to see the detail, but overall we're still making money on our power usage. In fact, the picture is even rosier, as we get an additional £500 every quarter (for a limited time) for the Renewable Heat Incentive.

Solar generation this year has been better than last year, mainly as a result of the sunny and warm spring, meaning lots of generation (yellow) earlier in the year and concomitant low consumption (blue).

Consumption will go up from now on with the addition of the cabin, but I still believe the books will balance, meaning heating, cooking, lighting, etc. are free. The big caveat on that is that we got in on the first Feed-In Tariff of £0.43 per kWh, and currently it's far lower than that for new installations.

We may even go for a composting toilet in the house to reduce water consumption, as toilets are the biggest consumers of water. We don't have a bath anyway, preferring to use showers.

A borehole for water would be nice, but at somewhere between £5 and £6k, it would take a long time to recoup the expenditure, and we'd still have to pay the sewerage element anyway for grey water.


2 comments:

Geo. said...

Impressive. Interesting how your consumption peaks at more than double in your winter months - heating? Would a log burner be viable or is cost of firewood there not worth losing the convenience of electrickery?

Chairman Bill said...

Underfloor heating, George. Not very efficient, but very convenient.

We have a log burner (12kW), but I've only used it twice. added to that, the electricity is free whereas the logs are £80 a bag (large dumpy bag).