Rosher.Net

Hael Beltane! Hael Sol. Sumer is i-comin’ in, and all that. Please can you stop raining? Here’s another rambling waffle-burger from solar central. Are you bored yet?

I’d been wondering on and off precisely when I’d get any form of acknowledgement from SSE about my FiT Application. Back in December they told me 12 – 15 weeks and that came and went, so I called them up. So many applications, they said, been ver’ ver’ busy… but two days later I had the contract and now they want my first meter reading on May 12th. The FiT Tariff in the contract has seemingly increased to 15.3p/kWh and the Export Tariff to 4.77p/kWh. Nice. So all my previous calculations have been slightly low, and I’m making slightly more dosh. Very nice. Of course, we’re saving the environment too…

A number of friends have been noting that the Oaks have been bursting into new leaf far earlier than Ash, which really has yet to get going, and celebrating a good summer to come. “Oak before Ash, we’re in for a splash. Ash before Oak, we’re in for a soak“, as the old rhyme says. Sadly though, like most accurate predictors, it is accurate only in predicting what has already occurred. Oak is more temperature affected than Ash, and thus the mild, wet winter and the warm (and wet) spring has pushed the Oaks to leaf up. Less affected Ash is barely starting. There seems no actual correlation with summer whatsoever. So anyway… April has had her showers and solar-depleting cloudy crap weather (mist seems even worse than rain) mixed among the spring Sunshine.

We did 351 kWh.

It’s becoming a bit of an evening ritual; checking the various meter readings on the mains import meter, the solar generation meter and the good ol’ gas meter. If truth be told, now the solar diverter is fitted and working well, the reduction in gas consumption is most significant. Perhaps we were running the boiler too long, just to heat up the water tank, but now we’re a bit more focused we’ve reduced the monthly gas meter units from about 120 to about 25… and we still have hot water! The supply company is going to start asking questions soon and the Direct Debits will be coming down, I warrant. As chez bish prepares for the welcome transition from ‘cash-rich, time-poor’ these savings will be most welcome…

ok, April readings…

So we effectively earned £62.07 and ‘saved’ £74.24, totalling £136.31…

And using the Carbon Trusts calculations we ‘saved’ 302 kgCO2e as shown below.

And then the bills came in.

I have to say, I’ve never smiled before at reading my utility bills. On the gas bill, they owe me nearly ninety quid, on the electric they owe me nearly thirty quid. They’ve reduced my electricity and gas Direct Debits by thirty quid a month. And the pictures speak for themselves…

…and to finish off, so to speak, and recognise that the summer is at last here and brings with it more than simple kiloWatts, here’s that song again. Come on now, sing out loud. You know you want to…