Today (not actually today but it was today when I got the letter but to you it is also today and to me it is some other point in time. Look it is very complicated time-whimey stuff as the Dr would say), I got a letter from my power company EDF. Which is normal they send me letters all the time they are often not very interesting and normally want money from me. BUT this letter was different this letter was explaining to me how much electricity I had used in the past 12 months and therefore how much I was going to use in the next 12 months.

Now I ask the question how much does it cost to actually live in this world? I ask this because EDF want me to think that it is going to cost me about £500 for the next 12 months based on my previous 12 months usage. Ok that would be fine but the thing is I have a dual rate meter which means I have two electricity unit prices one is 18 p and the other 5 p (plus an 18 p standing charge). That is I think the new prices. I basically live in darkness the only power that is on is the water heater which automatically uses the 5 p rate and the fridge which doesn’t. Other than that I use only the 5 p rate to charge devices and cook, boil the kettle etc. In fact I keep water in flasks to keep then warm between “off peak” periods. Well that is a lie I make a coffee in a morning in normal rate but I checked and that uses very few watts because it is not using the kettle thing.

So the only other thing is my laptop which is a laptop but it must be that consuming all the units because I don’t have the lights on, I don’t have a TV or anything else which you would associate with a large power consumption.

So my plan is to go out and buy a solar power charging thing and set that up and charge everything I can using that so that I am not using the mains. I want my unit usage to be as small a number as possible. Perhaps even I could experiment with turning the fridge-freezer on and off depending on the time of day or not eating food that requires a fridge-freezer and just turn it off for good?

A few years ago I thought about getting a Wattson Energy Monitor the reason I didn’t was they connect to the main feed near the meter which in my case is many, many, many floors below where I actually live. They said I could rig the unit off my consumer panel but I decided I wouldn’t risk it and and well they didn’t have a dual tariff system either. Then they also never did a Linux version of the readout software either. Well there were plenty of reasons not to and now well I can’t see the point because I have everything turned off. Did I mention I sit in the dark a lot and have lots of blankets and two duvets to keep warm rather than to turn the heating on? I do I am sat with a blanket wrapped around my legs right now and a fleece on. Its not even winter you know (or is it I think it is spring but I could be wrong and it could actually be winter).

Now this meter usage letter confused me greatly to be honest because it was poorly laid out and implied that I used 1300 units (I am rounding numbers here to make them easier to type) and I would use 100 units but three line below that number went up to 1200 units - what? Either way I was still using less power than last year.

Hmmm I don’t actually have an end to this blog - other than EDF I will be looking for another power company and if everyone else is equally as rubbish I think I am going to start collecting fire wood and cook in the car park, collect my water from the rain and turn everything off and see how much it costs to live like that.