You will have heard about the recent increase in the UK energy price cap. Around 4%, And you will have got the usual advice about moving to fixed price tariffs. Maybe saving you £150 a year on the increased cost. Big deal! In this article we focus on some practical ways in which any householder can make a significant reduction in their energy bills simply by reducing their energy usage to what they actually need. Remember that 400 years ago no- one in the UK had even heard of fossil fuels. Yes there were fewer of us. Under 9 million. And remember that in 1650 most working families lived in a single room. And their diet was whatever they could pull out of the ground. Probably quite healthy by today’s standard. Only rich people ate meat. So you didn’t even need an oven. Just something to boil the peas. Or heat the kettle. If you got too cold you might throw a log on the fire. Or just wrap up.
For me, the biggest contribution to reduced electricity use has been the transition from tungsten filament to modern low energy light bulbs. An 85% saving in energy costs. And do you remember those horrible halogen light bulbs which became part of that transition? The blinding white light? Like a pair of car headlights shining in your face. So now we’re all low energy.
I’m not tempted to take up the £7,500 government grant to replace my gas boiler with a heat pump. It feels too much like an emerging technology. Like being asked to invest in a brick phone. I’m just not going to go there. And even heat pumps burn energy. Replacing gas with more expensive electricity. And I’m not sure it would even work. So I’ll wait until something better comes along. And I’m not rushing out to buy an electric car. I can’t remember the last time I filled my car with petrol. It spends most of its time parked up. I only use it occasionally to stop in seizing up. Living in London, means I am able to use my freedom pass to get about. Combining my freedom pass with a senior rail card makes travel very affordable for me. It only cost me £10 to get from West London to Southend. How cheap is that? Even if I didn’t have a freedom pass, I might still choose to use public transport where it is possible and afforable to do so and maybe purchase a network rail card , which is available to anyone. So I don’t understand why the government isn’t doing more to get people out of their cars and use public transport. What did Rachel Reeves do instead in her first budget? Increase the cap on bus fares from £2 to £3. Not 5% or 10%. But a whacking 50% increase. A £3 bus cap may not sound much. But it’s £6 for a return trip. And £12 if there is two of you. Well that’s really going to encourage bus usage!
Nor am I going to install solar panels on my roof. It’s too much of a fire risk. Like charging an e-bike in my back bedroom. How do I know that it’s going to be correctly installed? And what is the real saving? The thing about solar electricity is that it cannot be stored. It is electrical energy which is being produced when we least need it. And yes – I know that plug-in solar panels have just come on the market. But it feels too much like a toy. Even at a cost of £400 for the equipment, the trickle of energy it would produce would take me 5 years to get payback. And I don’t understand why renewable electricity cannot be stored? In the final part of this article I’m going to list out those simple ways in which you can cut your own energy bills. Here they are
- Don’t keep your central heating on ‘constant’. Time it so that it only comes on when you need it. Maybe for an hour in the morning and again later in the day. Just to take the chill off. You can always put it on for an extra hour if you need it. But don’t keep it bubbling away.
- Set your living room thermostat to 20°. Does it really need to be hotter? It means your heating will only come on when you really need it.
- If, like our ancestors, you spend most of your life in a single room, do you need to heat the whole of your house? Maybe invest in an oil-filled radiator for that room. It will only cost about 50 pence per hour to run even if you are running it full blast. Less if you set the thermostat correctly so that’s it switches off at room temperature.
- Leave your car parked up and use public transport where it is practical and affordable to do so. Avoid the hassle of pay by phone parking when you go into town. I recently treated my adult sons to a network rail card giving them a 1/3 discount on off-peak travel. I still think that the £40 discounted fare is too much for an off-peak return trip for two adults traveling from Farnborough to London Waterloo. But it’s better than £60. And I hate to think what it would cost at peak times.
- Microwave, microwave, microwave. Instead of using a conventional oven. Even for things which you are not supposed to microwave, like fish. You can always finish it off in the frying pan. Microwaves use a typical 85% less energy than a conventional oven.
- If you are unlucky enough to have an oil fired central heating system and have seen a 100% increase in cost since Trump’s war with Iran. My advice? Just switch it off. You’ve probably got an immersion heater if you need hot water for a bath. So use that when you need it. But remember to switch it off.
BRUCE AND HOLLY 