Tankless Water HeaterLiving off the grid, and on the cheap, requires sacrifices, you do give up some conveniences. Some of the things I didn’t have when I first moved to my off-grid home were running water, unlimited electricity, heating, much in the way of furniture, refrigerator, internet, phone, solid walls (grin)… and hot water.…
Micro Grids represent the future of power in cities as well as rural communities…
London Mayor and local councils to co-operate to generate 25% decentralised energy…
UK gov proposes community power generators should be allowed to feed-into the national grid, but stops short of making it mandatory…
Two experimental nicro-grids in the South African outback prove the concept can work anywhere…
The new solar incentives favor the wealthiest buyers of solar panels and give off-grid homes no help at all. But the solar industry doesn’t care.…
Everybody should try it A 72-year old woman has switched off ALL power in her home in protest at ‘crazy’ energy bills. Anne Myall refuses to use electricity in her home after receiving massive bills she claims were incorrect. The electricity company, NPower has promised her a full refund, but Ms Myall continues to live by candlelight and use a wood fire for her heating report several British newspapers.
In protest at the cost of her energy bills, Myall no longer spends her evenings watching television in front of an electric fire, instead the grandmother listens to a battery-powered radio wrapped up in bed.
She has dispensed with hot water and all her hot food comes from a local takeaway restaurant. For lunch the pensioner has been tucking into pre-cooked supermarket chicken and plenty of cold salads and both her laptop computer and mobile phone are useless because she is unable to recharge them.
She has spent more than a fortnight living a life more akin to the Victoria age after Npower sent her a series of large fuel bills.
Mrs Myall, a widow who has lived alone since the death of her husband eight years ago, said: ‘They have been bullying me and browbeating me for three years with silly, inaccurate bills upwards of £700 a quarter.
‘I only have a one-bedroom flat and I’m very economical. It’s just crazy, my electricity bill should be about £18 a quarter.’
She moved into the flat in Pocklington, North Yorkshire, three years ago and claims she was immediately hit by a bill.
Mrs Myall, a retired journalist, said: ‘I received a demand for £53 just days after arriving. I have tried many times to contact Npower with no success. I even got one bill for £758.
‘I’m often away in the winter and I never turn my heating on so I feel that they have just been using guesswork based around an incorrect meter reading they took when I moved in.’
The final straw came when Npower staff replaced her old meter system with a pre-payment system while she was abroad.
Unhappy that the work was undertaken without her knowledge, she felt the new meter used more energy than the old system and decided to pull the plug.
Protest: The widow has restored to living without modern comforts in her one-bed home She said: ‘It’s amazing how one can manage, I can’t believe how well I feel for doing this. The biggest loss is being able to eat fresh vegetables because I love them but I’m getting by with eating salad.
‘I love reading so I’m not really missing the TV, although I do miss my hot water bottle and I’m now looking for a gas camping stove. I’ve not been able to run my computer or recharge my mobile phone either.’
She added: ‘This is really a protest against the …
As the recession worsens, cheap energy is more important than ever. Across America, and the world, everything from wood fires to solar shingles are being employed in order to survive and cut costs…
From big oil to big wave The data centres at the heart of the global Internet may soon all be off-grid. Google has filed a patent for a datacentre that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean’s water to cool them
The search giant has filed a patent for a ‘floating datacentre’ that uses wave motion to power on-board computers and the ocean’s water to cool them.…
The buzz around bio-fuels is all about maintaining our current lifestyles with a quick fix. But at who’s expense?
Nair: bio-fuel is theft Like most something-for-nothing schemes, the arguments for bio-fuel turn out to be flawed on close examination.
Indian Academic K. P. Prabhakaran Nair says “local people will find it harder to satisfy their food and fuel needs” as a result of large-scale bio-crop exploitation. The rural poor will suffer most.
India is a rapidly developing economy whose energy needs are growing as fast as its population. Responding to the global thrust for bio-fuels, the Indian government has promised a bagful of initiatives to encourage large-scale planting of bio-fuel crops, particularly Jatropha.…
Warmth and comfort not optional Start by calculating how much energy your home is consuming and what you can save by changing your habits and retrofitting your home. Online aids, like the Home Energy Saver in the US (hes.lbl.gov) or the Energy Star web site or Canada’s Natural Resources home heating calculator (www.canren.gc.ca) are invaluable.
The next step is to calculate the return on investment of generating your own energy, beginning with the simplest technologies and those that give the biggest immediate bang for the buck.…
Obama: unstoppable Following are energy and tax proposals listed by Sen. Barack Obama in a speech accepting the Democratic Party nomination for president on Thursday, according to excerpts of the speech released in advance.
Energy policy
– Investing $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy, wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels. Obama says that will lead to new industries and 5 million new well-paying jobs.
– Ending U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East in 10 years.…
