GOING SOLAR? MAYBE

Going solar down in Chicapulco to turn those high bills round.

For the past 6 months, I’ve been dedicated to the quest of looking into solar energy because I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way you’re ever going to bring those high energy costs down is by generating your own power. If only I could erect a wind turbine in the back garden to make the most of those persistent Chichester gusts!

Blessed with a south east facing back roof that gets non-stop sunshine all summer long (when not raining) then I guess we’d be foolish not to take advantage of the potential to generate lots of lovely ‘free’ energy plus earn a few extra quid selling any surpluses back to the grid. What’s not to like?

Perfect for solar panels

Aside from the cost of the installation, I was all set to sign on the dotted solar line when one of the installers I’d approached for a quote dropped the magic phrase into the conversation which stopped me dead in my tracks.

‘Bloody hells bells’ spluttered the other half into his partially drunk glass of cider. ‘There’ll be no shutting her up after this!’

You might well ask what could have been said in the conversation that stopped the rampaging rhino. It was the phrase – “propping up the grid”.

Rewind to a point months earlier during mid solar research. Surfing the solar wave, I discovered a few things I really didn’t like all that much:

Firstly, in order to fully benefit from any export tariffs, solar customers who wish to sell their surplus power back to the grid need to have a smart meter installed. You all know my thoughts on smart meters. I’d rather stick a prickly pear up my arse than have one of those faulty spy devices installed.

Secondly, there’s something called VPP and that’s what scared the crap out of my solar plans. Your energy system including power stored in your solar batteries could be accessed remotely by something called a Virtual Power Plant. Did you know this?

During periods of high energy demand on the grid, the VPP could essentially pull the energy rug from right under your feet leaving you sucked dry of power when you might need it most. It does this by remotely accessing your system using software that controls not just your solar set up but that of loads of other people, aggregating the power to form a large central cyber power plant. Hence the ‘propping up the grid’.

Rather than establish proper cable connections from all those wind or solar farms being propped up by Government finance, energy suppliers could be nicking your stored electricity straight from your batteries because these will already be linked into the Grid. Naturally, it will use the smart spying device sitting smugly in your garage or meter cupboard to root out anyone that’s sitting on solar spoils and then it will shamelessly strip you of them.

Thirdly, there could come a time in the future when energy suppliers stop paying you for surplus electricity especially when that new nuclear power station is built or when there is so much free leccy sloshing about that the Grid just won’t be interested in taking any more on. As a nation, we’re already paying wind farms to switch off when there’s excess supply but low demand so why would the Grid or anyone else for that matter want to pay you? They’ll source power from organisations contracted with the Government to supply power. Or they’ll just taper off all feed-in tariffs once they have enough solar suckers automatically feeding the power-hungry grid monster. Once you’re dangling on the line, there’s no getting off the hook – they’ll just reel you in.

I don’t know about you but if I wanted to generate electricity for the nation then I’d have set myself up in business as an energy supplier. I’m definitely not looking to be a ‘grid propper-upper’ or the like. All I want is to knock a few quid off my own bills by being energy self-sufficient.

What puts me off even more is the UK’s irrational fear of missing out on the global AI fad. Once all those data centres pepper our green and pleasant land, the Grid is likely to be hunting out any pockets of power to ensure the fire of these data dragons doesn’t go out. It’s not going to care if you’ve opted into a VPP arrangement or not, it’ll probably just steal your electricity regardless because AI data centres will be far more important than you or I.

And so, dear readers, this is the dilemma – to solar or not to solar? Should I bite the £10K bullet but risk losing my lovely leccy to the shameless VPP grabbing hands or should I just continue being a power slave to the God of Electrification?

PERSON WITH ...

A recent news article that appeared on the BBC website regarding ‘disabled people’ caught my eye the other day giving rise to a lot of head nodding and feelings of empathy for those folks who like me are labelled ‘disabled’ by society. I think the correct term now is ‘person with’ ….

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gz9njvj43o

As a person with a mechanical condition (dodgy neck) that is classed as a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act, I am well familiar with the search for non-existent part time jobs that might fit around my physical limitations.

It’s unbelievable that neither Government (nor Job Centre) had not foreseen that a lack of suitable situations was always going to be a major stumbling block to whittling down disability benefits by getting people with physical limitations back into the workplace.

Employers shell out almost as much in taxes/on costs for a part timer as they do for a full-time member of staff so naturally, they’re not going to want to take on anyone that’s not providing value for money.  That's why many are so keen on robots.

Ask your boss for time off to attend medical appointments then step back to observe their body language. Whilst sympathy might ooze out verbally, facial expressions tell otherwise. You can almost hear their thoughts – not another visit to the … (insert relevant medical department). God that’s the third one this month!

Being a person with physical limitations then I’m obliged to disclose all my ills on every application form/medical questionnaire during the recruitment process for fear of leading prospective employers up the garden path. What I’d really love to say in support of my case is that I’m keen, hard-working, rarely take time off sick in relation to my dodgy neck or hands but I just can’t sit and type for 7 hours a day like other people can. All I need is a chance to prove myself. Of course, having done the decent up-front disclosure thingy I suspect my application form just ends up in the circular file (bin).

If the NHS found ways of fixing all of us mechanically maligned peeps then we’d be more than fit for duty but musculoskeletal disorders are way down their list of priorities even though they are probably the most common reason for people with physical limitations not taking up employment opportunities.

Employers might be more inclined to take us on if they were offered a financial incentive rather like an apprenticeship levy to make up for lost productivity due to medical appointments or flare ups. Since the Government have blown their budget then I can’t see there being a disability premium given to businesses so they can take on less-than-perfect workers.

I’d even go as far as saying that there is likely to be a statistical correlation between money spent on fixing sick people and unemployment. The less you spend on repairing the workforce, the greater the incapacity of workers resulting in higher benefit expenditure.

Rather than berating employers for not taking on people with physical limitations or suggesting that we’re all work dodgers, it would be better to get all those AI super computers to analyse the underlying health causes of benefit claimants then task them to come up with more effective ways of sorting out those problems. Once you’ve crunched the data, you might then begin to put together an effective plan to boost employment amongst the disabled community.

Otherwise, I can't see it getting any better.  Can you?

CRUMBLE-GATE

Definitely not cut out for a career in care work.  The other half will affirm that I'm more Attila the Hun than Florence Nightingale.  The word 'sympathy' didn't make this years personal dictionary.

This remarkable discovery is the result of aged mother’s desire to join the travelling circus by taking up tumbling in the back garden. The silly old dear could easily have died of hypothermia had my sister not arrived on the scene in the nick of time. After a long, stressful night of rushed conversations on the family jungle grapevine, mother is now under 24/7 surveillance.

Instant promotion for yours truly to personal shopper, batch cooker, bin emptier, patio sweeper and fitness instructor. Early morning wake up calls my speciality. Tea and chat on the hour every hour. Apples to be cleared off the lawn to stop the neighbourhood rat taking a nibble out of each one. The list of chores grows daily.

Think this is easy? Let’s throw in working from home between the hours of 7 am and 10 am too just to keep you on your toes. I’m sure the district nursing team who turn up on the doorstep each morning around 9.00 am are used to me opening the front door in a set of mismatched PJs, with hair that makes Beetlejuice look well groomed.

After two weeks of waiting hand and foot on dearest mama, I’m exhausted. She’s spent a fortnight in business class whilst I’ve been stuck in the worst kind of economy seat. Hats off to those folks who do this for a living. Give me a spreadsheet any time!

Things I’ve learnt in my new career as Help the Aged:

Old people are insanely stubborn. There are more compliant mules out there and in fact, I reckon it would be a lot easier to persuade mules to take up underwater knitting than to encourage elderly peeps to make changes for the better like using the expensive walking equipment I’ve just shelled out for.

Elderly logic is like a complicated algebraic equation – almost impossible to get your head round.

Crumble-Gate is just one example of this. Let me give you a taster of this by recalling an episode that took place as I was peeling an industrial quantity of apples harvested from the lawn to prepare a scrummy batch of mini apple crumbles to store in the freezer.

Mum - ‘What’s that you’re cooking?’

Me - ‘Well, I thought I’d make some lovely apple crumbles for dad’

Mum - ‘Your dad doesn’t eat crumble.’

Me - ‘Really? But you’ve always made him crumbles in the past.’

Mum - ‘He won’t eat them because he’s on a diet.’

Me - ‘Ok. If he’s on a diet then why does he scoff a whole large bar of chocolate every night? Surely that’s fattening?’

Mum - ‘He only eats chocolate because there wasn’t any after the Spanish civil war.’

Me - ‘Right so he’s not on a diet then.’

Mum – ‘Your dad doesn’t want to get fat. He just likes chocolate.’


I continue my one-woman British bake off determined my crumbles should qualify for a Hollywood Handshake. I know dad is going to love tucking into these since I have fond recollections of him nicking all our sweets in years gone by. He’s always had a sweet tooth.

Half an hour later, the delicious smell of cinnamon apples fills the kitchen. Mum has long forgotten our Crumble-Gate conversation as we’ve now entered into a geriatric ground-hog day parallel universe where the same sentence has been on a continual repeat loop for the past 15 minutes. Honest, it’s hard not to say ‘yes, you’ve just said that’ but I bite my tongue and just um and ah in the right places.

I’ve also discovered that oldies are devious masters in the art of procrastination. As mum’s newly designated fitness instructor it’s been impossible to find the right way of actually getting her to do the small daily exercise regime prescribed by the Physiotherapy Team. I’m amazed at the lengths she’ll go to in order not to do them including appearing completely starkers one morning claiming she couldn’t do her fitness because she wasn’t properly dressed. Head slap. I’ve seen it all now! Muuuuummmmm!

Patience is a virtue. Mine is now in short supply. Anyone for crumble?

STANDING CHARGES, SITTING DUCKS

It’s been a while since I had a little rantette about one of my favourite soap box topics – energy.  Whilst there’s no DIY to do then here goes…

Martin Lewis is disappointed. Poor bloke. Tries his hardest to convince Ofgem or the Government to make things fairer for us all on the energy front but his efforts just fall on deaf ears. What’s getting his goat this time? Standing Charges.

You can take a regulator to water but you can’t make it drink. And in the case of Ofgem, I wouldn’t have even bothered. Or I’d have pee’d in the trough beforehand!

The difficulty Ofgem face is that they are desperately trying to serve 3 masters: The Government, Energy Suppliers and the Consumer in that order. We’re at the very bottom of the pecking order and likely to remain thus until the end of time.

As Martin clearly points out in his latest newsletter, having consulted endlessly on energy and asking us all what we want done to make standing charges fairer, Ofgem is getting ready to press the feather pillow down firmly over our energy consuming faces to smother any possibility of changes benefitting consumers particularly the vulnerable.

I feel for the bloke as he's one of my heroes but ever the cynic and having bombarded Ofgem with emails myself as part of public consultations then I always felt these exercises were no more than lip service. A sop to the public. It’s that kind of ‘look we’re trying to do something about all this energy nonsense’ but with no actual intention of doing anything that might rock the boat with their other two paymasters.

And as I’ve blogged ‘til I’m blue in the face (channelling my inner smurf) on things like standing charges – the biggest stumbling block Ofgem face to reducing these is Government policy itself. Stealth green levies and all those other things snuck into our bills. Therein lies the problem.

Granted the cost of running the National Grid and infrastructure to supply energy has to be paid for by every consumer. I’m more than happy for that to be kept in as a ‘standing charge’ on energy bills it’s the other crap that gets lumped into this category that needs to be sorted.

Martin’s diagram showing a breakdown of what typically makes up your standing charges explains it rather clearly:

Breakdown of a typical standing charge

If you were to deduct those amounts from bills that make up what I deem to be items that shouldn’t form part of a standing charge such as:

Policy costs - £22.10

Adjustment Allowance – 90p

Payment Method Uplift - £9.80

Headroom Allowance - £2.80


That would knock at least £35 off your standing charge straight away.

Policy costs ie the stealth green levies, propping up the elderly or keeping work dodgers warm should be paid for out of general taxation or met from any energy windfall taxes levied by the Government.

Consumers should not be responsible for debts or provision for the unexpected as suppliers should be setting monies aside from the Profit segment to cover these things.

And as for the Payment Method Uplift. That’s a bit of a hefty chunk isn’t it and should already form part of the Operating Costs segment. As long as customers pay their bills, do we really need a surcharge for the different methods of paying it?

In reality, too much is woven into the existing standing charge that perhaps should not be in there in the first place and that’s what makes it a minefield to unravel.

No mention of Social Tariffs for the vulnerable coming out of any of the consultations. Of course not; that would be too logical and not make anyone any money would it?

Standing charges, sitting ducks. Whatever way you slice it or dice it, the money’s got to come from somewhere for someone. The Government would prefer all of us to foot the bill for the vulnerable which is why those that can pay their bills are subsiding those that can’t. This is again hidden in that Policy Costs segment. How else can they offer winter fuel payments or warmer homes discounts to those on benefits without hiking up taxes?

I may as well give 90 yr old Doris fifty quid every month just so she can toast her teacakes on the gas fire to have with her Horlicks every afternoon whilst I shiver in my shreddies unable to switch the boiler on. This is basically what standing charges amount to.

Good luck Martin in trying to convince Ofgem to change things for the better. We’re all grateful that someone’s got the energy to fight this battle because my candle’s burnt out at both ends!  Quack!  Quack!

WRITTEN IN THE STARS

Not that long ago, I splashed out on a cheapie tabloid to see what populist rubbish was being spoon fed to the masses and was amazed to read in that days’ horoscope that I was about to receive a large sum of money.

How large?

Woo hoo! In almost 5 minutes flat, I’d mentally spent every penny of it in a flurry of online purchases, extravagant gestures and bunging a few quid to my favourite relatives, charities, street beggars or anyone else I felt to be deserving of my financial largesse.

No matter that this horoscope applied to every other sea goat reading this paper or that a specific amount hadn’t been foretold. It could be a tenner or ten million for all I cared, the fact is that just reading about it in a horoscope made it seem all the more certain.

Could such an event truly be written in the stars? I mean we all know deep down that horoscopes aren’t really true, are they? Let’s face it, you could probably fit any set of circumstances into a Mystic Meg prediction because our minds are simply programmed into solving puzzles or looking for connections however tenuous.

Let’s apply some ‘scientific’ reasoning to this potentially wondrous piece of good fortune, dissecting it line by line to test the theory:

The receipt of a large sum of money will allow you to pay off loans and debts that have been a burden for far too long.

My first thought in analysing this sentence is where or whom will the cash come from? There are no bank errors likely to be in my favour, the tax man only rings once and that’s to collect and I don’t believe in pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. My parents are older than Methuselah but tighter than a jar of pesto sauce so I can’t imagine there’d be any pre-IHT gifting coming from that quarter. Maybe I’ll just stumble across a fiver on the pavement or under a sofa cushion.

Perhaps the ’loans and debts’ could be referring to the credit agreement that’s still outstanding on the new upstairs carpets. I don’t consider it a burden since it was only to borrow a small sum and as we only re-carpeted last year then that can hardly be considered ‘far too long’ can it?

Going forward, you need to make it a priority to live within your means.

Really sound advice given that we’re all in the midst of this never-ending cost of living crisis but hardly an astrological revelation. When those email alerts drop into Outlook announcing another legendary tour of some band you’ve always wanted to see or have already seen a zillion times (Depeche Mode) then delete, delete, delete. Nobody really lives within their means all the while there is credit to be had.


Do this and you will avoid accumulating more debt.


Well, it stands to reason doesn’t it that if you don’t overspend then you won’t be racking up any tabs anywhere that’ll need paying back. You don’t need Nostradamus to point that one out, it should be as plain as the nose on your face. Unless you’re someone or something that doesn’t have a nose. A potato for instance or a walnut whip. Only then could you be excused for buying a gold-plated toilet on tick.

It’s been several months since my astrological chart predicted I might be richer than Rockefeller yet I’m still waiting for this monetary miracle to occur. 

Written in the stars my arse!