Habeck claims anyone could quite easily use 10% less energy

[skadi 76]

On 10/2/2022, 12:31:50, snowingagain said:

Ooh me too.  Not like the madness of Hounslow, but the point when they would let the wheels down. A few poor stowaways have splattered down there after hiding in wheel arch.   Concord rattled the windows.  I was pretty immune to it growing up, but going back to visit I was shocked at the noise. 

 And me too, though I did find it a bit annoying when watching Wimbledon, the plane would go over the house and then you'd hear it again on the tv. 

 

My mum briefly lived in Hounslow West, holy plane batman. 

[Fietsrad 412]

Tourist officers in Greece are trying to tempt people from "Northern Europe" to spend the winter there, "temperatures of up to 20° are possible "😉

 

I think I shall be staying in Germany, weather is still too bright and warm here, ice-cream sellers are taking a lot of cash. Not used the heating yet.

[vivanco 174]

32 minutes ago, Fietsrad said:

Tourist officers in Greece are trying to tempt people from "Northern Europe" to spend the winter there, "temperatures of up to 20° are possible "😉

So how much does 3 month rental costs there? Should be cheaper than heating the apartment over winter here to make sense.

[fraufruit 42,169]

3 hours ago, Fietsrad said:

I think I shall be staying in Germany, weather is still too bright and warm here, ice-cream sellers are taking a lot of cash. Not used the heating yet.

 

Not winter yet, though.

[Janx Spirit 11,157]

Some tips from Aunty Beeb:

 

"How to cut your energy bills"

 

"Energy-saving measures won't make up for the sharp rise in prices. But taken together, lots of small changes could save hundreds of pounds a year."

 

Quote

1. Use an air fryer or microwave instead of an oven

Ovens can be an inefficient way of cooking as they involve heating a relatively large space. Using a microwave, pressure cooker or air fryer instead could save money.

 

For example, since 1 October it costs 3p to heat up a frozen ready meal in a 800W (watts) microwave for seven minutes. It would cost 40p for 35 minutes in a 2000W oven, energy efficiency website Sust-it estimates.

 

Microwaves usually save energy as they cook faster. For example, a baked potato could take 90 minutes in an oven, 45 minutes in an air fryer and 10 minutes in a microwave.

 

2. Switch to LED lightbulbs

Lighting makes up 11% of the average UK household's energy consumption, according to The Energy Saving Trust and Which?

 

Switching to LED bulbs can make a big difference.

 

A household using a dozen 40W incandescent or halogen bulbs for four hours a day could spend about £238 per year, Sust-it estimates. LED equivalents would cost £41.70 - a saving of £196.30 a year.

 

LED bulbs can cost more, but have a longer lifespan and will save money over time.

 

3. Take control of your central heating

Set your thermostat at the lowest comfortable temperature (often 18 to 21C).

 

Turning your thermostat down just one degree could cut bills by about £145 a year, the Energy Saving Trust says. This is based on a semi-detached house with the heating on between 7am-9am and 4pm-11pm on week days and between 7am-11pm at weekends.

 

In smaller homes, like a terraced house or a flat, the savings will be lower.

 

4. Insulate and draught-proof your home

If your home is poorly insulated it will lose heat more easily and be harder to keep warm.

 

Insulation and draught-proofing - to stop heat escaping around doors and windows - helps trap heat.

 

Professional draught-proofing might cost about £225, the Energy Saving Trust says. However, it can save about £125 a year - based on a typical semi-detached home.

 

5. Make better use of appliances

Washing machines and tumble dryers can be energy hungry, according to Emily Seymour. But there are ways to use them efficiently, she says.

 

Use any eco settings and turn your machine down - particularly if clothes aren't that dirty.

 

Washing clothes at 30 C and using one less cycle a week could save £28 a year, the Energy Saving Trust says.

 

If you can, dry clothes outside instead of in a tumble dryer. It will cost at least £36 a year to run an energy efficient dryer from October, based on average usage, or as much as £159 for an inefficient models, Sust-it says.

 

Not using an inefficient dryer for four months during the summer could save up to £70 a year, according to the Energy Savings Trust.

 

6. Take shorter showers

A typical household with gas heating will see about 12% of its energy bill used to heat water for showers, baths and taps, the Energy Saving Trust says.

 

However, if you have a power shower the saving could be less as you'll use more hot water.

 

Meanwhile, cutting your shower time from eight to four minutes could save £70 a year. This is based on five showers a week.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62738249

[Fietsrad 412]

I was at home reading until it got dark. Instead of putting the light on I went shopping, using someone else's light.

 

Besides, the food store near home has been out of tea the last three visits, but I found some tea at the other store.

 

Now I am on the internut in the dark, no need to have the light on😉

..

Going on a train trip soon. Could I save a measurable amount of My Money by charging my devices on the train?

[Krieg 15,027]

14 hours ago, Fietsrad said:

Going on a train trip soon. Could I save a measurable amount of My Money by charging my devices on the train?

 

Sure, your phone needs around 10 wh to fully charge.  At 30c a kw you will save 0.3c.   If you do it every day you will save 1,10 EUR a year.

[scook17 281]

On 10/10/2022, 20:13:06, Fietsrad said:

I was at home reading until it got dark. Instead of putting the light on I went shopping, using someone else's light.

Besides, the food store near home has been out of tea the last three visits, but I found some tea at the other store.

Now I am on the internut in the dark, no need to have the light on😉

..

Going on a train trip soon. Could I save a measurable amount of My Money by charging my devices on the train?

 

Well you would not be the first one to go shopping in the middle of the summer, just because Edeka/Lidl/Aldi/... has the air-conditioning turned on.

I am sure you will not be the last one spending time in those lovely warm shopping malls this winter. 

I remember as UK students, one reason for being in the local pub, was because it was warm as it had a nice old wood fire burning all evening!

[toBnruG 1,152]

On 19/04/2022, 21:19:08, robinson100 said:

Actually saw a report on the TV once, about saving money - apparently, by filling the fridge, you do save money by not losing so much cold air when you open the door, as Dembo said.

I know this post is old but I think I saw the same (or a similar) show and was also too lazy to figure out if it was relevant or not.

Now I know that it takes 2.4kJ to reduce the temperature of the air in my empty fridge by 20°C. That's equal to 0.00067 kWh. So if I pay 50 cent/kWh for electricity then it will cost me 1 cent to open and close my fridge door 30 times, each time completely flushing out all of the refrigerated air.

The same 1 cent will also cool a litre of milk by 20°C.

If I keep the door closed, the same 1 cent will keep the device ticking over for about 1 hour.

Sat in my office, the same 1 cent will light my room (10W bulb) for 2 hours... *turns off light

[emkay 10,197]

Has anyone changed from a 12 month fixed price electricity contract to Grundversorgung? Or thinking of doing so?

 

Today we got our notification of electricity price increase from 22.17 cents per kWh to 46.72 from 1st December. Around 110% increase. The Grundpreis stays the same at 120€ per year. 

 

I called the provider to check if this is a fixed price for a year as the letter didn’t clarify. It was safe to assume it wasn’t a fixed price and it isn’t!

 

Our Grundversorgung price would be 29.90 cents per kWh with a Grundpreis of 89€ per year. The difference between staying with our current supplier without price guarantee, or changing to Grundversorgung is almost 1000€ per year. 
 

I asked our current supplier what the pros and cons would be of changing to Grundversorgung. She couldn’t answer that other than to say *if* prices normalise, new customers currently pay a lot more than existing customers.

 

Does anyone have more insight as to the pros and cons of changing to Grundversorgung? I guess if Grundversorgung price increases, a non price guarantee contract would increase too.  Confused!!

[scook17 281]

For anyone with an old tumble dryer, perhaps the following video might make you buy a new heat pump one:

 

 

Summary for those who can't be bothered to watch:

2017 Heat Pump Dryer, 657w vs 1898w for 'old' vented dryer for the same load. No statement on energy label that was on either, but likely the 'old' unit is around 10 years older, so the x3 difference may be somewhat overplayed.

Heat pump uses 550w average over the cycle, where as the vented one pulls 2223w. For anyone with solar, this mostly means the heat pump runs from solar and the the vented one will pull from the mains supply during winter.

As the heat pump dryer needs a warm room, they either do not work well or take a very long time in garages/other cold places.

 

I find the clothes horse on the south facing balcony works very well, so own neither. But on some raining weeks, or in the depth of winter, I do wonder. 

[vivanco 174]

6 hours ago, scook17 said:

For anyone with an old tumble dryer, per

2017 Heat Pump Dryer, 657w vs 1898w for 'old' vented dryer for the same load. 

I have old vented dryer and wondered if investing in new dryer worth it? A quick excel calculation told me that a 500 euro heat pump dryer will take about 10 years of regular  2.2 drying/ week to recover the purchase price with energy cost of 30ct. /kwh. So i decided against replacing unless the old breaks down. My assumption was newdryer will take 1/3 the energy compared to the old one. 

[fraufruit 42,169]

14 hours ago, scook17 said:

I find the clothes horse on the south facing balcony works very well

 

I put my clothes rack on the bed and turn on the ceiling ventilator. It uses very little energy. Most things dry in a half hour or hour - like the dryer in my wasch/trockener. So on the bed and out of the way. I use my dryer mostly for towels. It fluffs them up nice.

[Rushrush 295]

Quote

 

Switching to LED bulbs can make a big difference.

 

A household using a dozen 40W incandescent or halogen bulbs for four hours a day could spend about £238 per year, Sust-it estimates. LED equivalents would cost £41.70 - a saving of £196.30 a year.

 

 

Does anyone even use incandescent bulbs anymore?

 

Honestly LEDs use so little power it's barely worth the energy to turn them off

 

Probably mentioned several times already but I see the government finally bowed to reality will keep the nuclear plants open long term (while pretending that they along with coal will be shut down in a few years) For anyone interested Jörg Luyken did a great interview about how German's are brainwashed on renewables. Short answer is it's 100% impossible for renewables to replace O&G. 

 

https://www.thegermanreview.de/p/interview-germans-are-brainwashed

 

[murphaph 9,814]

No it isn't. It's just a question of scale and storage. Do you really think we'll be burning oil and gas to make electricity in another century? There's a great big fusion reactor in the sky. It is there every day. It never fails to turn on. We just need enough installed capacity to capture enough of the immense energy it bathes our planet in every second of every day. With enough installed capacity you provide redundancy to the point that it is mathematically extremely unlikely that there will be power shortages. Remember, it's mathematically possible that all the O&G plants stop working simultaneously too ;-)

 

In addition to the brute force tool of having so much capacity installed so widely that power outages are mathematically unlikely, we have another one, namely storage. There are many innovative ways to store electrical power that are rapidly improving. We could even just take the "lazy option" and dump all the excess wind and solar energy and dump it into green hydrogen and use that as a pseudo-fossil fuel in power plants and transportation etc. 

 

So it's 100% wrong to say that renewables cannot completely replace O&G. They can and will.

 

Oh, I just looked at your user name and realised I wasted my time typing this.

[Gambatte 925]

Never needed to use a dryer in my life. 

[Krieg 15,027]

49 minutes ago, Rushrush said:

Short answer is it's 100% impossible for renewables to replace O&G. 

 

Then we are screwed because sooner or later fossil fuels will run out.   And we are using fossil fuels to go to the supermarket to buy one bottle of water.

 

 

P.S., Do you remember that meme with the young black African saying "Are you telling me you shit on clean water?" ? Well, in one or two hundred years people will think:  I can't believe those idiots in the past used all valuable fossil fuel in crap like transporting themselves 20 km a day.

 

[hooperski 29,430]

39 minutes ago, murphaph said:

No it isn't. It's just a question of scale and storage. Do you really think we'll be burning oil and gas to make electricity in another century? There's a great big fusion reactor in the sky. It is there every day. It never fails to turn on. We just need enough installed capacity to capture enough of the immense energy it bathes our planet in every second of every day. With enough installed capacity you provide redundancy to the point that it is mathematically extremely unlikely that there will be power shortages. Remember, it's mathematically possible that all the O&G plants stop working simultaneously too ;-)

 

In addition to the brute force tool of having so much capacity installed so widely that power outages are mathematically unlikely, we have another one, namely storage. There are many innovative ways to store electrical power that are rapidly improving. We could even just take the "lazy option" and dump all the excess wind and solar energy and dump it into green hydrogen and use that as a pseudo-fossil fuel in power plants and transportation etc. 

 

So it's 100% wrong to say that renewables cannot completely replace O&G. They can and will.

 

Oh, I just looked at your user name and realised I wasted my time typing this.

 

I don't think people know that electric cars were around in 1834, way before the internal combustion engine.

Then when people like Rockefeller found masses of cheap oil, he and Henry Ford saw an opening. The rest is history.

[fraufruit 42,169]

52 minutes ago, Gambatte said:

Never needed to use a dryer in my life. 

 

Himself also. He doesn't do the laundry.

[murphaph 9,814]

2 hours ago, hooperski said:

 

I don't think people know that electric cars were around in 1834, way before the internal combustion engine.

Then when people like Rockefeller found masses of cheap oil, he and Henry Ford saw an opening. The rest is history.

That's really true. The world got very, very lazy thanks to masses of cheap and plentiful oil. If we had been forced to develop alternative technologies we'd be a lot further along than we are now.