Minimum Power - Please

a new home can only mean new projects...

...the shower curtain is installed (it was strange to realise that it was the first time I had installed wall-plugs - a widget that I found rather smart when a little kid)
...get to drill more holes to put up pictures, including our little pleasure from Kenya (await image link)...

surprisingly, we are still awaiting our first bill!
these have tended to be amongst the first items to arrive in the post in previous residences - but not this time, we have a post-redirect service in place - so the first items were actually from our old address. Guess there is still time for the first directly addressed item to be a bill!

Anyway, bills to services - and in particular energy. We only have electricity to pay for in our new home - this is a good thing in light of all the price increases. The budgeted monthly cost for electricity alone is 45 Euros. We will see if we can sustain a lower usage rate...

Now to the gadget/tech part! a few months ago some friends at Hursley included me in a collective initiative to deploy a monitoring tool: Current Cost. Eventually data may be published online (and form part of a wider home automation project), but for now we wish to see if the accurate recording and displaying of usage can influence our behaviour in our use of electronic devices at home.

A few initial remarks. The monitor has two parts, a display and a current meter. The data exchange between the two is achieved via wireless communication. Configuration is simple, and we soon had the device displaying Euro/cent values (instead of Pounds Sterling/pence), plus had entered peak/off-peak values. The meter itself was a little more tricky to install, but only because the electrician who set-up the mains electricity box (and mains meter unit) had protected the cables - and the space to introduce the clip/jaw was rather limited. Perhaps there will be a need to review this 'jaw point' : as it does not quite surround the live wire (this explains the slightly erratic data feed). It would seem that our energy supplier permits us to select the hours we wish as our designated '8 hours of off-peak use' (yet more info here). Perhaps this will be more obvious once I spend more time on the EDF.fr website!

...we have already changed the light bulbs for ones which are more energy efficient. We don't have a TV, but do have a small washing machine - the usage will most likely be timed to coincide with the off-peak hours. The hot water also needs to be configured to match the off-peak hours. The end game: reduce our energy cost - both financial and our personal footprint.