A winter of content

In the Autumn I switched energy supplier for some short term gain on costs. However, I don't expect this to last. I tend to think that, unless you are prepared to move supplier every few months, any advantages are rapidly eroded.

I was not surprised, therefore, to find that our energy bills for the winter have reduced. I pay by direct debit and I find that the credit on the electricity account has increased from £5.64 to £11.25 and the debit on the gas account has decreased from £96.24 to £59.98. It seems that a reduction from the current monthly amounts of £27.00 and £71.00 (annual £1176) should be in the offing as fuel usage drops away over the summer. If this happens, past experience suggests that the change will be too much and they will soon go up again when, as Mervyn says, wholesale energy costs rise. Such is the merry-go-round of dd utility financing.

However, for me, the effect was not merely financial. Generally, it is much better to focus on reducing actual energy consumption than juggling tariffs or suppliers. When I calculated my daily averages (based on actual meter readings) for this winter (roughly mid October to late April) as compared to last, I had a shock:

                         Winter 2010/11                             Winter 2009/10

Gas                    73.7 kWh per day                         114.2 kWh per day

(N.B. Previously, I had miscalculated the 10/11 gas usage as 53.4 kWh per day.) Now I was expecting a drop, but I am somewhat at a loss to explain one of 35%. In London, this winter has been milder than the last. Although December was cold and snowy, the spring has been much warmer. That must explain some of it. The only other thing that has changed is in the house. As soon as it got cold I had a big insulation drive, sealing up as many gaps as I could find and, since we have little in the way of double glazing, resorting to heat-shrink plastic film in order to quickly cover large glass panes and surrounding air gaps. It's not elegant, but it is cheap, and it certainly seemed to work, as we felt much cosier on cold days than last winter. It appears now that the proof is in the bills.

With regard to electricity, things are not nearly so dramatic, but still heading in the right direction:

                          Winter 2010/11                           Winter 2009/10

Electricity          9.4 kWh per day                          9.8 kWh per day

The only significant change that I made was tweaking the fridges slightly to run at 4-5 degrees C instead of 3-4. That, and the replacement of an old tower style computer with a laptop, has been the only change to electrical kit.

Overall, I am more than content with the savings made, especially as we made no sacrifices to comfort, unlike some. After proof of concept, all I have to do now is fabricate some secondary glazing that doesn't look like clingfilm.