Terence Eden. He has a beard and is smiling.

Terence Eden’s Blog

Theme Switcher:

Can you meaningfully measure how environmentally friendly a website is?

· 5 comments · 650 words · Viewed ~592 times


Website carbon results for: shkspr.mobi/blog Hurrah! This web page achieves a carbon rating of A. This is cleaner than 82 % of all web pages globally

Think global; act local. That's the mantra, right? I can't stop coal plants belching out suffocating pollutants, but can I ensure my website is as environmentally friendly as possible? There are several services which claim to be able to detect just how lean, green, and clean your website is. But, in my opinion, they're all a bit inadequate. WebsiteCarbon The WebsiteCarbon.com service gives me …

We pay 12p / kWh for electricity - thanks to a smart tariff and battery

· 8 comments · 1,000 words · Viewed ~522 times


Screenshot of our electricity bill showing 320kWh consumption.

I love my solar panels. But the solar panels don't love the British midwinter. Most of the year, my panels produce more electricity than I can use. But in winter we're lucky if they produce 3kWh per day - and most of the time it is considerably less. So our winter electricity bills must be massive, right? Nope. The normal cost per kWh is 28.5p (including VAT). We're paying less than half that …

Why we can't have an air source heat pump

· 40 comments · 600 words · Viewed ~10,144 times


Photo of an Air Source Heat Pump by Krzysztof Lis.

As part of our quest to make our house more efficient, we've installed solar panels, a battery, insulation, and all the other stuff you're supposed to do. The next step is working out if we can reduce our dependency on gas. Octopus Energy (join and we both get £50!) offered to send an engineer around for free to assess our property for suitability for an Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP). The …

No, you can't save £30 per year by switching off your "standby" devices

· 21 comments · 950 words · Viewed ~21,974 times


Chart from the report showing various bits of IT equipment and their power use.

Every few years, a dodgy stat does the rounds claiming you can save £££ if you switch off all your gadgets at the wall. The standby mode of your TV is bleeding you dry!!! Energy Saving Trust@EnergySvgTrustA quick way to #saveenergy at home is to turn off tablets, laptops and consoles as soon as you stop using them, and ideally unplug them.This is a big potential #energy saver and could save you u…

Humm Energy Monitor Set Up – Part 5 – Data Visualisation

· 6 comments · 350 words


After my disastrous attempt to upload data under Ubuntu, I found a Windows laptop to upload my energy usage data. The good news is that Sam from Humm is actively working on making the Adobe Air upload application work under Linux. So, how does the process of uploading your data to the service work? All in one The Application is a real "one click" experience. It autodetects your SD card, sees…

Humm Energy Monitor Set Up – Part 4 – Data Upload

· 550 words


So, I've hit my first snag with the Humm Duet Energy monitor.  As I mentioned in my first post, the device doesn't have any Internet connectivity.  Instead it records everything onto an SD card. In order to visualise the data, I have to manually upload the files to the Green Energy Options MyEnergy site.  Rather than a simple web based uploader - GEO have decided to go with Adobe Air as their pl…

Saving Money - Switching Tarrifs

· 100 words


Photo of an energy saving plug.

As part of my ongoing quest to save energy and save money, I decided to look into changing energy suppliers. Eon were doing a special offer in their Energy Shop for a free PowerDown Plug worth about £15.  Here's the unboxing. …

Unboxing Videos - Humm Duet Energy Monitor

· 200 words


Screen capture from an unboxing video.

Green Energy Options have sent me the Duet home energy monitor. The Duet offers a secondary display that is attached to the Solo display and provides the monitoring of up to 6 appliances and central heating. It also provides the ability to compare the energy usage of the appliances and heating over time. In addition to the Solo, the Duet displays: Current energy usage (load) Overall…