Friday 17th July 09

I got up quite early as I needed to talk to the woman who had booked me to work at her child's school in Cliffe, near Selby, for the leavers' party. She rang me back on her mobile as her landline wasn't making outgoing calls, as the whole village had had a power cut at 1.30am, and the school was closed, so she'd had to cancel. It's a kind of mixed blessing as I was wondering about whether I should actually do this gig as I might have had H1N1 'Flu earlier this week, and if I did have it, I could be still infectious... AND it's raining heavily and I was intending to cycle down there... it's an hour and a quarter away.

So, I was able to peruse my emails and I was interested to find that a new website has been developed, called Real Time Carbon, which shows you how much carbon is being emitted from the mix of generation being used, updated every 5 minutes. Here is how it works:

RealtimeCarbon.org screencast from Jamie Andrews on Vimeo.

The other news is that the Government has introduced 'Feed In Tarrifs' which guarantee an income from solar photovoltaic panels and other renewable generation. This means that an average sized system on a domestic roof, costing about £12,500, will give an income of almost £1000 a year for 20 years plus halve an average home's electricity bill. Here's the Green Building Press article on it.

I think we need to seriously consider this (not that we have £12K to spare!) as our electricity bill is significantly lower than average, so we'd make/save more money than most! I wonder if I could get a loan from the Credit Union?

At about 4pm, despite the rain, I cycled down to town to put in two cheques, pay a bill, give in an invoice and to give in a form to the council. Whilst I was in the Nationwide, I asked if I could borrow £12K to put photovoltaic cells on my roof. I was seen to by a teenager (seemed like it!) who started to go through an eligibility questionnaire. I failed at the first hurdle. I don't earn £750 a month... their minimum requirement. Whilst in the Co-op Bank, I asked the same question, and I was told, after a few details were put into their computer, that I could borrow £11K over 84 months (7 years) and pay back £175 a month, an APR of 8.42%, interest amounting to £3,700. Early repayment penalty of about £44. I felt this was quite a good deal. I got a 0.5% APR discount as I'm a Co-op member!

Came back with a vast amount of stuff from Country Fresh including maybe 40 bananas and a large pile of Asian pears... all will be dried! So lit the stove, dried myself off and did some fruit prep later in the evening.

Boys seem pretty well back to normal. They've had the day off school and may have had Flu.