Power struggle

[brightncheerful]

Some time ago, having changed my electricity supplier from Eon to Octopus because after Eon took over npower I had become fed up with Eon's silly emails plus its insistence to pay monthly, npower having been quarterly, Octopus also insisted on monthly but without the silly emails. So having been accommodating for long enough. every so often I pay a few hundred pounds to last a few months. (I use a credit card to get cash back. I dislike direct debit because, apart from the horror stories of suppliers taking too much and getting it wrong, I might not be able to afford to pay on about the same day every month.)

In August last year, I was informed the meter was 10 years old and needed replacing. As we've lived here for more than 10 years, I couldn't remember npower renewing it in 2014. With the only alternative a smart meter and thinking the replacement notification a ploy, I ignored it.

Not having sent O a reading since May 2024 but paying on estimates, I sent a reading in October to which I received a bill for almost £2700. As my typical monthly payments on readings (not estimates) were about £100, I queried the amount. I sent O a photo of the meter readings, and they confirmed correct as I'd sent them. Unable to get O to accept a faulty meter, I offered and agreed to pay the amount in instalments of my choosing whenever I liked, provided at least 1 payment a month for as long as it would take.

Thinking I should relent to get a smart meter installed, a procedure which in the event was straightforward and the meter working almost immediately, I began to monitor usage. The needle in mostly at the low end of the green area, currently at 10p an hour. Occasionally, it goes into the orange for a minute or two, and rarely into the red. Overnight it's fairly constant at just under £0.80

In January this year, I decided to stop paying. By then, I reckoned O would have enough of my usage track record to agree it must've been a faulty meter. I provided details of our life-style (2 adults and a dog) typical usage, appliances, etc. The person I'd been emailing at O was very helpful, so I suggested O write off the approximately 50% owing, and I'd pay the amount according to the smart meter.

A reply from another person referred to the job card that the smart meter installer had provided. Although what the installer had recorded wasn't as complete as I was told it should've been, the reading did tally with mine, suggesting that the meter might've been faulty. The person worked out some figures which he said seemed logical and asked me to confirm, whereupon he would adjust my account. I did, he did and instead of a reminder as I'd had the day before that a credit agency would be informed If didn't pay, I got a statement with a credit balance of £1600.

I've changed the tariff to fixed for 16 months. Subjec to whatever Ofsted/Ofgem have in store for us, that should last a few months.

The euphoria wore off the next day. My gas supplier is a different company and I pay quarterly. Since we had the windows done, the central heating boiler is on 24 hours a day at the same setting. The kitchen cooker is gas, the oven is electric which Mrs Bnc rarely uses except at Christmastime. I've stopped having 15–20 minutes hot water showers every day, and Mrs Bnc never did. For the 3 months, the bill is £630.  

The warmer seasons are approaching.

[Urbandreamer]

Not that it matters as you are so much in credit, but there are cost savings to be had now that you have a smart meter.

We are not with Octopus, but with British Gas.
On Thursday we got two hours of cheap electricity, because the wind was blowing.
Tomorrow we'll get 5 hr of cheap electricity, because demand at that time is low.

Not something that is possible if you meter doesn't track the time that you are consuming, AKA an old dumb meter.

Ps, just checked and along with free electricity Octopus might offer you a sausage roll.
https://octopus.energy/all-octoplus-rewards/

[brightncheerful]

I don't eat that sort of food but thank you anyway.

Just checked my octopus account, my virtual forest is 777 trees, having saved 1,553 kg CO2 emissions since becoming a customer.

Our neighbours get annoyed when our bay tree dares to grow close to its full height of 65'0" (19.81m) so I dread to think how much C02 they'd emit if we planted a real forest.

[Mike4]

I've been relentlessly ignoring emails from EDF pestering me to get a smart meter but I eventually admitted defeat recently and booked an appointment, as a result of National Grid joining in and warning me my RTS signal is about to get turned off. If I didn't get a new meter fitted I'd find myself stuck on either day rate or night rate apparently, and they couldn't tell me which but probably day rate.

This all rhymed with the warnings from EDF along the same lines so when they then emailed offering me a £150 credit to get the SM fitted, I finally pressed the nuclear button and booked an appointment. It was due to be done yesterday between 12.00 and 4.00pm. Needless to say despite me staying in all day and losing a day's earnings, the bloke didn't turn up. He DID however call me about 3.30 to tell me he wsn't gonna make it and have a long moan to me about how sh!t being a meter changer was and he'd been to Salisbury and Basingstoke that day already for peanuts and how he wished he could change career to fixing boilers! So we spent quite a while discussing that too, as you can imagine. Anyway the upshot was, I sent him a photo of my meter and he confirmed it contained a timer and not as RTS switch so it didn't need changing EDF had been lying to me all along.

SO... I'm bloody keeping my old Economy Seven meter now regardless of what lies they peddle in future - although having cleared my meter cupboard out for the bod and now put it all back in again, its MUCH tidier. What a WIN, eh!!

[Mike4]

I don't eat that sort of food but thank you anyway.

Just checked my octopus account, my virtual forest is 777 trees, having saved 1,553 kg CO2 emissions since becoming a customer.

Our neighbours get annoyed when our bay tree dares to grow close to its full height of 65'0" (19.81m) so I dread to think how much C02 they'd emit if we planted a real forest.

Hang on, do bay trees (or any trees) emit any CO2 at all? I suspect not!

I'm getting the feeling I've completely misunderstood something....

[Urbandreamer]

I don't eat that sort of food but thank you anyway.

Just checked my octopus account, my virtual forest is 777 trees, having saved 1,553 kg CO2 emissions since becoming a customer.

Our neighbours get annoyed when our bay tree dares to grow close to its full height of 65'0" (19.81m) so I dread to think how much C02 they'd emit if we planted a real forest.

Hang on, do bay trees (or any trees) emit any CO2 at all? I suspect not!

I'm getting the feeling I've completely misunderstood something....

Off topic, but I believe that you are wrong. They simply absorb more CO2 than they emit.
https://www.pthorticulture.com/en-us/tr ... espiration

he process of respiration is represented as follows:

C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2 + 6H2O + 32 ATP (energy)

Note the 6 parts CO2.

[UncleEbenezer]

I don't eat that sort of food but thank you anyway.

Just checked my octopus account, my virtual forest is 777 trees, having saved 1,553 kg CO2 emissions since becoming a customer.

Our neighbours get annoyed when our bay tree dares to grow close to its full height of 65'0" (19.81m) so I dread to think how much C02 they'd emit if we planted a real forest.

Hang on, do bay trees (or any trees) emit any CO2 at all? I suspect not!

I'm getting the feeling I've completely misunderstood something....

Yes, as already explained.

They sequester a lot of CO2, but most of that is released back into the atmosphere by processes of decay when they die. Leaves and little bits of wood all the time, the whole tree only after (typically) hundreds of years. Things humans do can affect that: timber can hold CO2 for centuries, or burning of organic matter just accelerates the fossil fuel cycle by maybe about 60 million years (being the duration of the Carboniferous period).

Having said that, I'd take bnc's forest with a pinch of salt!

[Mike4]

Ok thanks.

So if I understand correctly, a tree is 'carbon neutral' over its whole life cycle. It neither reduces nor increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, as once its dead and the carcass has finished rotting away it will have released all the carbon captured in it?

So planting trees helps reduce atmospheric CO2 as while the tree is alive and removing carbon from the atmosphere and converting/storing it as timber? The once the tree dies the process reverses as the wood rots or burns, and the tree CO2 account returns to zero in the fulness of time?

Do I have that broadly right?

[Urbandreamer]

Ok thanks.

So if I understand correctly, a tree is 'carbon neutral' over its whole life cycle. It neither reduces nor increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, as once its dead and the carcass has finished rotting away it will have released all the carbon captured in it?

So planting trees helps reduce atmospheric CO2 as while the tree is alive and removing carbon from the atmosphere and converting/storing it as timber? The once the tree dies the process reverses as the wood rots or burns, and the tree CO2 account returns to zero in the fulness of time?

Do I have that broadly right?

Well, ignoring trees and other plants that get buried, yes.
That's why it's called the carbon cycle.

The increases in atmospheric CO2 are caused by burning buried former plants. That's where coal, oil and natural gas comes from.

Of course sources of carbon are not limited to buried plants.

Carbon is taken up and bound up into calcium carbonate shells by sea life. Which gets buried forming lime stone. Which is crushed and baked to drive off the carbon, binding it with oxygen from the air to make CO2. Leaving lime, used in concrete.

It's all fairly simple stuff.

[UncleEbenezer]

Ok thanks.

So if I understand correctly, a tree is 'carbon neutral' over its whole life cycle. It neither reduces nor increases the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, as once its dead and the carcass has finished rotting away it will have released all the carbon captured in it?

So planting trees helps reduce atmospheric CO2 as while the tree is alive and removing carbon from the atmosphere and converting/storing it as timber? The once the tree dies the process reverses as the wood rots or burns, and the tree CO2 account returns to zero in the fulness of time?

Do I have that broadly right?

Not quite.

Most of the material gets recycled over the centuries. But not all of it. Some becomes soil and other such organic but non-living materials, in a process somewhat akin to your compost bin. Over millions of years, some of that becomes things like peat, coal, limestone, and the hydrocarbons we now burn. Carbon storage that was long-term stable until humanity disrupted it!

[DeepSporran]

…..

Needless to say despite me staying in all day and losing a day's earnings, the bloke didn't turn up.

………

What a WIN, eh!!

Won’t make up for a day‘s lost earnings but you should be getting compensation of £40 (I think) for a missed appointment. Might have to chase them if course. A minor win ?

[Itsallaguess]

Just checked my octopus account, my virtual forest is 777 trees, having saved 1,553 kg CO2 emissions since becoming a customer.

In other news -

Amazon forest felled to build road for climate summit -



A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

There's a drone-shot video on the above link that provides a clearer look at the damage being done to provide for this four-lane highway...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Tedx]

That road will just be for the serfs and the worker bees.

The big nobs will fly in by private jet.

[Itsallaguess]

That road will just be for the serfs and the worker bees.

The big nobs will fly in by private jet.

Absolutely...

Perhaps the diggers will move over to clear the new runway once that 4-lane monstrosity has been completed...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[Mike4]

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

Never mind the four lane highway they are building for it, that "50,000 people attending" caught my eye. This COP thing really does seem to be turning into a gravy train, doesn't it?

Or do they actually achieve something worthwhile?

[swill453]

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

There's a drone-shot video on the above link that provides a clearer look at the damage being done to provide for this four-lane highway...

If you look at the aerial view further down the page, it looks more like a bypass on the outskirt of the city. "Cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected rain forest" is somewhat overstating it.

Scott.

[Tedx]

Ive never really understod one they can't just build one place to have all these things. They could even use all those redundant man made islands off the coast of Dubai just to drive home the point about senseless overdevelopment.

[DrFfybes]

He DID however call me about 3.30 to tell me he wsn't gonna make it and have a long moan to me about how sh!t being a meter changer was and he'd been to Salisbury and Basingstoke that day already for peanuts and how he wished he could change career to fixing boilers!

Our meter chap was employed by Octopus. He said was on nearly £50k basic, plus overtme, pension, holiday pay, sickness, etc. He reckoned he was making 50% more than he did self employed and a lot less paperwork.

Paul

[servodude]

A new four-lane highway cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest is being built for the COP30 climate summit in the Brazilian city of Belém.

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

There's a drone-shot video on the above link that provides a clearer look at the damage being done to provide for this four-lane highway...

If you look at the aerial view further down the page, it looks more like a bypass on the outskirt of the city. "Cutting through tens of thousands of acres of protected rain forest" is somewhat overstating it.

Scott.

In the way one might cut through a cake perhaps?

[Lootman]

It aims to ease traffic to the city, which will host more than 50,000 people - including world leaders - at the conference in November.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vy191rgn1o

Never mind the four lane highway they are building for it, that "50,000 people attending" caught my eye. This COP thing really does seem to be turning into a gravy train, doesn't it?

Or do they actually achieve something worthwhile?

They sit around talking about this and that, make some half-baked resolution to reduce energy consumption, and then fly home and ignore it all until the next all-expenses-paid junket.

Utter hypocrisy.