ESB, are you daylight saving?
It was for a while my understanding that the ESB charges electricity like say Eircom charges its regular land phone calls... This however is not the case. I thought that electricity is dearer after 8AM and that it gets cheaper after 6PM. However the way it works is that there is one fixed rate for the ESB all day, every day, all year.
So where did i get the idea from then, I guess that I just thought it and no one challanged it so I never thought any differently. I actually called up the ESB and a chap there confirmed to me that there was indeed only one charge that lasted all day. On questioning him more I found out that you can get a seperate meter that will provide you with 2 seperate rates, a cheaper one and a more expensive one, but it is usually factories and the like that have this other meter. Normal customers to the ESB can get it, but the way it is, is that unless you use alot of electricity, you will not reap the benefits of this other meter.
So why am I ranting about this? Well why was I not told about this sooner? I think that the ESB wants people to think that there are two rates. Why? Because it is in the ESBs interest to not have to be generating tons of electricity during the day and then in the night be creating maybe the same amount and nobody using it. IO used to always be putting on washs and drying clothes during the evening and night, but now I throw them on any time I like because it is all the same cost...
Now people will say to me, "but Donal, it is more enviornmently friendly to spread out the cost of the electricity on the ESB so they will not be using up resourses heavily during the day." To this I have to words....
I am not going to rant more on this except to say, there is re-newable energy out there, use it... If I am not allowed to erect a windmill outside my house, then I want the people who can do it to be doing it...
On January 8th 2006 Mairead wrote in Reply
(1) ESB - are you daylight savings.
Once upon a time they did have two rates, and even had a specific product for storage heaters called Nightsaver (oh you remember the ads - an embarrassing family singing crap like "Wake up in the morning with lots of hot water.. ohhh ohhh ohhhh... Nightsaver" to the tune of The Israelites. This is still in operation I think - I recently looked at an apartment in Waterford which had it - but since it was in a holiday complex maybe they had business rates. Like you I thought there was two rates - but now that I think of it, for a number of years now my leccy bills only ever gave one flat unit rate. The unit prices of electricity and gas in this country still aren't the worst.
It's the bloody STANDING CHARGE AND 21% VAT that really rakes up the cost. Look at your summertime bills, not much lower than wintertime I bet - because the bulk of it will go towards the standing charge - which will be charged regardless of whether you use one unit or one thousand. It is a form of double billing where you pay an insane amount for the connection fee of the service over decades.
One point about your windfarms statement. Once upon a time everybody making a cup of tea during the halftime of an International soccer game could overload the electricity supply and basically melt down. This was when electricity was basically generated and sent out almost directly onto the national grid - (one of the reasons probably electricity was cheaper in the evenings - to stop overdemand at any one point in the working day. Electricity is now generated or imported in and stored and then redistributed on the National Grid. So spreading out usage on a normal day has about the same impact on the environment as a dog blinking.
Windfarms are an invaluable addition to the energy supply, but landbased ones are limited in what they can generate. Sea-based ones are probably better value. However, there are companies in ireland which sell and install mini wind turbines which you can connect to the gable of your house and plug into your power supply through a normal socket. And the beauty of them is that the power comes before the National Grid power and thereby reduces your power bill. Whooohoo.
Sustainability is not just for elections - is for life.
On January 8th 2006 Donal wrote in Reply
Hear hear! Also, sorry this is so late going up Mairead...
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