The Green Machine

Since I last wrote on Thursday I have spent quite a bit of time pondering green energy and electric cars. After we ordered the electric car we also put in an order to have a charging point fitted to the side of the garage. The government provide a £350 grant towards the cost, which Pod Point (the company we chose) claim on our behalf, but everything has to be done in the right sequence (car order followed by charger order) and with some delay while the grant application is processed. We had anticipated that we would get the car before the charger, and would have to rely on a slow domestic plug point connection and public charging points for a while, but were pleasantly surprised to get an email from Pod Point on Friday to arrange an installation date - not firmed up yet, but it is looking as the charger will arrive before the car. 

The imminent car and charger arrival reminded me that I needed to check our household energy tariffs, as our current fixed rate deal was due for renewal. The UK system allows different suppliers to tap into both the electric grid and gas supply at wholesale prices and sell gas and electricity on to consumers (at least, I think that is how it works!). The market is quite competitive and switching suppliers is very simple, so it pays to shop around every year (usually contracts have a 12 month lock in period). We have actually been with the same supplier for the last three or four years, but when I checked this time I found a better deal elsewhere so have switched to that. When getting quotes I added in the extra electricity I estimate running the car will use, and the new cheaper tariff means we will pay exactly the same monthly amount for gas and electricity as we were paying before. Obviously the car won't really be free to run, but it is going to feel that way! As a fully electric car it is also exempt from road tax and servicing is cheaper than for petrol engined cars, so it should work out very economical. Our current car guzzles diesel, so has been costing us a lot in fuel - or at least, it did pre-Covid when we were both going to work - and is environmentally very unfriendly. As we will be using a green energy supplier and the new car will have zero emissions hopefully our carbon footprint will now be quite a bit smaller. 

Still pondering cars and chargers, I then did quite a bit of research on using public chargers and taking electric cars on long journeys. Several YouTube videos later, I think I am now getting to grips with charging etiquette and the complexities of a system with multiple brands of chargers, all with different apps and payment methods. Long journeys will mean relying on rapid chargers, which are more widely available in some areas than others, although all service stations on major routes now have them. The couple of long journeys we have coming up over the next few months at least look manageable though we will need to allow a bit of extra time for charging stops. Locally we are well provided with chargers, as Milton Keynes is incredibly well set up for electric cars, but with a home charger that isn't particularly useful for us! I did discover we can register with Milton Keynes council for a green parking permit, which will allow us to park free in many places. We will also be able to park free in the premium (expensive!) parking slots nearest to the shopping centre if we use one of the electric chargers there - the cost of the charging will be a lot less than the cost of parking would be! 

Apart from thinking about cars and electricity, we went to R's yesterday for lunch. It should have been a BBQ but the weather didn't cooperate. The whole weekend has been wet, miserable and very humid. Much cooler than last week, but as a cool bodied person whose chest doesn't like damp, I preferred the heat. Lunch was great and it is always good to have all the family together.  H and her BF left today for 10 days in Italy, lucky things! On Thursday the UK added France to the list of countries from which returning travellers have to quarantine. As France is one of the most popular holiday destinations for the British, that is a big deal and will cause a lot of disruption. Fortunately the level of Covid cases in Italy looks both low and stable at the moment, so there doesn't seem any real risk that H will have to worry about quarantining when she gets back. M is working the late shift this weekend, and we managed to get out for a walk this morning when the rain stopped for a while. We did a similar route to one we walked last weekend, but in reverse. Lots of heather out now, and we also took a small detour to what the girls when they were young always used to call The Stones. "The Stones" are actually a giant sundial, but they were a favourite place for small people because they loved playing games on and around them.