Going Green in Orange - Our Solar Panel Addition

Mr L'Orange and I have slowly become more and more frightened to open the electricity bill each quarter. This is not because we are guzzling power users but because the rather evil electricity companies continually find news ways to add charges and increase the overall bill before they even consider our usage.

So we have decided to get solar panels on our roof and become more self sufficient in order to pay the electricity baddies as little as possible and capitalise on our beautiful sunny days (of which we have had many recently).

Roof ready for the solar panels

The initial outlay for the panels is a lot, however there has still been a government subsidy in place to help out and the panels have also come down considerably in price over the last couple of years. I think with solar you also have to think long term and the electricity baddies are never going to lower their prices they are sadly only going to increase.

Panels in place catching the Northern sun

Luckily our lovely electrician Rod, gave us some very handy advice on how best to use our solar panels, which I'm now going to pass on:

1) Use the most energy consuming appliances during the day when it is sunny. Most washing machines and dishwashers can be set on a timer to come on when you are out at work.

2) Only use one major energy consuming appliance at a time.

3) Call your electricity provider and ask to transfer to the 'Off Peak Rate' on weekends.

4) Try to only use low energy appliances at night time when you are having to buy back from the grid

Until we get another bill I won't be able to tell you how much we have saved, however it feels good to be using the sunshine as much as we can and doing our little bit to help the planet.