Eco Energy

I finally got myself converted over to eco energy. No, I have not built a windmill generator in the back garden or lined the roof of my house with solar cells (we don't get enough sun here to run a 40 watt light bulb!). I'd love to do all these things, and more, but the lack of technical know-how and the lack of cash for the substantial capital outlay for systems like these, means it remains a pipe-dream for the moment anyway.

There is an alternative though. Northern Ireland Electricity has an eco energy scheme in which you can choose to have your energy supplied by a wind farm rather than a coal-fired power station. I imagine what they actually do is simply buy more wind power and feed it into the grid to the amount of electricity you use. The great thing is that it costs the same as conventional dirty energy (11.02p per unit)

A common way to buy electricity in NI is via a keypad meter. You can buy a certain amount of electricity in advance from your local corner shop (say £5 or £10) you are given a 20-digit code which you enter into the keypad and it credits you the amount. The keypad is very handy also for telling you how much you electricity you use per day, week or even month (last month I used £13.45). You can even tell the amount of Kw being used at any given time and so work out how much your individual appliances use.

It costs nothing to sign up. If more people sign up to this they power companies will begin to get the message. If you live in NI, see www.nie.co.uk to change your energy use over.