2 hours free electricity WWYD?

[Soontobe60]

Today I have got 2 hours of free electricity via Octopus. If you had 2 free hours, what would you do with it?

I’m doing the following:

• as much laundry as I can using the dryer
• cooking a beef rendang, apple pie, and a load of roast spuds
• batch cooking individual meat pies
• turning the gas heating off and using an electric heater
• vacuuming everywhere then washing the vacuum head afterwards (IYKYK)

If you have a smart meter, you should have had an email invitation. You had to opt in and then sign up for each power down session.

Brilliant thanks! Husband set it up, so probably hasn’t done it 🤦🏻‍♀️

Edit - just checked with him. He saw something but ‘couldn’t be arsed’. FFS!

You qualify for the free hours by signing up to their scheme whereby you use as little energy as possible in a certain amount of time, for example between 5 and 6pm on a weekday.
Energy producers are able to bank excess power at certain times - night time, windy days etc. I definitely won’t be ‘paying for it’ at some point as I’m on a fixed tariff.

Eek!

Thank you. Really kind of you. I hope the divorce is going okay.

I’m not consummating anything when my oven is on full for 2 hours 🤣

That's what I did - one wash before the free hours, another one on during the free hours, with the dryer going for the first load.
Immersion heater on, under floor heating on, dishwasher on!

The thing is, everything I’m doing during these 2 hours are things I would be doing anyway at different times. For example, I’ve got 12 individual pies in the oven, which will go in the freezer when cooked and cooled. I’ll reheat them in the air fryer when needed. So the oven has been on once to make the equivalent of 6 meals. Same with 2 trays of roast potatoes and a huge pot of curry. It’ll save me around 10 hours if I’d made them individually.

If this was me I think I would charge a power bank.

Where I live currently it’s been lashing down all weekend, plus I don’t think I’ve got pegs strong enough to stop washing being blown off the line! I don’t fancy going round the neighbours gardens trying to find all my knickers 🤣

If you read the small print of the email there’s a limit of how much you can actually use during the “free” hour or two.

😂
Yes my neighbour sent me a WhatsApp this morning to say that she had noticed that a lot of my washing was strewn around my garden!
To be fair, I hadn’t pegged it out. It was on hangers attached to washing line hanger hooks. It is now all pegged out. I have now sent off for something to secure the hangers to these hooks.

Could someone please explain this? Yes I pay for it and then they refund me (not enough to make it worth the effort imo) but how is that then not eventually free?

Last time I tried to charge the car during my free hour, it was not free.

I'd like to recharge my battery but I'm scared it'll be £££

You could do all of this at any time of any day you chose for zero electricity cost if you just bought a gas cooker. Seems like the electricity company are playing you like a fiddle tbh 🤬

This is to use the surplus of power currently in the grid and largely generated by wind and solar which can't be stored.

I've got heaters on, roast dinner cooking. Tumble dried the massive collection of socks (but have still pegged out in gale force winds as its quicker today). We've all had a shower. These are all things that would happen at some point today but may as well he in the two hour window.

There's no environmental benefit to doing this stuff at a later time.

You have to sign up for it, having done power downs.

I would do drying although 2h in my washer dryer would not dry the items!!!!

Who are you with?

Octopus cap it at 16kwh per free hour so you could top up but not fully charge it.

It's quite hard to use 16kw in an hour unless charging the car.

It will still show as yiu being charged and you are refunded later.

I wash all of the towels/big sheets/pillows and tumble dry them
Hoover
Have the radio on
Everything on charge
Oven and air fryer to cook for hot lunch and cold dinner or meat to use in lunches
Cup of tea to break up chores

We had an hour free. Did a wash, charged the car, all devices on charge.

Super hot fast dishwasher cycle, 2 loads of laundry, tumble dryer load, oven on, bread maker making loaf, power banks and rechargeable lamps and phones on charge, showers and hairdryers, and electric wood burner fire on - just 1hr free today.

Just finished my two ‘free’ hours.

2 All Bran loaves in the oven along with 2 apple & rhubarb crumbles and 12 large samosas. Soup maker has just produced carrot & lentil soup plus
extra curry from the leftover samosa filling. All will go in the freezer to be eaten later.
Washing machine, dish washer and tumble dryer all at the same time (they use most power to heat the water at the start of a programme).
We do have solar panels & a battery which helps if I overdo the amount/time allowed.

No - those are the saving sessions which are different. The sessions today were free power, every kwh used is free.

Had 2 hours free this morning too, got washing done, heated airer on, everything on charge, showered, hair washed and then dried, a few cups of tea and lunch made in the airfryer.