We all know what’s going to happen, and sooner rather than later. I’m expecting energy prices are going to increase across the board by around 50% on gas and electricity.

My thoughts then turned to the espresso machine…probably uses more power when it’s cold, perhaps as much as 100W per hour..I know some people have cited massive increases in their bills when they have an espresso machine on all day…so I’m preparing, I would imagine the machine will lose only half the energy this way?

The underneath towel is to add the extra insulation under the group and keep the top towel wrap in place. I’m already turning green!

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    DavecUK Classic Dave’s solution to the problem!

    😂😂

    I continue to switch the machine off after making coffee. I don’t want the machine to run from 6 am to 9 pm. 😊

    Am making a separate thread for green!

        me personally, pureplanet went bump on me giving me a massive increase at home, was tied till april 2022

        at work my gas and elec have no cap, since march 2021 when i cam out of contract ive seen my monthly elec bill go from £200 to £430 per month, these are out of contract rates atm, its getting crazy

        Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

          Well, after about 20 minutes of non-use my Sage turns itself off. Plus as it takes only about 6 minutes to get up to temp it shouldn’t use too much.

          After a really good two year fixed deal came to an end in December, we’ve just gone on to Octopus Go tariff where between 12:30 and 4:30 am the charge is 5p kWh. No good for the coffee machine admittadly unless I’m having a spot of insomnia, but we put our washing machine on for then as that eats electric and I charge my EV then too.

            Our tariff is fixed until Aug 23. So, Am good. But, our costs did go up by £50 a month to about £162 pm. Thank God, I went fixed as some one advised flexible. 😊

            We changed to Octopus when we were down south, we have always been on a fixed tariff and our bills were around £120 month. We moved up North to Yorkshire and bought a new build our bills are £80 month at most. We renewed to a fixed tariff again in September after a lot of deliberation thinking prices had been stable for some time, so glad we did. Hopefully when it all settles down we can get another fixed rate not sure it will be the same though. All our family are with Octopus they have been really good.

            LMSC you can because it only takes 15m to warm up, so it’s actually worth switching it off if your not going to use it…in fact, even a low power mode would be worthwhile on the Evo, might see if something can be programmed into the motherboards, to actually drop the group temp after a configurable number of minutes of non use. e.g. drop by n C, after n minutes, with brew boiler switching off after n minutes. This is because brew boiler only takes 3 minutes to warm up.

            In this way a machine could drop into economy (if you enable it) after say 15 minutes and be warmed up again by touching the panel. As soon as the group hits the preset temp, you will be ready to go, probably about 3 or 4 minutes….depending on how low you turn the group down.

            The energy saving would actually be quite large!

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            • LMSC replied to this.

                DavecUK I am sure you will come up with a solution as an enhancement in the future release. If it can be programmed like a PC - Hibernate, Sleep, Restart and Shut Down! 😬

                We mostly make 5 -6 cups in total 2 in the morning, 1 at noon, 1 in the afternoon and 2 in the evening ! Perhaps, decaf in the night.

                  Cuprajake

                  I was with simplicity energy, fortunately they went bust a few months before the energy crisis and I went onto the supplier of last resort British Gas, something called Simplicity Promis until April 2022 which felt like being rodgered up the rear end, but as it turned out was a blessing in disguise.

                  3p per unit for gas and 17.9 for leccy

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                    I am with octopus on their flexible rate since my fixed rate with them ended at the beginning of December. I am not sure how much I am paying monthly ( was previously £59) as I have just had smart meters fitted and the readings haven’t settled into any pattern but watching the monitor thingy add up the electric units is a bit of a sharp intake of breath whenever the electric shower is used. To make matters worse, my boomerang child has just boomeranged back home to live again and takes two showers a day and wears clothes once before throwing them in the wash. I have been dithering over fixing the rate before April but just cannot commit myself to a tariff that doubles the price of my gas for the next three months even though I know things are going to get very much worse. I switch my machine and grinder off at the wall as soon as I am done.

                      4W5 I am with octopus on their flexible rate since my fixed rate with them ended at the beginning of December. I am not sure how much I am paying monthly ( was previously £59) as I have just had smart meters fitted and the readings haven’t settled into any pattern

                      you must absolutely know the rate per kW hour and standing charge so you can make apples for apples comparisons. They rely on obfuscating these numbers.

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                      • 4W5 replied to this.

                          DavecUK I know what I’m paying per kWh but I’m not sure how that will affect my monthly direct debit yet…

                              Mine got moved to shell energy.

                              Still dont have an account and so far only had 2 dd come out, expecting a large bill.

                              I think the roll out of smart metres was future proof for when people plug their car in, and it will click on to a car charging tarrif.

                              Speaking of cars, a customer of ours picked up his new merc something something d-e hybrid 5hr charge, 36mile radius. Its green though, saves him 3k a yr in company car tax, misses all congestion charges etc and is totally pointless 🤣

                              Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                              Pompeyexile
                              Octopus Go is fantastic! I’ve been on the tariff for 2 years now without a price increase. I stay up until 12.30 at the weekend to put the tumble dryer on, sad case that I am. I wonder how many other Sage DB and EV users there are out there?!

                                4W5 Ah, OK…I always found it hard to get the kW hour numbers, for some reason the companies really didn’t want to tell you. It’s like the Tariff information, they list every tariff they have ever done, and you can’t select out the ones they don’t do any more…makes it double hard to find what the current working tariff is. Ofgem gave lots of big talk of how they were going to simplify things…never happened. I almost feel like Ofgem work for the energy companies.

                                A long time ago, before the law was changed, I was trapped with NPower for 5 years I couldn’t get a bill from them, system problems or some such excuse. This meant I couldn’t change supplier and I didn’t know what my bill was, because they couldn’t even tell me the unit rate I was on!!!.

                                I couldn’t change supplier, because I couldn’t get a final bill, or any bill and NPower would block the move as I still owed them money. They finally sent me a bill…for £8500 demanding immediate payment! I had no way of even confirming it was right. I had complained to the energy ombudsman 3 years previously to tell him I hadn’t got a bill and every year after that…their reply, they could do nothing.

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                                  Npower are terrible

                                  Decent De1pro v1.45 - Niche Duo - Niche Zero - Decent is the best machine ever made -

                                  I’ve been wrapping towels round the group on mine since I’ve had it. Not so much to save energy at the time, more to hopefully speed up warm-up times for my pre-commute coffee. I hadn’t really given much thought to the fact it was also reducing power consumption until Leccygate. My DD with Eon has doubled. I leave it on between 7am and 3pm at the moment, (I switch it off once I get to the 3rd or 4th drink, so often earlier). Not sure turning it on and off for each shot would work for me.

                                  That said, I’m doing a couple of weeks of low carbs, and my daily milk allowance is 200ml, so I use it for a baby sized ready brek in a cup and have switched to Aeropress black during the week. Cheeky flat white this morning though.

                                    Hotmetal I’m thinking of digging out some old Tea cozies, if I didn’t throuw them away and thinking of making something. It would be superb if there was some sort of moulded insulating cover that could just drop on…

                                    Of course it does keep my tea Towels nice and warm. I’m tracking energy usage today….

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                                      Dave I am almost surprised that there isn’t a moulded E61 cosy actually. I almost would have thought there would be something like that on the group to protect it in transit, like a loose fitting but specifically shaped polystyrene group protection block. It would be a neat solution, but it would take up space and serve but one purpose. I just wrap a microfibre towel round mine so everything is covered top and bottom, including portafilter right up to the mushroom screw. It’s the same cloth I clean the machine with and takes up no space. Not sure quite how many warm-up minutes or Wh it saves me, but I figure it helps. I get the feeling my group is hot enough after 25-30′ rather than 40-45 which I think people say, but I have not measured it.