We electrified our house around 18 months ago. We fitted a heat pump and solar panels, and swapped our petrol-only car for a PHEV.
Before making those investments I built some tools to evaluate the economics of these changes and then also to help us use them efficiently. Here on renewably.uk I have made these tools more generic and publicly available. I hope you find them useful.
Something like this is only feasible because of the enlightened approach that some energy suppliers and other institutions have taken with regard to sharing data and making it easy to integrate into other systems. I would like to thank them.
What it does
- Prices: the cheapest, and the cleanest, times to use electricity today and tomorrow, and whether the days after look cheaper or dearer.
- Appliances: when to start the washing machine, dishwasher or tumble dryer so it's done when you need it, and exactly what to set on its timer.
- Electric cars: the cheapest time to charge, for your car, charger and departure time.
- Heating and batteries: the times to set on a heat pump's hot-water timer and a home battery's charge slot.
- Your home: what a better tariff, an electric car, a heat pump, solar panels or a battery would have saved your household over the past year, in money and carbon, and how they add up together.
It is free and needs no account. You can also use it, through Siri, Home Assistant, Google Home or an AI assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude.
What comes next
I plan to use this optimisation and pricing engine to support some analysis of the UK energy market. Stay tuned.
Thanks for visiting the site, I hope you find it useful. If you have feedback please email hello@renewably.uk.
Alex