Interesting. I just had a look at ours (5 bed detached, gas for heating) and this years winter and summer electricity usage was
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My house is electric only (no gas or oil), a reasonable size and with large single glazed windows. I use about 25,000 kW per year. I would think that would work out at about 30kW per day in the height of summer and 110kW per day during winter (but I havenāt accurately measured - thatās just based on some fag packet maths).
I could go into details about the last 5 years since we moved in here and trying to drag the house into this century - air source heat pump, solar panels, storage batteries, economy 7 advantages, electric aga, heating water by immersion tank, car charging, but as much as I love the opportunity to ānerd outā on things like that, I think that would be considerable thread drift.
Having only a Nova in my home office and a MuSo in the front room, powering down is not really an issue for me. That said, I have taken to turning the Nova on and leaving it playing Radio Paradise for half an hour or so before I sit down to listen to it, having convinced myself that it benefits from a āwarm upā.
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Old French farmhouse here with poor insulation . My dilemma is spend on heating or spend on new roof, new windows and doors plus solar panels and battery pack. The payback period currently would be long after Iām dead. A younger me might have thought differently.
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What if you just went with Solar Panels and some heated blankets
FYI ā my current variable rate tariff is 28p kwh, with no fixes available. My previous provider ceased trading, along with ~28 others in the UK. The 28p looks set to double soon?
Plus the standing charges are >Ā£240pa, which are largely āgreen leviesā AFAIK.
Iāe wondered the same to be honest, Iād imagine itās a couple of watts at most but many small things add up.
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Weāre with SSE/OVO on a standard tariff.
29.79 pence per kWh and standing charge of 54.12p (inc 5% VAT).
They have the most confusing bills Iāve ever seen. Iāve just spent the morning checking itās correct a few times and it seems to be.
Despite me requesting a bill in late May having not received one at the time they only sent a copy of Februaryās bill, so after a call last week I now have a bill for 6 months usage.
Ā£1,680.25 - 6035 kWh used.
In fairness they did use my March 31st reading to calculate the period from 1st April onwards which quite surprised me as I was anticipating a long-winded call to correct this as they failed to do it on a bill at another location.
The standing charge increases are a particularly thorny issue as you can only reduce that by being cut off I assume! Ā£197.54 per annum for being in a captive audience so to speak.
Itās pretty stark when you hear of foodbank users preferring things which can be heated rapidly in a microwave rather than perhaps more nutritious fresh produce which would require more energy to heat/cook properly.
Well itās worked for many a Student 
But seriously, it does appear that sadly many people have lost the art of being able to put together a meal from fresh produce
Thanks Satori for your message. You certainly have a big project with the cottage, hopefully the forthcoming winter will be kind to us all. My Best Wishes.
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I use some TP-Link Kasa smart switches.
I have a few older HS105 and HS110 models which are no longer available. The HS105 versions are simply smart on/off controllers, the HS110 has energy monitoring too.
A quick search turned up a site where a user has measured the HS110 using 0.56 watts when idle (off but presumably connected to wi-fi for control) and 1.22 watts when āonā with the relay actuated to power up the device.
Not too bad really, but he seems to have a project to reduce this further.
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The comment about solar/batteries and the capital repayment break even point:
Itās true that there is a fairly significant capital outlay in installing solar/batteries that may be prohibitive, but when we had ours installed toward the beginning of this year, they suggested our capital payment would be repaid within 6 or 7 years. That was based on electricity cost of 25p per kWh (actually seemed high at the time!). As a few have mentioned, currently UK price cap at about 29p, and possibly going to increase significantly (double?) within the next 6 months. Obviously thatās bad news generally, but it considerably alters the payback time calculation for capital outlay on self generation. Might be worth redoing the sums if that was the main reason people ruled it out?
Having batteries also offsets against powercuts, which could be an issue since a significant proportion of UK power stations are gas powered.
I donāt work in the renewable energy business, by the way!
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My point actually relates to the fact that many in poverty will know itās far cheaper in energy usage to heat up a ready meal in an 800W microwave in 3-4 minutes than it is to cook something from scratch in an oven or on the hob - even if they had the requisite culinary skills the cost involved with cooking the food is too high, they simply donāt have a choice.
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Perhaps we should aim for self-sufficinency wherever we can.
Time to revisit The Good Life (The Thing in The Cellar) episode when Tom powers a generator from pig manure (I think). Donāt think the neighbours would be happy if we had a few porkers in the back garden though.
You sound like the folks who buy a Ducati then sell it before the big service b/c they donāt want to pay the cost to run the bike. It costs pennies to run naim kit relative to other costs so itās a pretty silly concern.
But the convenience food theyāre heating up in the microwave cost more than the raw ingredients to assembly and cook separately. Thereās reasons people in poverty eat convenience food and the cost to run the microwave aināt one of them.
Sorry, I missed that, makes sense
All my HiFi bits kept on cost about 1.5p per hour. Whilst Iāve decided to keep my CD player (CDX2) and turntable power supply off (as I only use them once a week), Iām too lazy to turn off and on my amps when I need to use them. Itās not worth getting up off my bum several times per day to save a few pence 
Itās my tv (a Pioneer Kuro Plasma) that drinks power. According to my meter, that cost about 7p per hour. I could get a new and more efficient tv, but to get something as good visually as the Kuro would still take a number of years for me to get back the savings :-). Maybe in winter (when the prices go up again), Iāll just listen to music and not watch tv. Or Iāll just use the Ā£400 the government is giving us to pay for my tv viewing
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Thatās a totally false analogy though unless someone bought a 552 yesterday and complains today of the cost of running it. If someone bought a set of 135ās in the 1980ās and estimated running costs at the time, and today they are vastly different then it is merely the running costs today that are relevant.
In your analogy your Mike Hailwood replica from 1984 may have to be sold to pay for the petrol costs on your daily runner in 2022.
I have a small ( by todays standards) 43 inch Kuro that is not efficient but I canāt see anything that would outclass it, and if I look at the environment and total cost of production I donāt think its even an economic decision to replace it.
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