Off on the Right Foot

Well, it wasn't raining and in spite of not being used to waking up at half past six over the holiday, today I managed to get up in time to make my sandwiches and walk to work. Hubby was working from home today, so I didn't have to worry about carrying shopping home as he was able to fetch me and the shopping in the car.

So, I suppose walking today didn't cut my carbon footprint too much, but it's a step towards becoming fitter and once I'm fitter I'll be able to walk more often when I don't need a lot of shopping. As I wasn't so well over Christmas and therefore didn't feel like going out for walks too much, I really enjoyed being able to walk to work today and proving that I could do it today has given my morale a boost.

However, I was about five minutes late for work and fear of being late has sometimes stopped me from trying to walk to work on other days, but if it becomes normal I should be able to be better organised and therefore less likely to be late. As it happens my manager thought I was having a day's leave today and wasn't even expecting me to be there. It just goes to show what can happen when you don't let fear stop you doing something good.

Record Output from British Wind Farms

Good news.  According to this report from Business Green, British wind farms delivered a record output last Monday.

'Britain's wind farms reached record levels of output on Monday providing five per cent of all electricity to the grid over the course of the day.

National Grid confirmed that 40.5GWh out of a total 809.5GWh was provided by wind farms during the 24-hour period, with output peaking at 1,860MW at 8:30pm. At its peak the wind energy sector was providing electricity equivalent to that produced by three nuclear power stations.

A spokeswoman for the grid operator said that when so-called embedded wind generation from turbines that are not connected to the grid is taken into account it is estimated that on Monday around 10 per cent of the UK's electricity was delivered by wind power.

"Overall about 10 per cent of total electricity demand would have been met by wind power," she said. "It is a pretty big landmark for the industry."
The record will be taken as further evidence that the grid can cope with growing inputs from intermittent energy sources such as wind farms. "Matching demand with supply is changing by its very nature because of the intermittency of wind energy," said the National Grid spokeswoman. "But that does not mean it can not be done."'

If you would like to see more of our energy from wind farms why not switch to Ecotricity, Good Energy or another supplier of 'green' electricity.