My Life as a Green Superhero

FORGET GRETA THUNBERG. I am the world's leading climate change campaigner. Well, since last month. That's when we had the solar panels installed, linked to an app on my phone.

- BY Richard Glover

Now, wherever I am, I can open the app and see how much electricity we are creating and how much we are consuming. Right now, we're exporting 2.37 kilowatts to the grid.

Lolling in my chair at work, I luxuriate in the feeling. Yes, I'm saving the planet. More to the point: I'm making upwards of 10 cents an hour, DOING NOTHING. If this keeps up, I could be a dollar ahead by the end of the day. Life does not get much better.

Certainly, you have to put in a bit of effort. Ever since I became an energy exporter, I have been patrolling the house, trying to maximise our production.

Yes, I get some complaints from my wife, Jocasta, along the lines of “I was using that light to read a book” or “Why didn’t you save my work before turning off my computer,” but I think she is grateful for my assistance.

The app displays even the smallest amount of consumption, allowing me to check the savings as I turn off each computer, each light, each appliance, the router. It even calculates how many “trees” I've “planted.”

The only problem? Just last night, I turned off everything, but—there it was—we were still consuming .05 of a kilowatt.

I checked the fridge. It was not humming, my work sealing the door with packing tape having proved a useful