Mistervint is a tool for understanding how much renewable energy is in the electricity grid right now, so that you can make your electricity use greener!
Mistervint gives you up to the minute information on the electricity grid you get your power from. The information comes from the management systems that run the electricity grid. Mistervint takes that information and makes it easy to understand. By doing this, it helps you decide when to use electricity - when you have a choice.
That isn't all the time. You don't really have a choice when it comes to your fridge being on. Or your electric hot water. But there are times when you do have a choice about when to use your electric kettle, iron, oven, cooktop or other appliance. Mistervint helps you decide when is a good time to use these appliances so that they run as much on renewable energy as possible.
It works like this.
Before you decide to do something that needs an appliance that uses a lot of electricity, check Mistervint to see how much renewable energy is being generated right now. If the meter is in the green section, it means you're going to be getting a good amount. The brighter the green, the more renewable energy available.
If there is a lot of renewable energy being generated, it might be a good time to do other things that also use lots of electricity and don't need your attention. Like putting on the dishwasher, or the washing machine. Or if you're really keen, preheating or precooling your home or office so that you will need to use less electricity later when there might not be as much renewable energy in the grid.
Or, if you follow @mistervintpower on twitter, the wind will let you know when he's working hard to make your electricity use more green.
The graph gives you some idea of how long a good level of renewable energy will stay in the grid. This is important because some jobs need electricity for a long time. Cooking a roast, or running the tumble dryer are like this. So, it isn't just the amount of renewable energy we need to know, but also how long that renewable energy will stick around.
It's not easy for us to know how much longer the wind will blow and the sun will shine. But we can make a decent guess based upon the trend in the graph and how fast the graph is rising or falling.
Again, if you follow @mistervintpower on twitter, the wind will let you know when he is out of puff.
That's it! Use Mistervint to help you decide when to use electricity and together we can keep the world cleaner and greener, and show the electricity generators that if they build renewable generation, we will reward them by using their power and not somebody else's.
