I just spoke with David, a journalist who's friends with my colleague Joe at work. As he answered the call he said he was just adding some milk to his tea which he just got from his cupboard of Satan (that's the fridge btw).

He also asked why I was going off grid - I didn't have a great answer for him so I thought I'd build on that and write a bit more about why what I'm doing is a bad idea.

1) I like renewable energy. Renewable energy works really well when it is linked to other forms of renewables over a big network. The bigger the network, the better it works. Doubters of renewable energy love to point out that the sun doesn't always shine or the wind doesn't always blow, but they are wrong, It does... (somewhere). If the network is big enough there will always be some form of renewable energy available in large quantities. You can rely on the sun, even on cloudy days delivering huge amounts of solar energy. And the day time is exactly when we need most of our energy. Solar fits very well with wind power, the wind resource increases in the winter when the solar resource is poor.

2) I haven't set up my solar panel yet, so I have no power other than a wind up lantern and a camping stove! I spent most of Sunday siting in a cafe (with a milky tea) trying to charge my laptop. Is that cheating? Yes probably. It made me think of a scenario where the fuel poor had to walk for miles in order to charge up batteries. I'm sure its happening already. After my single solar panel is set up I'm hoping I'll 'feel the benefit' a bit more.

3) Cooking using a camping stove when you are not camping is ridiculous, heating water for washing is even worse. It is not an efficient way of cooking. Cooking on gas from the mains is the best we have at the moment. Processing gas into transportable cylinders takes energy and is more energy intensive than getting it from the grid. Eventually we will need to move away from gas cooking to use electricity but until electricity generation is dominated by renewable sources, stick with your gas cooker if you have one. Heating water with gas from the mains isn't too bad either, especially if you have an efficient boiler. Certainly don't use a camping stove. The best option is to get solar thermal. Get the sun to heat your water while you are chillaxing.... yep I said it.... chillaxing.

Tea with no milk, looks horrible - how does anyone drink that stuff?