When Energy Becomes Real
When I read about World Cogeneration Day, I started thinking about how differently I understand energy now compared with a few years ago.
In 2023, we moved into the house where we live today on Fuerteventura.
Our house runs on solar power.
Living in the Canary Islands, that probably sounds like the perfect arrangement. We certainly aren’t short of sunshine. Most days our solar panels quietly get on with their job while we get on with ours.
But living with solar power also teaches you very quickly that electricity doesn’t magically appear when you plug something into the wall.
You become aware of what uses power.
You become aware of how much power you have.
And you definitely become aware of when the Sun is disappearing behind the horizon.
We do have a generator for times when the weather is bad and the solar system needs some help. But otherwise, we’ve learned to work with the energy available to us rather than simply assuming there will always be an endless supply.
My daughters learned this the hard way.
Before we moved here, they had been rather spoiled when it came to electricity. Want to play PlayStation? Switch it on. Want to play for hours? No problem.
Then they met solar-powered Mum’s house rules.
I hadn’t realised myself quite how much power gaming could use, especially when you add the television to the console and leave everything running for hours.
So a new rule appeared:
No PlayStation after 5 p.m.
GAME OVER. 🤣🤣🤣
You should have seen their faces.
“But Mum…!”
Sorry, girls. The Sun is going down. 🎮
They soon learned something that many of us rarely have to think about: electricity is a resource. When you’re connected to the grid, it’s easy to forget where the energy behind that little socket actually comes from. Living with solar panels makes it much more visible.
And perhaps that’s why I find the idea behind cogeneration, or combined heat and power, so interesting.
In a conventional system, energy used to generate electricity can also produce heat that might otherwise be wasted. Cogeneration captures that useful heat and puts it to work too.
One process producing two useful forms of energy.
There is something beautifully sensible about that.
It made me think about how much energy surrounds us here on Fuerteventura.
We have the blazing Sun above us, the trade winds that sometimes seem determined to carry the garden furniture to Lanzarote, and the Atlantic constantly moving around our shores.
Nature certainly isn’t short of energy.
The challenge is learning how to capture it, store it and use it efficiently — and how not to waste what we already have.
Nature itself seems rather good at that.
A fallen leaf eventually returns nutrients to the soil. Water evaporates, forms clouds and returns as rain. Energy moves and changes form rather than simply disappearing.
Perhaps there is a lesson in that for us too.
For generations, progress has often meant more.
More energy.
More production.
More consumption.
Maybe part of our future will be learning that progress can also mean becoming wiser with what we already have.
Our little solar-powered house certainly taught our family that lesson.
Although I’m fairly sure that, back in 2023, my daughters weren’t contemplating renewable energy, efficiency or the future of the planet at five o’clock in the afternoon.
They were staring in horror at a PlayStation controller while Mum announced:
GAME OVER. 🎮
With love, coffee, poetry, and stardust,
— Maggie The Afterlove Voice 💫
My new single is out
https://ditto.fm/silenced-but-not-broken
Lyrics video
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