18 Oct 2011: One of the houses that Rushcliffe Solar did a quick survey for was in Woking, because Neil, the owner, is a friend of my (DNC's) son. We did a survey in January 2011. His house is small but with a perfect SSE orientation. The family were selling off a surplus car and decided to invest the funds in a PV roof. Neil did a lot of research on panels and went for ones with dark frames - he likes his PV roof to be as cool as his cars! (too much chrome always did make a car look gaudy! Too much aluminium for PV does the same....). He is interested in high performance too, so these panels are 245W ones with an interesting hybrid texture.
A PV roof becomes a sort of hobby, and one that earns too. He has written it up in a detailed Blog entry. http://mukerji.co.uk/category/solar-technology/ In swapping his car for a roof, Neil doesn't have crippling servicing and insurance charges to face, annually.
I have a friend in Nottingham who runs a Porsche, and who lectures on Carbon Zero design and tells me that I am not 'carbon zero' until my PV generates enough to cover cooking, lighting, TV, lawn mowing, and everything else - pah! Try telling me how his 'payback' works on a Porsche with 3,000 pound annual servicing charges!
Back to Neil. His roof had a vigorous moss-growth on the SE slope and he took a power washer to it before covering up with panels. That's a good lesson because once they are on, you can't do further external maintenance for 25 years!
Thankyou to Neil for providing such detailed photos and info on the PV installation and may you have many good summers with it!
In an email to me, Neil writes: "I'm very happy with it to date. It has been interesting to study the annual setting of the sun - during the unusually sunny period at the beginning of this month I noticed the peak output decline from 2.5 to 2.2 kW - yet in early September I'd seen 3.7kW (just over the theoretical maximum output of 3.6kW). Since the installation on the 23rd August we've generated 615kWh to date = we just need to get through winter to really see what we can do! I have indeed kept daily low/normal/generated meter readings - the obsession has commenced!"
A PV roof becomes a sort of hobby, and one that earns too. He has written it up in a detailed Blog entry. http://mukerji.co.uk/category/solar-technology/ In swapping his car for a roof, Neil doesn't have crippling servicing and insurance charges to face, annually.
I have a friend in Nottingham who runs a Porsche, and who lectures on Carbon Zero design and tells me that I am not 'carbon zero' until my PV generates enough to cover cooking, lighting, TV, lawn mowing, and everything else - pah! Try telling me how his 'payback' works on a Porsche with 3,000 pound annual servicing charges!
Back to Neil. His roof had a vigorous moss-growth on the SE slope and he took a power washer to it before covering up with panels. That's a good lesson because once they are on, you can't do further external maintenance for 25 years!
In an email to me, Neil writes: "I'm very happy with it to date. It has been interesting to study the annual setting of the sun - during the unusually sunny period at the beginning of this month I noticed the peak output decline from 2.5 to 2.2 kW - yet in early September I'd seen 3.7kW (just over the theoretical maximum output of 3.6kW). Since the installation on the 23rd August we've generated 615kWh to date = we just need to get through winter to really see what we can do! I have indeed kept daily low/normal/generated meter readings - the obsession has commenced!"
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