Open day at Peveril Solar

We have an Open Day on Sunday AUGUST 15 at the Peveril Solar house. Visitors can call between 12 and 2 pm. The focus is on Photovoltaic systems - home generation - how it might fit, how the feed in tariff works, what it might cost, how the payback will work, what the maintenance and management involve.
There will be experts on hand to explain anything. Let's hope we have a sunnier day than the ones we have had in the second half of July.

As I don't want to put the address directly on the blog, please email RushcliffeSolar@gmail.com to warn us that you would like to come and we will give the address detail. We would prefer people to come all at the start, 1200 if possible. So, if you arrive later, we may have started without you. Refreshments are provided.
(By the way, I am giving up the Forest-Leeds first game of the season for this.... )

This house offers:
• 4 kW Photovoltaic roof, the largest possible under the Feed in Tariff, with 22 panels.
• Ground source Heat pump, drawing from twin 48m boreholes.
• Uniquely designed and built Solar thermal panels that heat the ground under the house, hence heat the house.
• Light Tube bringing sunshine into the centre of the house.
• Induction Hob, cooking technology that is highly energy efficient.
• Liquid circulating Underfloor heating
• Cuban style micro-farm for vegetable growing.

The open day is organised by EvoEnergy, and is mainly directed to their customer or enquirer base. May I say before any of our sponsors get a little bit worried that it is Evo, it was first arranged back in June some weeks before Rushcliffe Solar commenced.

We shall of course mention the other main systems in the house, the Ground Source Heat Pump and the Surya Sunboxes augmenting the pump, but only for those who are interested. It is difficult to adapt an existing house to a GSHP (most go for Air Source), but for Newbuild houses, Ground Source is a more thorough solution - and if you have a GSHP, it's my belief you should hybridise the sources.

Solar House in West Bridgford

26 July: Some people have asked about the house we use as the example in the poster for Rushcliffe Solar. There is a whole other website devoted to it, Charging the Earth, because of the research work on Heat Pump Augmentation.
   This is the house of David Nicholson-Cole (the author of this piece, and founder of Rushcliffe Solar) and is a 'maximum' PV system - i.e. it's a 3.96 kW PV panel array (in 22 Sharp NU180 panels). This is east facing, but is still on course to generate more than 3,000 kWh in its first year.
  Although the house is electrically heated (using a Ground source heat pump), the Feed in Tariff from the power generated by the roof is enough to pay the entire annual energy bill - heat, hot water, cooking, lighting and power - and provide some income beyond that. The annual power consumption of the house is likely to be about 6,500 kWh by the end of this year, which may divide approx 2,000 power and light, and 4,500 for the heatpump. Bear in mind that the average British small house burns about 25,000 kWh per annum in combined electricity and gas. This is a pretty economical house!
•  So, although DN-C is getting free energy for the next 25 years, why bother with Rushcliffe Solar? The answer to this is that he is keen to energise others to do likewise, because it's good for the planet, the energy future of our society, and it's also a good deal for the householder.
•  The other question is, What are the strange panels on the South wall?..... not your average solar thermal panel, you think? These are custom designed Sunboxes - thermal panels designed to feed heat directly to the Heat pump, and in so doing contribute about a 25%-30% of the annual house heating and hot water requirements. They are designed and built by Mr N-C as a research project, and are unique in the world, as far as we have heard.... although more will be following, that's certain!

Sudden Surge of interest

Since the item in Rushcliffe Reports, publicising the feed in tariffs etc, there has been a sudden Surge of interest in Photovoltaic roofs, and my mailbox is filling. Please allow me time to cope with this. I will try to get an individual answer to each request.

By the way, the SUNBOX project on my house is working (this is solar heat being pumped deep into the earth for retrieval by heatpump) and can be read about on http://chargingtheearth.blogspot.com/ Whoever heard of a house being heated partially with 'swimming pool panels' ? Well, the panels pump the equivalent of a kilowatt for several hours a day deep into the ground. The heat pump gets that heat out later.