Re: Solar heated hot water

[Bruno Prior <bruno@xxxxxxx>]

Now would be a great time for people to investigate this sort of thing.
The government has just introduced a grant scheme called Clear Skies
(www.clear-skies.org) to encourage people to install small-scale
renewable energy equipment.

I'm putting a heatpump (from Kensa Engineering -
www.kensaengineering.com) in my barn conversion which will give me 3
units of heat (or cooling) for every unit of electricity used. I'm also
looking at putting in a wood pellet burner. The government should give
me £1200 towards the heatpump and another £800 if I go for the burner.
Would have looked at solar hot water, but (a) it's a listed building, so
we can't put it on the roof or anywhere else that would impact the
appearance, and (b) you can only get grants for upto 2 qualifying
technologies per installation.

For what it's worth, I run a business generating renewable electricity,
and my opinion is that solar hot water can be a good idea, PV (i.e.
electricity from solar) is not worth it (at the moment). And don't fall
for the myth that renewable = wind. Wind power is actually one of the
least practical forms of renewable energy (although, like every source
of energy, it has its applications).

Cheers,

Bruno Prior


Brian G. Reynolds wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I regularly get information from "CAT", "Centre for
Alternative Technology" based in Wales.
> www.cat.org.uk
>
> A recent brochure was from Solartwin.com, http://www.solartwin.com/solar_twin.htm
>
> Has anyone any experience using this?
>
> Following on from the recent "how much electricity do you
use" thread I was thinking of better ways on how to use alternative
energy, i.e. Sun, Wind....
>
> About a year ago I actually bought a book on how to make your own wind
generator from a Ford-Transit brake drum and other easy to come by bits,
always found this sort of thing interesting.
>
> B.