Generate your own energy

deckingman

Want to generate your own energy? Not sure whether to try solar panels, wind turbines or biomass heaters?

Check out the Energy Saving Trust website. It's got loads of impartial information on renewable energy technologies, so you can find the best solution for your home.

Generate your own energy - renewable energy technology - Energy Saving Trust


The Energy Saving Trust has recently completed the most comprehensive field trial of domestic scale wind turbines to date. The aim of the trials was to provide UK home owners with an indication of whether they would be able to generate electricity from the wind at their home.

If you live in the UK, you can find out how much electricity your home can generate from wind power here:

Can I generate electricity from the wind at my home? / Generate your own energy / Home - Energy Saving Trust

Happy energy saving!
Clare

The Energy Saving Trust is a non-profit organisation that provides free, impartial advice to anyone wanting to save money and fight climate change.

arthurdentpc

You can also check out the findings from "Which" magazine.

Wind power - Wind and solar power - Your home - Which? Advice

John

According to that, basically there are no renewable energies that are economical. Most in that list cost (excluding grants) from around £5000 (solar electricity) to £20000 (wind turbine), and had a saving of few hundred £s per year. So a timescale greater than the lifetime of the product to pay back installation costs then.

johntheexpat

I have been looking at MicroCHP , but since I started looking about 12-18 months ago , there does not seem to have been much progress.

BISHI

I think you have just said out loud the unspoken truth.

They come into their own if you have a house in the middle of nowhere when getting connected to the mains would cost thousands.  Other than that, at the moment they are toys for the rich.  But you have to start somewhere and cost will slowly fall and hopefully efficiency rise to create something worthwhile.

RMCF

We have just moved house and as a house warming present a friend gave us an Owl electricity monitor -

OWL | Wireless Electricity Monitor Designed To Save You Money & The Environment

It clips a wireless monitor around your electricity pipe which tells the portable monitor how much leccy you are using. We went round the house turning different things on and off and were amazed at the results. This is a must have gadget if you want to save electricity. We were surprised at how little our A rated fridge freezer used and at how much an array of halogen down lights used. It really has made us think about being more frugal with our energy.

DPinBucks

As someone who might be doing a self-build in the next 3 - 5 years I sort of looked into all this renewable enegy stuff (mostly solar, wind and heat pump) and from what I can see it would take most things around 15  years AT LEAST to even get close to paying for themselves.

The prices of these things are far too high at present, and the Gov grants just not good enough to make it attractive.

For example, installing a ground heat pump was around €30k, with a max of €6k grant. That left a cost of €24k. I know that oil is likely to get very expensive in the next decade or two, but €24k will buy a lot of home heating oil (approx 20-24 years at my current usage).

leon

I agree. It's basic commonsense, really. The average household uses more energy than can be economically extracted from its own ground area (wind, solar and ground heat). I emphasise economically. It doesn't mean, as you say, that individual sites, purpose-built house, or people with enough money, can't do it, but the technology is nowhere near good enough yet to justify retro-fitting the average house, not to mention high-density housing such as blocks of flats.

It's the classic dilemma: given enough take-up it might happen, but the current cost of take-up is prohibitive. You see it with alternative-fuelled cars, too. Perhaps the great progress being made with them is a hopeful sign for domestic energy, too, but it's a much more difficult task.

BISHI

I think alot of people are missing the point when it comes to solar ..

1 when u buy a new car do u say when do i get all my money back  ( no u lose money and dont mind it

2 . do u buy shoes and say when do i get my money back .etc etc

its the air u breath thats the point ..carbon and doing your bit to make cleaner air and reduce global warming /

i have 2 solar systems running one for 4 years now ( of grid )
and one on grid for a year using a lorentz german solar track to gain 40% more power ,,
i could go on for ever but i wont .Dont believe the hype its the only product u can buy and withinn 4 to 5 years u get all your money back and then for the next 25 years u get payback ..

as electric prices go up your payback is quicker ..and they will in the next five year u will be having a shock .. the electric companies give u 16p a  killowatt at the moment ..next august it will be 40 p that means my payback will be in half and payback even quicker

but seeing as they are wont need to produce as much as solar energy is getting massive then the people left without it will get higher bills ( they need to hit the profit margins)

if u get a comapny round to fit your solar it will cost u a bomb and your payback will be 10 years  i had a quote for my solar tracker and 4 x kyocera panels and a inverter that just plugs into your 3 pin plug socket (mastervolt)  ( no elctricain needed ) the quote was £9000.00  it took me 3 days and cost me £3700.00  ..

my last bill was £140.00 less  i try not to get fustrated with this subject as alot of people are programmed just to pay there bills and not think outside the gold fish bowl
to sum it up .. solar works for the average jo blogs buy a few panels and abit of wire an inverter stick them on your shed and old batteries in the shed and start to make your own its simple dont belive the hype that it hard a do. and it wont ever pay back ..it works trust me i am proof ..
electric will only go up  ,, cleaner air ,, u are helping ,,by now we should all have them on the roof but the bottom line is they dont want us to have them

the grants u get are worthless and they are funded by the companies that install them = high prices  
diy do some reading ..if u live in england go for the moncrystaline panels ( they are black and like cloudy days )

the first thing u should do before reading about solar and getting confused is get an energy metre they are around £20 u will see in pence the electric and u can adjust your habits to reduce your bill like dont take 15 min in the 9kw electric show take ten ,if u change your habits with the metre  i bet u could go on holiday once a year for free ..

sorry if i sound streesed in this post but this subject is like hitting a brick wall with so many programmed people and as u guessed i cant spell to save my life lol

arthurdentpc

Many people in Germany have home electricity generation, this has been encouraged by the government there by making it law that any surplus you produce is bought by the energy supplier AT the same price they sell it at. This has not been the case here, ( though I believe that is soon to change). This might make it more economical here but I am pretty sure the cost of facillitating selling energy back to  suppliers here is also prohibitive .