mookaloid
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| posted on 6/10/11 at 01:32 PM |
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Alternative power
Considering energy sources for heating and hot water for my new house. which has a couple
The village has no natural gas and as the cost of heating oil is only going one way I'm wondering about solar power to charge up night storage
heaters or maybe a ground source heat pump solution.
Anyone got any hints/tips or experience of these?
Cheers
Mark
"That thing you're thinking - it wont be that."
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matt_gsxr
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| posted on 6/10/11 at 01:58 PM |
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I don't think that a practically sized PV array will generate adequate power to heat a house. 4kW is a lot of panels and about £15k in cost,
although that is pretty much covered by the feed-in-tariffs.
4kW is not a lot of resistive heating.
If you go above 4kW then the feed-in-tariff rate gets worse, so it becomes less viable financially.
You will do better with heat-pumps. Put the 4kW into the grid during the day-time, extract the power from the grid at night to drive your heat-pumps.
Alternatively don't bother with the PV array.
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hughpinder
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| posted on 6/10/11 at 03:47 PM |
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You could try a wood pellet boiler. You tip a bag of wood pellets in and it automatically lights on a timer/thermostart with automatic feed of the
pellets. They are attractive enough to have in your lounge and make only a very small amount of ash. They are expensive to buy and install, but look
like they will last longer than the average house, and are cheap to run.
The pellets conein bags you just tip in the hopper.
My friend (Who is an electrical/plumbing trade supplier) has just started distributing these ones, after installing a less attractive one at his
warehouse and reducing his heating bill from £2500/quarter to a few hundred pounds (He did buy a whole lorry load of the pellets in one go though). I
don't think they are horrendeously more expensive bought a few sacks at at time though.
Heres a look at what they're like (not my mates site, just the first random one that came up on google).
http://www.fireproductdistribution.com/Red365/Pellet_Boiler_Stoves
Regards
Hugh
ETA
My dad has had a 4KW PV array for several years. It won't heat your house, as the mid winter power is only about 10-15% of the 4kW you get in
the middle of summer!
[Edited on 6/10/11 by hughpinder]
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MikeRJ
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| posted on 6/10/11 at 04:27 PM |
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Youi could use an accumulator tank with multiple heat sources to provide hot water and house heating. e.g. solar panels for summer use (much cheaper
and more efficient that electric solar panels), ground source heat pump, wood burner etc..
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big-vee-twin
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| posted on 6/10/11 at 05:50 PM |
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You would need a massive array of PV panels to heat your house and when you need the panels to provide you with electric heating that is the time of
year when the light is poorest.
With regards to Ground Source Heat Pumps (GSHP) please don't believe the hype. We have installed many very large and small installations and
have practical experience - they work fine but if not designed by an expert (like me) they don't perform very well and even when they have been
designed well and installed to high standards they still don't perform like the manufacturers would have you believe.
Heat pumps have a Coefficient of Performance (Similar to efficiency) manufacturers quote up to around 5:1 COP for ground source which means for every
5kw of heat output you put in 1 KW of electricity.
Unfortunately this doesn't take account of system efficiencies such as circulation pumps etc. and they rarely get any better than 2.5:1. and in
most cases 2:1 or less There was a study recently carried out by the carbon trust who reported disappointing results nationwide, some installs below
2:1.
When COP drops to below 2.5 then they are costing the same to run as gas.
With regard to Air source heat pumps (ASHP) these also need to be carefully designed because their rated output is dependant upon external ambient
temperatures. All outputs for these types are quoted a 7 degrees ambient. At temperatures of -5 and below their outputs drop to 50% roughly(each
manufacturer is slightly different) so this type of kit needs to be seriously oversized to cope with low temperatures.
The amount of ASHP we got called out to last year to try and get them working following poor design/installation (by others) was immense. Again
running costs at these low temperature can be more that a gas boiler, most use back up electric heaters which come on around 0-1 degrees so when its
cold you are basically using electric heating to heat your home.
The only green technology that does exactly what it says on the tin without any smoke and mirrors is a wood burning boiler (Biomass) for which you can
receive the Renewable heat initiative tariff so long as it is MCS approved and installed by an MCS approved installer.
Duratec Engine is fitted, MS2 Extra V3 is assembled and tested, engine running, car now built. IVA passed 26/02/2016
http://www.triangleltd.com
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