Modern, sustainable, low-impact living is the amalgamation of the wisdom of the past with the technology of the future.
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‘Modern, sustainable, low-impact living is the amalgamation of the wisdom of the past with the technology of the future’. That’s the header to our website www.alternative-energy.co.uk
Well what exactly do we mean by it?... Society is at last coming round to the idea that our collective impact upon the planet simply is unsustainable. The examples are all around for us to see. We way we waste precious resources; the rubbish we generate; the build up of CO2 in the atmosphere. To avoid the problems facing us in the future we simply need to learn how to lead sustainable lives. Living in modern world we can use technology to help us do this without drastically affecting our quality of life now and affecting the lives of future generations. We individually need to have the ability to see the challenge before us and live up to it rather than pretending it won’t happen or that we cannot do anything about it. We have always been interested in environmental issues and toyed with the idea, some years ago, of having solar panels fitted to the house. We could not afford them then because we had other priorities. However with the money we slowly were able to save through simple thriftiness (not buying unnecessary items and running a cheap car) we were able to save the required money to make this into a reality. We were not sure at all about how to go about doing this and spent hours of research on the internet looking at the possibilities and the renewable energy technologies. We located where to go for the grants, which are 50%.We then had to find out about planning permission and discovered that our local authority didn’t even know that we did not have to have planning permission to have the solar PV installed! We then had to find whether energy companies would buy our excess electricity…(they do) The list went on and on.. What we really wanted was a website that had all the information collated in one place. There wasn’t one. Now I’m no computer whiz but I knew the basics of putting a website together. A few years previously I had bought a domain name www.alternative-energy.co.uk ( fortunate) and decided to utilise it. What we decided to try to do would be to record our progress in installing solar PV and post links to help others who wished to do the same thing themselves.
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It’s grown a bit from the initial pages that I wrote and as I learn more I post more but I try to keep the same principles… include information about what we are doing and useful information that will help others. On 13th April our solar PV system was installed. It’s quite large at 3.28kwp. There are 16 Sanyo hybrid modules which work well in low light conditions and they take up 20m2 of the roof space. They were installed very professionally by Chelsfield Solar for whom I can only praise….In a day. (The total amount that we paid for this system was £8,700. A lot of money but this is the kind of cash a lot of people spend on a car… It’s a question of priorities.) On its first full day of operating they produced 8.5kwh which I think will be about the daily average over the year. At one time they were actually producing 4099 watts. Now that is some serious power; equivalent to 372 11w low energy light bulbs at once! Some rainy days they produce 4 kwh and on a sunny day we had 22kwh at a constant output of about 3000 watts. Now after 11 days of operating the system has produced 114kwh and has saved 67kg of CO2. If all this energy had been exported we would have received about £13.68. I have to say that the system so far has surpassed our expectations. Just think if all the south facing roofs in the country had this type of technology, not to mention all the other renewable technologies that are available. We could have an energy infrastructure with next to zero carbon emissions. It is possible now with the right will and incentive.
Together with the other energy efficiency measures we have installed in our house, such as low energy light bulbs, draft excluders, secondary double glazing, roof and floor insulation and wood burning stove our house is now quite energy efficient. We grow a fair amount of food in the garden and allotment and what we don’t grow we buy locally. I travel most places, including to work, by bike. We are a long way from perfect but the installation of the modern solar PV means that we have clean, green renewable energy being generated on our roof and this technology helps us to strive towards living a modern sustainable life….we hope, and we hope lots of others will do the same.
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