The Good Energy Shop

Good Energy Shop customer case study: John Rhodes

John Rhodes in Bedfordshire is harnessing the sun's power and turning it into his own green electricity.

John is an old hand at solar generation - he's had a solar thermal system on his roof for the past five years which takes care of about 75% of his annual hot water needs. One of the first to join Good Energy's HotROCs scheme - which is funded by Good Energy Gas customers - he earns about £86 a year from us for the heat he generates, as well as saving money on heating his hot water.

John was so pleased with the performance of his solar thermals that he's gone a step further, and had a 10-panel 1.8 kWp Solar PV system installed on his roof, so he can start generating clean, green electricity.

"We try and follow a green lifestyle," John explains. "We do a lot of recycling and have a rainwater harvesting system for flushing toilets. I've always wanted solar PV, and when I saw it was available from the Good Energy Shop and Sundog for a good price, around £10,000, I decided to go ahead."

With interest rates at rock bottom, the attractions of solar PV are not only ecological but also financial. As a customer of Good Energy's HomeGen scheme, he'll earn 15p per kWh he generates, the highest rate in the market. John says, "At the moment, it's better to have your money on the roof than in the bank."

To find out how you can start the journey to generating your own energy, visit our new website www.generateyourown.co.uk

 

Spring is hotting up for our solar thermal competition winner

Although May might not have brought much sun so far, if you have faith in the science people at the Met Office, this summer is set to be a scorcher. Good news for Charlotte Cowgill, the lucky winner of our solar thermal competition.  Charlotte's new panels are going to be installed soon, and Charlotte and family - partner Andy and new baby Elmore - will be keeping a diary to report the process.

Charlotte says: "We are absolutely delighted to have won the solar thermal competition. For many years we have had them on our list of low-carbon home improvements; we are thrilled.  It could not have come at a better time for us too. Firstly our baby son, Elmore, was born at the end of March. The thought of him bathing in hot water heated by the sun is a healthy start and is a brilliant first lesson in reducing his future energy use. (We intend to be harsh parents for all the right reasons!) We are also in dire need of a complete boiler replacement and doing it with the panels is more than we could have hoped for."

We'll keep you posted to find out how they get on. 

Click here to see Good Energy's solar thermal panels for sale.

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Solar Power in Herefordshire - Case study

• Region: Herefordshire
• Owners: Tim and Fiona Start
• Type of installation: 3 kW Solar PV
• Annual Generation: 2.3 MWh
• Annual CO2 saving: 1.4 tonnes
• Annual credit from Good Energy: £345
• Cost of installation: £16,300
• Size of Grant: £7,500 

In May 2006 Tim and Fiona Start installed a 3 kW solar array at their home in Herefordshire. Tim and Fiona love the rural setting in which they live and care for their environment. It’s difficult to have a small carbon footprint when you live in a Victorian house in a rural area, but they take simple, effective measures like walking, cycling and using public transport (but not flying).

They grow their own vegetables and buy local produce, preferring to shop locally and creatively (and secondhand where possible). They practice recycling and composting and opt against an overly warm centrally heated house - they heat their home with woodburners running on offcuts.

Since installing their solar panels the Starts have really begun to make big cuts to their carbon emissions.

“The roof on our house faces south. So we knew that solar panels would make the most of the sun’s energy. Our 3 kW array produces about three quarters of the electricity we have needed until now. The remainder is supplied by Good Energy which sources all its power from renewable generation. We hope also to install solar thermal panels, which will save a lot of electricity by significantly reducing the need for an immersion heater. A wind turbine might be on the cards as well, eventually.

“We believe that climate change is a threat to us all but we realise that there are so many things we can do to become part of the solution. Generating our electricity from solar power is just one way that we can really make a difference.”

Tim and Fiona Start 

To learn more about Good Energy's buy back schemes click here. 

To buy solar panels click here. 

Shop team

Solar breakthrough: production beating the $1 per watt milestone

Almost every week seems to bring new breakthroughs in solar power technology -- getting more efficient, more versatile, and more cost effective. Today’s edition is about the latter, as a US solar PV company announces it has managed to cut production costs by a third, with more savings possible in the future. First Solar has streamlined its manufacturing enough to bring the cost of modules to under $1 per watt capacity, from $3 in the last few years. This will mean cheaper panels reach the market and ensure the price of solar becomes more competitive with fossil fuel energy.

Ken Zweibel, Director of the Institute for the Analysis of Solar Energy at The George Washington University, Washington D.C. called it “a major milestone for the solar industry.”
He added: “This demonstrates the ability of thin film PV technology to provide an alternative to traditional fossil fuels and for solar power to provide a meaningful contribution in addressing climate change."

First Solar’s director Mike Ahearn reaffirmed just how vital it is for governments to support the solar industry through financial mechanisms such as feed-in tariffs, citing Germany in particular. “Without forward-looking government programs supporting solar electricity, we would not have been able to invest in the capacity expansion which gives us the scale to bring costs down,” he said.

Good Energy firmly believes the UK needs strong mechanisms in place to boost a growing solar industry, and have been providing our own version of a feed in tariff for years. We have shown the industry that supporting small scale renewable generators is plausible and carries huge benefits. Our home turf firms need reassurance that their investments will be rewarded. To critics of renewable subsidies, the First Solar case is a great example of how financial incentives can give vital support to growing companies, enabling them to cut their costs and build their own foundations as subsidies are gradually reduced.

The Good Energy Shop sells solar pv and solar thermal panels at highly competitive rates, and we'll help you through every step of the process.

Good Energy Shop Team

Solar breakthrough: new coat increases efficiency

Solar panels have come a long way since the first models were unveiled in Japan some 40 years ago. They are much more efficient than their predecessors, and most importantly for the UK, they no longer require direct and strong sunlight to operate.

But there’s still room for improvement, especially in two key areas. Current panels on the market absorb about two thirds of the sunlight that hits them whilst the other third reflects and bounces off – sunlight that could be used. They are also very dependent on being at exactly the right angle to get the most sunlight, which can restrict a lot of buildings facing the wrong way.

Researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in New York have made significant progress recently in these areas. They have developed a new antireflective coating for solar panels that captures over 95% of the light that hits it, and expands the spectrum of light available at almost all angles. This means panels can remain stationary and generate their full capacity all day long.

Professor Shawn-Yu Lin, who headed up the year long project seems pretty pleased with his achievement and thinks the discovery could hold the key to more wide scale, cost effective solar generation. He uses a nice analogy about layers of trees in a forest sucking in the light and not letting it out to explain nanoengineered titanium dioxide nanorods at oblique angles attached to a silicon substrate via chemical vapor disposition!

“Typical antireflective coatings are engineered to transmit light of one particular wavelength. Lin’s new coating stacks seven of these layers, one on top of the other, in such a way that each layer enhances the antireflective properties of the layer below it. These additional layers also help to “bend” the flow of sunlight to an angle that augments the coating’s antireflective properties. This means that each layer not only transmits sunlight, it also helps to capture any light that may have otherwise been reflected off of the layers below it."

If solar panels can generate more energy more of the time, the financial argument for buying them will become stronger. Commercially, the farms won’t need to rotate the panels to follow the sun, and at home, fixed panels to the roof will power a lot more. Although he hasn’t said much about how much this process adds to the cost of the panel. Hmmm.

Anyway, good work Lin, at least we now know that panels can generate close to their maximum theroetical efficiency.

The Shop team

Customer review: Our solar panels

In our bid to bring more transparency and understanding to the world of microgeneration (solar panels, small turbines etc) we will be publishing a series of case studies from Good Energy customers. To kick off (and celebrate our new solar pv addition to the Good Energy Shop) here's a review of our SunDog solar panels by Julian Orton:

"It's now one year since we had our solar PV system fitted by Sundog Energy. With an installed capacity of 2.916 kWp on a south-east facing roof, we were given a rather conservative prediction of an annual yield of 1861 kWh.  However, it's surpassed all our expectations with an actual total generation figure of 2672 kWh.  This easily exceeds the average quoted UK yield of 830kWh per kWp of installed capacity.

On the energy efficiency side we reduced our total consumption by 13.4% from 4143 to 3589 units.  This was achieved by switching to energy saving light bulbs, the use of energy saving mains connectors for computer and AV equipment, the replacement of two household appliances with more energy efficient versions and the use of a ‘smart meter' energy saving monitor. Some of these changes are ‘in year' and should produce further falls in consumption next year.

The total reduction in use of grid electricity was from 4143 to 917 kWh or a 78% reduction.  If you include the fact that our electricity supplier is Good Energy who supply 100% of their customers' electricity from renewable sources then it's a 100% reduction.  Using Energy Savings Trust figure of  0.568kg CO2 per kWh, the displaced grid electricity gives a CO2 saving of 1518kg for the year.  I realise this isn't an immediate gain when you include the carbon payback time of 4-5 years in the UK for the energy used to manufacture the solar PV panels.  But when you consider that the manufacturer (Sharp in this case) guarantees the output to 80% of the original at 25 years and some of the first PV panels fitted in Japan 40 years ago (also Sharp) are still functioning, then the overall carbon life-cycle is massively in favour of solar PV electricity."

Julian Orton for the Good Energy Shop team

Solar PV now available at the Good Energy Shop

Solar PV panels now on sale.. buy here.

We are delighted to announce that the Good Energy Shop is now selling Solar Photo Voltaic panels. 

We have teamed up with Sundog Energy, a well versed and reliable installer, to bring you some of the finest technology around – Sharp’s NUS0E3E 180Wp monocrystalline module. (Don’t worry, we’ll just call them solar panels!) These wonders are very highly efficient and are designed to maximise output even in indirect sunlight (cloudy days anyone??), perfect for the UK’s less desirable forecasts. 

We are offering three packages starting at an installed cost of £9,375 and an estimated annual output of 1200 KWh (about a third of the average house’s usage.) But we don’t just put the panels in a box and send them to you; we will guide you along each step of the way right from the planning to the switching on. Most importantly, we’ll help you obtain any grants or funding available in your local area – the panels are eligible for a Low Carbon Buildings grant of up to £2500. 

So are you ready for solar PV? The first step to find out would be to take our desktop survey. If you need to know a bit more about how all this generate your own stuff works take a look at our Microgeneration basics… it’s a jargon free introduction to the world of small scale renewables. 

This post will be followed by some real life people case studies to help you learn about all aspects of solar. 

Welcome to the world of photo voltaics!