Solar Power

[Steve and Shaz]

Hi All,

We have been getting a few flyers at our house "Down South" - regarding Solar Power, offering free quotes Nationwide ;) , and advising grants available from the government "clear Skies" initiative.

We are very interested in having solar power at our croft when we move up and start the restoration, but as usual with these things nationwide doesn't include Caithness ! - is it a republic and passport control always closed when we come up ? !!! :lol: .

anyway, after that long winded bit, does anyone know of any solar engineers in the county, who may be able to quote us ?

Thanks

Steve & Shaz

[Anonymous]

From what I remember of my 50-in-1 electronics kit, theres nothing to a solar panel, 2 wires (mabee some screw holes on the big 1s). Probably some kind of box* to sit between your panels and your mains. Sounds like a job for a decent joiner and a sparky to me.

* Box - Technical term for unknown circuitry inside a box that gets plugged in somewhere

[George Brims]

You have a lot of options if you want to exploit solar energy. Direct generation of electricity may not be the most cost-effective one just yet as the panels etc cost quite a bit, though year by year they get cheaper as well as more efficient.

The other two major categories are water panels to either augment your hot water supply or run radiators, or making the whole house solar passive. The former is probably the easiest in terms of not requiring major changes to the structure of the house - though I don't know how you would attach solar panels to thatch!

If you're doing a major tear down and restore anyway, the latter option might be for you. I remember reading somewhere years ago that they were building some solar passive council houses in Wick. Perhaps you could steal design ideas from those. Mostly solar passive means big south facing windows, small ones on the north side and tons and tons of insulation. Massive insulation and good windows and doors will make a big difference to your energy bills anyway.

Don't forget the wind - even if you don't like the huge turbines that are springing up all over Caithness, a wee thing like a plastic sunflower on a pole can make a significant contribution in breezy old Caithness.

Finally it is obviously worth investigating what grants and rebates are available from the gummint, as they try to encourage people to use renewable sources.