Renew On Line (UK) 54

Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 154 Mar-Apr2005

5. Micro power push: PV and micro-CHP

The Green Alliance lobbying group says the government should support homeowners as much as it does businesses in taking up renewables. It has put forward the case for micro-generation at the domestic level- using small, affordable, roof-mounted wind turbines, solar panels and heating systems that can generate renewable, low-carbon heat and power at home.

The Alliance says more than 1m gas boilers are replaced every year in the UK. If one quarter of these were  micro- combined heat and power units rather than conventional boilers, this alone would deliver half the Energy White Paper’s 2010-2020 domestic sector carbon reductions. Reviewing the field in a useful special ethical investment feature, which included coverage of Windsaves micro-turbine and micro stirling engines, the Guardian (20/11/04) commented ‘Without encouragement- subsidies or grants- there will be little momentum and CHP units and wind turbines will remain oddities, used only by cranks’. 

But the Guardian did point out that Npower and independent supplier Good Energy will pay 5p/ kWh for the electricity consumers generate.  Meanwhile, one time Energy Minister Brian Wilson has installed a Windsave micro-wind turbine on his own house in Glasgow.   See Reviews for more on the Alliances’ report.

PVsolar high

Energy Minister Mike O’Brien has reported that at the end Dec. 2003 there was 5,903 kWp of installed solar  photovoltaic capacity in the UK.  He noted that the target of the DTI’s Major PV Demonstration Programme was 1,000 domestic/individual systems (2 MW) and at least 140 medium & large scale non-domestic systems (5 MW). 

..and more to come

The latest round of the scheme has  allocated almost £1 m for 15 new projects, bringing the total awarded to the 166 medium and large scale projects funded since the scheme was set up in 2002, to £17.4m, providing 5,391 kWp of capacity. The Maritime Museum in London was one this rounds winners. 450 solar panels  for 25 flats on a Tyneside estate will be one of the UK’s larges PV arrays. The £250,000 project should provide up to a third of their power.