I’m Andy Dawson and I work in Business Development for our commercial clients throughout the UK. There is phenomenal interest in our free solar power offer at a commercial level – not just form obvious companies in large roofed warehouses, but also from schools, farms, churches and community centres and other not for profit organisations. This is such a fulfilling job for me – being able to help so many organisations reduce their electricity bills as well as save tonnes of carbon dioxide from getting into the atmosphere; and all for no investment from our clients. I’m very experienced in solar power and we have solar panels on our house in Richmond upon Thames.
We have a 2Kw system on our roof at home, which was installed in December 2010. We are really pleased with the free solar power and having the panels has made us much more aware of the power we use and how we can be better still at reducing the electricity we are billed for.
Before the system was installed, we borrowed a device which you plug in between the plug on an appliance and the socket it goes into. This reads exactly how much energy any device actually uses. This meant we began to understand the drain of everything in the house. Some of the appliances were obviously power hungry – all the things with heating elements in them for example. We found the kettle, microwave oven, toaster, washing machine, dishwasher and electric oven all draw about 2Kw each when you switch them on.
Other big drainers of electricity include the fridges and freezers (2 of each – teenage boys at home), television and desktop computers with monitors, all of which drain quite a lot too. Only the fridges and freezers are always on however, everything else is switched on when needed.
The less obvious drains on power are all the little transformers for appliances that were always switched on, day and night. We had one 6 way extension that the stereo and its extras were plugged into that was a significant drain and was running 24/7, for example. It is truly astonishing how many modern appliances have transformer type plugs, all getting hot by stepping down voltage and feeding it into something that is essentially switched off. We unplug the stereo now and are really careful about what is left plugged in or on standby.
We also have a device that tells us exactly how much electricity in total we are using at any time. This is clipped to the feed cables going into the electricity meter – so it works at a whole house level. We can tell from it that the fridges and freezers are not very energy efficient (they are old), but they only drain power intermittently, because they are thermostat controlled. We can instantly see how much extra electricity we are using when we switch on the kettle for example.
Armed with this information, we have changed our strategy radically. Not just by unplugging the continuously draining things and being better at not using standby – but also by strategic use of other appliances. We only switch the dishwasher on just as we are leaving for work in the morning, and we have the washing machine on a 2 hour delayed start at the same time. That means that these appliances run one after the other and while the solar panels are delivering enough electricity to run each of them on their own. This means we aren’t ever paying for the electricity to run these things.
When the teenage boys are home in the school holidays, they don’t get up before lunchtime, so their guitar amps and games consoles are being paid for by the solar panels, because the washing machine has finished by then.
The first thing that happened after the panels were installed in December was that 3 inches of snow fell on them. That was the only time they didn’t generate any power though - and it only lasted for a couple of days. In 9 months since the system was installed, we have generated 1,853.92 Kwh (or Units), through one of the coolest and most overcast summers on record.
We have taken other energy reducing measures as well, insulating the loft even more and thoroughly draughtproofing the whole house. We have replaced our antiquated boiler with an A rated one in the loft and our energy reduction strategy is paying real benefits in the bills we pay, but also in the amount of carbon dioxide we are responsible for pooting out into the atmosphere.
Real change in society can only happen if enough people change what they do individually. It is important for our children’s sake to make that change in our lifestyles now and encourage everyone we know to do the same.
Install solar panels today!
Our solar panels – at the back of the house. We think they look great too!
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