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Ian Rodger and his wife were retiring and having a new house built. They were keen to include renewables as part of the design of their new 3-bedroom home, to reduce their carbon footprint and to save money over the longer term.
Ian got in touch with Home Energy Scotland and spoke to a home renewables specialist advisor, who talked him through which technologies would be suitable to install in a new timber-framed detached property, and what financial support was available to help cover the cost.
Ian then discussed these options with his builder and found a local installer in Galashiels. The builder hadn’t worked on a project with renewables before, so Ian worked with the builder and the renewables installer to make sure they could successfully deliver the project. They all worked together to come up with a time plan, taking into account planning consent and building warrant applications to the council.
Even though the planning consent took longer than expected to come through (approximately six months), the renewables installer managed to absorb cost increases and the whole project came in exactly on budget.
The builder and the installer made sure the installation of the renewable technologies fitted in with the build schedule. The first elements were installed in September 2018 and Ian and his wife moved into their new home in mid-December 2018 when all the work was complete.
The following renewable technologies were installed:
Ian used an interest free Home Energy Scotland loan, funded by the Scottish Government, to help with the cost of installing the heat pump, solar PV system and battery. He also applied to receive payments from the UK Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) for the ASHP and the Feed-In Tariff (FiT) for the solar PV system (please note the FiT is now closed to new applications).
After six months in living in their new home, Ian and his wife find the property very comfortable and say the ASHP is keeping it very warm. They are also very pleased with the solar PV system, and see the benefits of having a south facing roof.
On top of this, Ian and his wife are making financial savings. In March 2019, Ian reported generating 10kWh of energy daily from the solar PV system. Thanks to their battery storage system, they use all of this and don’t export any electricity back to the grid. Ian said, “In the 31 days of May we have consumed just 129kWh (£20) from the grid. Many of the days, the consumption from the grid is zero. The solar PV is charging the battery to 100% and we consume that in the evening and overnight.” (These provisional figures have been provided in the early days of summer)
Ian and his wife said that the investment has been very worthwhile so far and they reckon the payback period for their solar PV system to be around 9 years. They are looking forward to receiving their payments from the RHI and FITs which will make the investment even more beneficial.
Ian and his wife do admit that as of March 2019, the battery is hard to justify financially, although they hope this may change in spring and summer with the longer days. They also thought the battery would be able to provide a backup during a power cut, however this isn’t the case. They are hoping that in the future, battery upgrades will allow it to work off grid. In the meantime, they will investigate electricity tariffs, which will allow them to buy electricity cheaply overnight, when they won’t get as much electricity generated by the solar PV in winter, so they can charge the battery from the grid and consume that energy during the day.
One small regret Ian has is not having installed solar water heating panels too, but he plans to do this in the future.
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