Economics
Energy efficiency technologies, methods, products and techniques have moved a long way forward over the last decade, primarily driven by higher energy costs and the need to be more environmentally conscious especially regarding the need to reduce pollution and waste.
There are many organisations which have been set up to improve the energy efficiency in buildings and energy usage and help obtain grants but these are often hard to find and technical guidance on micro-generation that is fit-for-purpose is not always easy to obtain. Clean Energy Solutions Ltd can provide this service.
Energy efficiency measures range from very straightforward common-sense ones for domestic users through to using more advanced technologies and energy management systems for larger energy users and more complex buildings and facilities. Costs can range from very small up to quite large amounts, depending on the application and therefore payback can range from a few months up to 12 years.
Energy efficient measures include:-
Loft and cavity wall insulation, draft proofing, improved heating, conversion to low energy electrical and gas appliances and heat storage systems.
Micro-generation technologies have been with us for some time but have been poorly advertised until recently. However although many people are interested in generating their own clean energy, there have been multiple bureaucratic barriers stopping many projects ever getting implemented. This is now rapidly changing and being more streamlined through government and local development carbon reduction initiatives and pressure form local environmentally conscious groups and these combined with ever improved technologies, is now starting to revolutionize the micro-generation industry. By 2010 microgeneration will become a thriving industry within the UK and by 2015 it will become a well established industry with many thousands of hybrid installation and best practice sites having been installed over the UK .
Costs for micro-generation technologies are falling and can range from as little as £2000 per kW installed up to £10,000 per kW, depending on the site, the technology, grants and ROC's. Therefore payback can range from a few years up to 25 years.
The most cost effective micro-generation technologies are solar thermal, low to medium head micro hydro, followed by heat pumps, CHP, energy storage systems, wind turbines and then solar photovoltaic, although the details of the economics comes down to how well the system is designed for the application and system reliability.
A review of case studies and projects are provided on the link page and the current project page on this website.