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Energy systems

This page describes the renewable energy systems installed at WolfeWare's address

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Renewable heat

All the heating and hot water for Rose Cottage comes from solar thermal panels and a ground source heat pump. The heat pump extracts heat from fluid pumped through four 30m boreholes in the front driveway.

The heating circuit for the house is partly underfloor heating, and partly standard hot water radiators.

The swimming pool uses a separate air source heat pump.

The solar panels are mounted on a frame in the garden (see picture below).

The ground source heat pump The ground source heat pump (left) is the size of a large boiler.

This heat store (shown right) with two large cylinders and various expansion vessels makes sure we have plenty of hot water and the heat is used as efficiently as possible.

We disconnected the gas when the ground source heat pump and solar thermal systems were installed. That left the swimming pool unheated, so the air source heat pump on the left has now been installed.

This picture (right) shows the solar heating controls in the garage. The extra transmitters and meters are there because our system is being monitored as part of EST's field trials.

We found solar panels with sizes and frames that matched so you can hardly tell the electric panels (on the left) from the heating panels (the three on the right)

These solar panels mounted in the garden face almost exactly due South and provide both heat and electricity.

Inverter to convert the output of the PV panels to AC Because the inverter for the PV panels is in the shed under the array, we hardly ever see it, so we have this wireless repeater in the house to see how the system is performing.

Repeater display showing output of the PV system

It shows a maximum output of 1,463 watts (so far) - not bad for an array rated at 1,280W.

Renewable power

Part of the electricity is produced by a photovoltaic array mounted (see above) alongside the solar thermal panels.

We would like to install a wind turbine, and have a potentially suitable site at the end of the garden. We are awaiting clarity on the feed-in tariffs and planning changes for wind turbines.