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Secret files on solar energy collaborator, Part 1: Dave Hampton

EVIDENCE

9-panel, 1.66KWpeak, photovoltaic (PV) solar panel installation

LOCATION
on the Carbon Coach’s home in Marlow, Bucks

COST
£10,000 all inc

SUPPLIER
Freesource, Good Energy’s chosen renewable energy installation partner

ACCOMPLICES
Transition Town Marlow 100 Solar Panel project:http://www.transitionmarlow.org/index.php?p=1_2_Solar

The low-carbon detectives are on my trail. Here’s my review of the installation.

I am delighted to report that my PV panels are up, on the roof, and generating much clean raw power, plus useful cash. The panels are of course being very closely watched and monitored, by me, and by my friends and Marlow neighbours.

They make me feel deeply and inordinately happy. I get waves of pleasure just to see my powerful panels and to witness their production of sustainable energy.

They look good, feel good, are in good taste, and, by golly, they do you good!

Hi-visibility roof coat

My installation is on the side roof, the exposed side of our house which is on a corner plot. The nett (curtain) effect of which is that my panels are quite noticeable to passers by. I view my panels with as much awe and admiration as I would a Picasso original. They are both a work of genius.

The elegant clean lines, the silver and dark blue crystalline refraction/reflection effect, the large-tile-upon-small-tile pyramid cubist design. The light and shade, the diametric composition of juxtaposition and orthogonality…

None of my neighbours seems unhappy about the installation. One said he didn’t exactly find them attractive, but neither did he notice them much. Most neighbours are interested in how we get on with them.

One household is having a survey, and is currently deciding if they want to go solar. I hope they will.

Local nuclear – or new clear vision

If some people insist they really ‘don’t like the look’, then I suppose I could ask them if they would prefer a small local nuclear power station – somewhere near them – in Marlow on (cooling water) Thames instead?

Some of my friends are positive or neutral about nuclear, but I don’t think any would welcome it within 50 miles of their home town, let alone bolted onto their roof. Like my micro ‘nuke’ is…

My solar PV installation is in effect a local nuclear power harnessing plant, human scale, with the core reactor located a nice, safe distance away. (93 million miles: The Sun.)

The waste trail you don’t see
Upstream in the supply chain, to make my solar panels and kit, if you think about it, is an alarming trail of waste, mining, manufacturing and energy use, from all over the world. Long before they generate their first unit of clean power in Marlow, my beloved panels have left some sort of trail of pollution behind them. But here’s the deal. It’s not big.

In ball park terms, the upstream damage, the ‘eco-baggage’ that my panels arrived with from day one, amounts to some 1000kg of greenhouse gas equivalent impact. They will pay that back in full within two years. They will sweep up all their own eco-mess, their footprint in manufacture etc, during the first two years of operation. Thereafter, for the next 20 years or more, they will be sweeping up other people’s pollution – and fully be in (planetary) credit, increasingly so, for each year they keep on keeping on.

In carbon terms, my panels weigh less than minus 10 tons – over their lifetime!

This thought gives me a little lift. Like the balloons in the movie ‘UP’, my panels uplift me.

In less than 20 years, well before my 70th birthday, my panels will have saved a nett 10 tons of CO2, after taking into account the CO2 involved in manufacture and transport. And they will have saved, at a power station, over their lifetime, the equivalent of around 20 barrels of oil being burnt as well. Picture all that fossil fuel being left in the ground.

The whole process of old-fashioned power generation, from the oil well, coal mine, fuel extraction, fuel intake, the waste streams (heat, smoke, spent fuel) and all the risks, is fully concealed from us. It takes place many miles away, behind concrete walls, with coal trucks, smoking chimneys and warmed up local rivers the only tell-tell signs. In contrast, PV panels are open, transparent, risk free and locally autonomous. Also, the more they generate, the more they don’t pollute, whereas the more power old-fashioned fossil or nuclear plants generate, the more they pollute, and the higher the bill, until eventually they cost us the Earth.

Each PV panel ever made has effectively a negative legacy footprint on the world. It is also carbon quids-in, providing it is given a nice roof to sit on, and a nice home to power for life. The technology is ecologically restorative, when it displaces dirtier generation.
The more PV we use, the less CO2 we put into the atmosphere overall.
In this sense, planting PV panels on your roof is almost as good as planting a tree.

Put your money where your roof is

Despite knowing all this, it still took me five years to take the PV plunge. And to save up the money. When we eco-refurbished our entire house five years ago, we satisfied ourselves with just a solar hot water panel (and a small token PV panel for the pump for the solar system.) But I had set aside an area of south-facing roof. It was designated for PV one day.

£10,000 is a shed-load of money

Let’s get the big, scary number out of the way.

£10,000 (fully inc).
£10,000 is a shed-load of money. It’s a roof-full of PV. It’s also on a par with an ISA, or a slice of pension fund, going without a new car for a few years, or missing out on a family foreign holiday or two. I appreciate it is still a shed-load of money, and I know I was lucky to be able to do it, and not everyone can.

If you are a homeowner, the ‘asset value of the home’ is a moot point, as no-one really knows what the asset value is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if our home would raise £10k more on the open market than a similar property without the PV panels. So you can view it as home improvement.

And Home improvement too – with a capital H.
Sooner or later we need to start living on our HOME planet as if we intend to stay here forever. See ‘HOME’ the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU

It is possible my kids will benefit more from the legacy of millions of solar panels than they ever will from the legacy of £1000s in my will. Is PV making my WILL POWER-ful? Globally, there need be no shortage of will power.

Rent
“No generation has a freehold on this Earth. All we have is a life-tenancy—with a full repairing lease.” Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher MP
If you rent your home, there is every reason to lobby your landlord or the council to fit PVs. Many landlords are already considering doing this. Your voice in support could tip them into action. You may even be able to help educate them about the grants, Feed in Tariffs (e.g. http://www.fitariffs.co.uk , business benefits, etc. Don’t assume they know all about how good it can be.

PV is a well-kept secret that the nice fossil companies don’t really want people to discover…yet…

The Numbers
I don’t want to throw too many numbers at you, but here is the deal. Depending on the weather, rain, cloud or shine, my panels generate about 10 to 70 pence an hour during daytime.

On a bright day, and averaged over 24 hours, my nine panels supply ALL my electricity needs. Over an entire year, I expect them to generate around a THIRD of all that we use.
Over a year we expect the savings, plus the Feed in Tariff income, to be worth £800.

Our energy provider, Good Energy, won’t be sending us bills. They will be sending us cheques! Cheques for the (government enhanced) value of all the FiT power we generate, less the small cost of the energy we import.

Next week I will be reviewing the highly acclaimed ‘Wattson’ remote energy display meter which is the perfect accompaniment to a PV installation.

Dave Hampton

The Carbon Coach

http://www.carboncoach.com/

Our experience tells us that schools can play a key role in any plan to restore biodiversity in this country and can do this in both an inspiring and cost effective way. With schools cooperating and working together a realistic national programme can be established to address habitat destruction head on.

The “green” issues we hear more about today, are what I would call the grey - solar panels and windfarms - its all very sweet; but the environment should not stray too far from green to grey, it also needs to focus on its origins; James Lovelock when interviewed on BBC said how it is Life that created the atmosphere, the future of our planet and its life carrying capacity, will depend on how we can live with nature, being mutually inclusive, with our urban designs. Active restoration and gardening into nature’s mosaics can stem the flow of habitat destruction, it can undo the damage of the past, and lastly open up another vision for the future, which is not only Lady Gaga, parking lots and shopping malls.

Florida bonneted bat - Eumops floridanus was thought to be extinct until 2002, when a small colony was discovered in a North Fort Myers suburb of Florida, US.

Saola – The cow-like Pseudoryx nghetinhensis, which occurs only in the Annamite mountains of Vietnam and Laos is in protracted decline.

Kakapo or owl parrot - In 2008, the total population of this large, flightless nocturnal parrot (Strigops habroptila) from New Zealand was 93, including the seven hatched that year.

Golden arrow poison frog – With the chytridiomycosis epidemic spreading from west to east through Panama, populations of Atelopus zeteki are now at severe risk.

Jamaican iguana – There may be no more than a hundred adult Cyclura collei remaining in the wild, and juvenile recruitment appears to be minimal.

Chinese paddlefish - Only two adult specimens of Psephurus gladius (both females) have been recorded since 2002. It is expected there are fewer than 50 adults left in the wild.

Chinese giant salamander - The largest of all amphibian species, sometimes growing to more than 1m long, Andrias davidianus is widespread in southern China, but its range is very fragmented

Sicilian fir - Abies nebrodensis trees are presently limited to the steep, dry slopes of Mt. Scalone in the Madonie Mountains of Sicily.

Sumatran orang-utan - The majority of surviving Pongo abelii live in the province of Aceh in northern Sumatra, Indonesia.