You don't have to live in the latest concept house to help save the planet. Donnachadh McCarthy has transformed his leaky, draughty Victorian terrace into a zero-carbon triumph – and he's set out this simple plan so that you can do it too.
20. Power to the people
The biggest investment in the creation of my retro-eco home was installing a solar panel for electricity (a solar photovoltaic system). That was way back in 1997. As I have learnt to be more efficient in how I use electricity, it has provided an increasing proportion of my power.
A few years back, I finally succeeded in exporting more electricity to the National Grid than I imported, which was a cause for much celebration. Today, a similar 2KwH solar system will cost about £12,000, and the government grant (which was slashed in Gordon Brown's last Budget) now stands at £1,500 per system.
By the way, the domestic wind turbine experimentally installed on my roof 18 months ago has been a failure, producing just enough power for one energy saving bulb.
For advice visit www.lowcarbonbuildings.org
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1 comment:
Interesting read. I am actually going to look into that solar power here in the U.S. and what it cost to get it installed.
I was suprised to notice that simpler things like recycling equipements and that we change every 8 to 14 months was not on the list. An example is cell phone recycling which i honestly thought would have made it on the list, with the way phone are released these days.
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