[andysv1k]

Originally Posted by Dotwhack

How much to solar panels costs these days? - now I live on the sunny cornish coast, the back of my house is south facing and we have sun all through the day so it might be a good way of reducing our electric bill....

plus - this might seem like a daft question but how long does it store electric for?

Opt for solar water heating, it will pay back far far quicker, also pay back its production footprint quicker. and will provide a tangible benefit, ie the day you have it installed, if its sunny, you get hot water for free! Go for vacuum tubes over flat plates, esepcially if you are on the coast. Dont let anyone tell you that vacuum tubes are too expensive, its nonsense, we install tubes cheaper than most people install flat plates. I can probably find you a decent installer of the panels we use in your area (unless Alvin goes down that far??)

Andy.

[Alvin]

Tottaly agree with everything Andy has said.

Alvin

[andysv1k]

Originally Posted by Alvin

Tottaly agree with everything Andy has said.

Alvin

I wish everyone was like you Alvin!

Andy.

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by andysv1k

I wish everyone was like you Alvin!

Andy.

I wish my wife did.

Had a long lecture from the guy who runs our solar business,very interesting.

As in a lot of things you need to get to the truth Like wind generators from B&Q are a total waste .

Have a friend who builds offshore wind farms ,now they do put out some juice.

A

[pvcprinting]

Wind Power

Is it simply a question of size to output ratio?

i have been playing with an idea for a couple of months now.......hopefully it could be something everybody could have

[andysv1k]

Wind? well its simply Location location location!

a small wind turbine will work great....IN THE RIGHT PLACE

a large wind turbine will work great.....IN THE RIGHT PLACE

The $&*%$&%"£ (will not dare utter their name) turbines that a certain DIY shop sells that Al mentioned are loving known in the trade as chocolate teapots. Not because they are no good, but because the marketing machine of the company decided the quickest and easiest way to make a ton of money was to put them in cheap and easy, this means attaching them to something big and strong, a house maybe? trouble is stick a wind turbine to a house and generally it wont work. partly they are too low down, but mainly the airflow is just too turbulent.

Thats why ofshore is so good, lots of flat(ish) space for the wind to build as a laminar flow thats consistent enough to keep the turbine spinning and spinning in one direction for long periods. go watch a choccy teapot and you will see it spends most of its time hunting for the wind, ie the wind direction changes are so frequent the tail section keeps it spinning on its axis more than the blades spin.

Andy.

[andysv1k]

Originally Posted by pvcprinting

Wind Power

Is it simply a question of size to output ratio?

although i say slightly different above, there is a certain ammount of size benefits. the large offshore jobbies can pay back in a couple of years wen sited correctly, they are generally multi megawatt though, not something your neighbours would appreciate popping up in your garden!

Im not in the know enough to quote figures on size to output advantages as i only deal with small turbines, but two years to pay back a multimillion pound investment sounds pretty damn efficient if you ask me!

Andy.

[Moneymaker]

To really get enough energy produced to cut costs you'd have to cover a big area with solar panels especially since the sun doesn't come visit all that often! I just know that behind the idea of solar powered cars...it wouldn't really work unless the car was very light but was the site of a jet. Im sure that solar panels would help conserve a bit of energy but not be able to be the main supplier!

[Nick Dyer]

Thanks for this thread.
I had looked at solar power a few years ago but it wasn't viable then.
Maybe it's time to have another look at it.

[simonr]

Okay.... so we have suppliers on here, but do any of you instal in the civilised parts of the world? (AKA The North). I'm in Newcastle.....

S