Zero bills concept
Installing the ZEDroof on an energy efficient home can produce enough energy to mean that you have NO energy bills for the next 25 years.
1. Reduce your energy consumption
Ensure your home is energy efficient: Well insulated, double glazed, with a high airtightness and includes heat recovery ventilation. This is easier to achieve with a new build but possible with refurbishments of old properties too. For more information about the design of energy efficient buildings and refurbishments contact our architectural partners the ZEDfactory. Insure all appliances are A++ rated, and all lights are low energy.
2. Reduce your water consumption
Install spray taps and showers and a rainwater harvesting tank to provide irrigation water and toilet flushing water. The maximum annual water bill should be around £500 including watering for a garden and drip irrigation for vegetable growing in the
summer.
3. Install a ZEDroof energy system on the south facing roof
An average medium-sized house uses about 3,300kWh per year , but an energy efficient home can use much less than that. Installing 24m2 of PV, (ie a 3.6kWhp system), on a south facing roof in London can generate 3060 kWh/year.
4. Start claiming FITs from your roof
The ZEDroof panels and installation are MCS accredited for Feed In Tariff @ 36.1 pence / kWh - generating an annual income of around £1,300. The annual grid connection standing charge is often around £200, so we can assume that the solar electric panels provide a net income of £1000/year.
5. Start generating hot water from your solar hot water collectors
The solar hot water collectors should easily provide domestic hot water for about 50 % of the year - peaking in the summer months. Once the Renewable Heat Incentive scheme is introduced in June 2011, you will also be able to make an income from the heat you produce.
6. Install a wood pellet stove
A modest 5 to 8 kW wood pellet fired cooking range will provide back up space heating in cold spells, heat for certain types of cooking and baking, and domestic hot water in the winter months. The range has an efficient induction hob and electric oven for times when it is not appropriate to light the solid fuel stove. This pellet range will consume between one and two tonnes of pellet fuel / year depending on how much electric cooking takes place in the home. The cost of two tonnes of wood pellet is around £360. The pellets are ordered automatically when your pellet store, an underground tank in your front garden, is getting low, and a tanker comes to your home and pumps them in. The householder then scoops a small scuttle with pellets from an easily controlled hopper and fills the cooking range as required. The householder empties the ashcan onto the garden raised beds once a month. The only gas connection needed would be to a biogas plant to provide cooking gas - however this is rarely practical today except on larger projects.
7. Plan for maintenance of the system
Total maintenance all your renewable energy kit should come to £140/year. This includes pellet boiler servicing @ £100 / year and chimney sweeping @ £40 / year.
