Richard Ledger’s home in Bedfordshire features a 3.5kW rooftop solar photovoltaic system. SolarUK, who had previously fitted a solar hot water system at the house, installed the new PV system.
Ledger’s 8 x 2 array of panels hangs over the rear of the garage, with the inverter installed inside. The garage inverter feeds the house via an armoured cable running along the ground and into the sidewall. It is routed via two cupboards to the consumer board, and a generation meter is fitted to a kitchen wall.
This Bedfordshire-based PV system is eligible for the Government’s Clean Energy Cash Back scheme (feed-in tariff), which starts in April 2010. Under this scheme, small-scale energy producers will be offered a fixed, premium rate for renewable energy fed-in to the grid. The legislation obliges the utility companies to buy units of energy over a set number of years.
Mr Ledger contacted SolarUK in May 2010 to report that his system produced 841kWh of electricity so far in 2010, exceeding the predicted amount of 837kWh.