On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:37:41 +0000 someone who may be Peter Parry wrote this:-
Perhaps you should explain yourself a bit more.
Do you have a solar water heating system installed? If so then:
When was it installed?
What type of collector does it use, what size, facing which direction?
How does it heat the domestic hot water; pre-heat cylinder, double coil cylinder,...?
How is it controlled?
I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like you had one installed some time ago and were disappointed.
If you wish to assert that about Solartwin then feel free to contact the Trading Standards department.
No.
Yes.
However, unless they have been made up, the favourable ones indicate that your absolute assertions are incorrect. Now it may be that your assertions are correct for a particular system, but generalising from that to absolute comments about all solar water heating systems is not a good idea.
For a warts and all view of various forms of house size generation
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:16:37 +0000 someone who may be Edgar Iredale wrote this:-
If you are looking at it in purely a financial way then there are better ways to spend the money, like many other things. However, purely looking at it in a financial way is not the only reason people make decisions.
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 13:57:23 +0000 someone who may be Peter Parry wrote this:-
Incorrect. What I said was not running the boiler. Provided the programming is correct the boiler will not run in the evening, unless the solar system has not provided enough hot water during the day. One might also run the boiler during the day sometimes, but rather less than without solar water heating. This depends on usage patterns, how well the collector is matched to the size of the cylinder, how well the cylinder is matched to the household and how well the cylinder is insulated. When the boiler is not running it is not using gas, but remains available.
Now there are ways to design a bad solar water installation. Cylinder too small for daily usage, cylinder not properly insulated and a whole host of other things. In that case the boiler will run rather a lot.
What's the cost of energy (per kWh) that the £18/yr saving is based upon? If based upon natural gas that could help explain why the returns from the solar system are quite low.
Also how many people in your parents household? If only 2 it's possible the system is oversized for their needs and they can't use the majority of the water heated by the system.
For a four person household heating with LPG or oil where the system can be DIY installed I'd expect the economics are quite different.
I'd be interested in a good formula for comparing money in the bank to money spent on energy saving over a given time.
However towards the end of the period the money in the bank will be eroded to zero, leaving the householder facing high energy prices and perhaps at that stage they can't afford to spend on energy saving measures.
Yes. But instead of saying things like "it's great fun" or "I'm doing my bit for the Globe" or "it was that or a holiday in Spain and this seemed a better way to spend the money" ..... the proponents seem to be claiming it has financial advantages.
I'm pleased to discover we agree that it does not.
On Thu, 24 Nov 2005 16:40:09 +0000 someone who may be Edgar Iredale wrote this:-
Feel free to use a search engine to call up such posts from me, or anyone else, in this thread that make such claims.
What you will find is that people say that solar water heating is not a short term financial investment, at least at the moment. They may be a long term financial investment and there are other reasons for investing in this way.
Such systems will, if designed and used properly, save money on fuel bills. Whether such investment is worthwhile is a matter of how one judges the capital cost against the savings over the life of the system. Simple payback tends not to be a good measure of long term investments, but some people like it as a measure.
I have, earlier in this thread, you should read it.
Read what I have written before when I explained all this.
Double coil cylinder.
Differential thermal switching with temporal and optical feed forward.
You are, again.
It was installed some time ago but using components which were very advanced for the time (and are still on sale such as vacuum wall collectors). Its measured performance over a decade was consistent with that of systems researched in DTI/Pub URN 01/1202 (2001). The control system was somewhat more complex than those on offer today with most systems. It incorporated a unique monitoring system.
Thank you for giving permission to do that.
They indicate nothing of the sort. There are people who believe in homeopathy and gods - neither have any objective evidence to prove their claims. My statements are based upon measurements on a system which was in many ways more advanced than many sold today and which utilised collector technology still advertised as "state of the art"
20 years later.
It is a perfectly good idea. As Tony Briar has said the saving achieved by modern solar water heating over conventional heating in a house constructed to modern standards is about GBP15 per year. In energy terms it is trivial.
You must be joking. A report with not a single figure in it and in
50 pages only one small graph concerning what happens when you turn a towel rail off? It is however certainly instructive in illustrating how you can fool people with propaganda whilst carefully avoiding any of the nasty facts.
"SUSTAINABLE CONSUMPTION ROUNDTABLE Minutes of the 7th Meeting Tuesday, 7th September 2005"
"9.45am Micro- generation report Judith Dobbyn & Gillian Thomas, The Hub Consultants, gave a presentation of their findings on the impact of on-site energy generation on attitudes to and use of energy. The findings were supplemented by potent case studies. The research endorsed the hypothesis that home energy generation impacts on the way energy is used in the home, indicating that users of micro-generation became engaged with the process and were able to make the connection between energy and warmth in the home...
Discussion of report findings and follow-up Members discussed how best to present the findings of the research/case studies which illustrate the link between attitudes and behaviours as well as the role micro- generation can play as a catalyst of behaviour change. Some members suggested getting these personal stories into the public through media as they are about personal change. However, members agreed that often consumers do not follow the language that is used and so there is a need to be mindful of language...
Other members suggested that as RT is principally trying to influence Government policy, RT should use this piece of work to influence policy makers ..."
That makes the agenda fairly clear doesn't it? Seems to have worked on you.
Written by
Judith Dobbyn "15 years specialist experience in qualitative research. Previous agencies include: The Value Engineers, Diagnostics, Whalley Associates and SW one research. "
and
Gillian Thomas, "a qualitative researcher engaged in the study of the relationship between everyday lives and mass socio-economic change."
Not a single objective fact in the whole report, no engineers involved, no scientists involved - nothing but wooly touchy feely waffle.
"It seems that micro-generation provides a tangible hook to engage householders emotionally with the issue of energy use? Householders described the sheer pleasure of creation and of self-sufficiency..."
"A teenage couple, who moved into social housing fitted with solar water heating in Shropshire, have actively chosen to buy A-rated appliances and investigate the environmental credentials of washable nappies."
"pupils and teachers in all three schools are proud of their solar panels or wind turbines, and feel inspired to live up to their new environmental identity,"
"Households with micro-generation installed had often attributed living credentials to their homes, most notably in the case of the elderly widow in Kirklees with her new air source heat pump. She deemed the heat pump to be so independent and intelligent as to warrant being given a name."
"It means we do not waste the power station?s electricity? Girl, 7"
Is this really the level of understanding we really want people to have? The real horror is that the bunch of dimwits who want to substitute this drivel for intelligent consideration of the problem actually have influence amongst the chatterati.
The actual cost of fuel each quarter over the decade or so the system was monitored.
It was natural gas, and an efficient and carefully sized boiler.
It varied between two and four over the period. There were certainly a few times in the summer months with only two people that more hot water was produced than could be used.
I don't think many people could install a better system for lower cost - remember the starting point was the purely serendipitous discovery of a stack of apparently new vacuum tube solar collectors in a scrap yard which avoided the major cost and the construction was entirely DIY.
The life of solar panels isn't infinite, nor are they a practical energy saving measure in most situations.
How do you collect something which isn't there in adequate amounts to begin with? Or are you suggesting it should have a heat store with several days reserve capacity?
If you could put your irrational prejudice to one side for a moment would you care to point out in what way it was deficient? Perhaps you missed the bit about the performance I _measured_ over a decade being consistent with that from systems tested in 2001 (and still on sale today)? (the collector construction used is still being represented as "new" by manufacturers).
How very useful when trying to determine how effective (or otherwise) they are. You take an elderly lady from an old draughty, cold, damp house and put her in a well insulated modern house and say its all caused by a solar panel (which of course has nothing to do with it) and wow - great surprise - she loves her solar panel.
It is a wholly worthless report from spinmeisters to spinmeisters to support a political agenda.
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