The photovoltaics were switched on yesterday... at last! We have about 12 kW in three strings on the community building, and a little display telling us the current output (kW), how much electricity has been generated (kWh), and how much carbon has been saved (kg). We thought we weren't going to be able to use the electricity ourselves, but it turns out that we can, and only the surplus at any point in time will be exported to the grid. So we can get a largish payment per kWh from the government's Feed-In Tariffs, a smallish payment per kWh for any we export, and avoid electricity bills. We do use quite a bit, even though we have low energy bulbs throughout. There are lots of systems in the background whirring and clunking and using energy: fire alarm panels, emergency lights, ultra-violet fly killer in the kitchen, and so on. But any electricity we import is from a green supplier, so I hope it has a high renewables and low carbon content.
A glorious calm day (for the time of year); Mucknell seems to do one extreme or the other. Lots of solar electricity, and even some solar water heating from the panels on the north wing, where the roof has a greater pitch.
Between September 2010 and September 2011, I lived alongside an Anglican Benedictine community of monks and nuns. In November 2010, we moved from Broad Marston Manor near Evesham to Mucknell Abbey, a new eco-monastery near Worcester. This blog was about things that I observed and things that interested me. I have now stopped writing it. Thank you to all who were also interested.
We get our electricity from Green Energy (http://www.greenenergy.uk.com/) who say "We only buy green, we don’t have any brown electricity [from burning coal, oil or gas] or nuclear in our business."
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