Facilities management
Are consumers getting the most out of their cylinder? As the UK continues on its trajectory of innovation and alternative, renewable energy generation, industries, such as the heating and hot water industry, must evolve, or risk being left behind. Isaac Occhipinti takes a look at how the hot water cylinder industry can support the UK’s Net Zero demands We are entering an exciting and dynamic renewable energy in the UK and its time in domestic energy production and deployment reached 13,123 MW installed usage. More and more opportunities are capacity at the end of January 2019 with opening up for consumers to control installations continuing to date despite their usage, switch their supplier and the closure of the feed-in tariff (FiT) generate their own energy. These rapid to new applicants from April 2019. changes are empowering consumers in The scheme, which has encouraged more ways that have not been seen before in than 980,000 households to install Solar the energy industry, but they also carry PV since it was launched in 2010, has with them immense challenges for our grid helped to establish the UK as a dynamic infrastructure which must be factored in PV market in Europe. Consumer awareness to decisions on our future energy system. of the obvious benefits of installing Solar The subject of ‘renewables’ has become PV is established and growing- capturing a regular topic of discussion across the the sun’s energy using photovoltaic cells heating industry agenda for some years to generate electricity. These cells don’t now, but for the purposes of need direct sunlight to work – this article, I want to focus they can still generate some on just one type of electricity on a cloudy day. generation which Despite the unexpectedly There a r provides two-fold rapid proliferation of solar e over 98 savings. According PV since 2010, very few 0 , h 0 o 00 mes to research, studies into getting the solar PV in the UK wi Solar PV is the best value from an t h arrays i on th most popular installed system have ns
tal eir aware o roof. Are the led y f of the e or making us all e xce genera ss energy ted?
been conducted. The perceived wisdom has been that it is best for system owners to export all of their excess electricity in return for a flat rate calculated from the total generating capacity of their installation. This is now beginning to change with the development and promotion of domestic battery storage technologies which can help flatten out peaks and troughs in domestic electricity demand by storing excess power, providing system owners with large savings in the process. Not only are there additional financial savings that can be made from the partnership between hot water storage cylinders and solar PV installations, but redistributing excess solar energy back into the home and storing it for when it is needed will also reduce strain on the electricity grid- more on this later. One of HWA’s ongoing priorities is to explore and communicate the UK’s potential to store the energy generated from Solar PV systems locally, using hot water storage E
Issue 27.2 | GOVERNMENT BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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