Householders are taking part in a new “locally grown energy” trial which will see them get electricity from their own community-owned solar farm and from the solar panels on their homes.
The country's largest solar farm in Oxfordshire, from which electricity produced will be used by the co-operative
Technology developed by academics at De Montfort University Leicester and their spin out company Exergy Devices is being used in this way for the first time.
Some 50 householders who live in Watchfield, Shrivenham and Longcot in Wiltshire have signed up to the new home energy management system.
They will be able to see how much energy they are using in real time, and get a forecast of when there will be a peak of locally-generated energy available.
Appliances such as electric heating and tumble driers will be automatically controlled to make use of “local” electricity.
It is hoped that through access to this information and automatic control people will be able to reduce their overall energy consumption and save cash off their bills – initial indications suggest that this could be as much as 15 per cent.
Dr Peter Boait, senior research fellow in DMU’s Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, who developed the technology, said: “This project will show how the combination of “smart home” and “smart grid” technologies can deliver additional community scale benefits from the solar panels people are installing everywhere.”
The homes are all served by the Westmill Solar Co-operative, a 30-acre solar park near Oxford. It has more than 1,600 members and is the world’s largest community-owned solar farm. It generates enough electricity to power 1,400 homes every year.
The project is the brainchild of Energy Local, a not-for-profit organisation which promotes green energy. Co-operative Energy has worked with them to develop this scheme.
Ramsay Dunning, general manager of Co-operative Energy, said: “This is a very exciting and interesting project, which we expect will encourage people to think about where their energy is coming from and use it when it is in abundance.
“In the same way that we should be eating local, seasonal fruit to reduce air miles, we should be using local energy when it is available to us.
We have partnered with Energy Local to help get this trial off the ground as we’re committed to work within communities and have always put our ethical ethos at the heart of everything we do.
“We believe that this trial will be the start of a new movement within the energy industry that will see local communities taking control of their energy production and usage. We wholeheartedly look forward to that shift.”
The Oxford Environmental Change Institute is analysing householders’ feedback from the trial. The project is co-funded by Innovate UK, the Government body to support technology businesses.
Posted on Tuesday 30 June 2015