[ad_1]
Lucy Shares Her Inexperienced Vitality Journey — Stage One!
Local weather
I stay in a three-bedroom home in Fitzroy, which was designed by Kennedy Nolan, and constructed round eight years in the past. I need to admit, on the time of constructing, I wasn’t wherever close to as aware of sustainable design as I’m now.
On the time, the architects did suggest putting in photo voltaic on our roof — however as is so typically the case, this was one of many first components we scrapped in a bid to get the construct over the road inside price range.
So, quick ahead to 2023, and it’s lastly time to revisit the solar energy query.
I began the journey by researching photo voltaic suppliers. I’ve bought to say, there are some cowboys on the market! As a normal rule, I’d say go together with a photo voltaic supplier who’s personally beneficial by somebody you understand. In my case, I reached out to architect Jeremy McLeod (of Nightingale / Breathe Structure) and he was unequivocal in his recommendation — ‘It’s worthwhile to converse to BREC‘.
BREC is a small-ish Melbourne primarily based photo voltaic supplier, who’re actually enthusiastic about what they do. I bought in contact through electronic mail, and we organised a time for photo voltaic specialist Luke Serdar to come back out to my place and suss my rooftop.
First although, Luke requested me for a bit of knowledge. To be able to do his homework earlier than our first assembly, he wished to see 12 months of our family electrical energy payments, so he may get a extremely good image of our vitality utilization throughout completely different seasons. These payments have been straightforward to obtain from my vitality supplier’s web site.
Luke additionally requested to see our ‘interval information’ which was a little bit tougher to get. It is a extra detailed report (it appears to be like like a loopy excel spreadsheet) and I needed to particularly request it from my vitality supplier. Luke wanted this information to get a extremely detailed image of our vitality use throughout a typical 24 hour interval. This, I learnt, is vital — as a result of to get probably the most about of any photo voltaic system, ideally you need your energy to be generated on the precise time of day that you might want to use it.
I collected and handed on all the info Luke wanted, and a few weeks later, he got here spherical for a chat!
Luke is aware of a LOT about photo voltaic. Assembly him was like a crash-course in renewable vitality! After analysing our energy payments, he had a great understanding of how a lot energy our residence wanted to run, each in summer season and winter. He confirmed me some graphs of our vitality consumption and I used to be quietly fairly satisfied to be taught that our family vitality use is kind of low for a household of three! It’s because our home has good pure gentle, and is fairly effectively oriented and insulated, so we’re fairly frugal in our use of heating and cooling.
Luke additionally confirmed us a graph of a ‘typical day’ of vitality use at our place. It was fascinating to see how our vitality use spikes from about 7am to 9am once we all get up and prepare for college and work, then we have now very minimal vitality wants throughout the center of the day (sadly that’s precisely when the solar is shining!) and all of it gears again up once more from 6pm to about 11pm once we’re at residence utilizing lights and cooking dinner. It was actually helpful to begin to perceive this, as a result of that is what informs Luke’s suggestion for our photo voltaic system — together with the sort and amount of panels we are going to want, and what path/s they need to ideally face to maximise the vitality captured, on the instances we want it.
After one assembly with Luke I positively felt much more knowledgeable and extra conscious of the particular vitality my family wants, and what I can realistically count on from photo voltaic. In a number of weeks, Luke will share a proposal with me and a few quotes, and we’ll get began putting in photo voltaic on my roof — keep tuned!
Impressed to hitch me by yourself Inexperienced Vitality Journey? If you wish to play alongside at residence (and I hope you do!) I’ve put collectively a to-do checklist for you! Merely get these duties carried out over the following 4 weeks, and keep tuned for my subsequent instalment, the place we overview photo voltaic quotes, resolve on the correct system and begin the set up course of!
Inexperienced Vitality Journey, Stage 1 : To-Do Record
1. Obtain 12 months of electrical energy payments
2. Contact your vitality supplier and request your electrical energy ‘interval information’ (this will take every week or so for them to offer)
3. Contact a photo voltaic supplier, and request a gathering or cellphone dialog to get the method began!
Not prepared for photo voltaic? You possibly can nonetheless play your half in constructing Australia’s renewable future, by selecting renewable vitality, wherever you may.
Momentum Vitality are owned by Australia’s largest renewable vitality generator. Signal as much as one in all Australia’s greenest energy firms.
[ad_2]
Source link