Renewable Energy Friendly Solutions for Efficient Living
Originally posted on & updated on 11th October, 2024
Whatever French region you live in, renewable energy solutions can make life easier and a whole lot cheaper by cutting down on your home’s running costs. They range from wood burning stoves, solar thermal panels and wind turbines to ground source heat pumps and combined heat and power.
Wood burning stoves grow more and more popular, not only are because they efficient but they look good as well. Normally their heat outputs range from 6-12kW. Larger, 15kW models fitted with a back boiler, can be harnessed to provide hot water and central heating.
Their downside is that you’ve got to store the fuel – logs, wood chips or wood pellets – and, of course, clean them out.
Small scale wind systems (or microgeneration) suitable for individual domestic installations seem set for a major surge. There are already units on the market ranging from 600 watts up to 15 kilowatts. These have generally been pole-mounted in the back garden, but roof-mounted models are in the pipeline.
The cost of a small-scale wind turbine is in the region of £1,000, excluding fitting and commissioning and this has to be done by an expert. The estimated payback is around five years although new developments in the technology may shorten this period.
For a modest house a 2.5 kilowatt system will deliver, at a wind speed of 5m per second, around 4,200 kilowatt hours per year. The average house uses 4,700kilowatt hours per year.
Solar energy takes two forms – thermal panels that provide hot water or photovoltaics (PV) panels that generate electricity.
Straightforward solar thermal panels help you run a central heating and hot water system much more efficiently. They delivers water already warmed up so far less energy is used by the boiler in getting the water up to a required temperature.
PVs convert the sun’s energy into electricity that can be used throughout your house for lighting and power. Installed on a new house it can be very efficient from the outset but to retrofit a 750kW system on an existing roof can cost up to £7,000, so payback is likely to be many years and may even outstrip the anticipated 30 year lifespan of a system!
If you are making major alterations to your French home and will have a mechanical digger on site, one system you’ll definitely want to consider is a ground source heat pump (GSHP). This uses a coil of large-diameter pipe work buried vertically or horizontally sufficiently deep enough in the garden to collect geothermal energy – natural heat from the earth. The hot water generated can be passed through a heat exchanger and make a major contribution to saving money heating and hot water costs.
France is one of a handful of European countries where GSHP technology is really surging ahead so there should be lots of highly efficient permutations from which to choose. And, possibly, a grant or two to be had!
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