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I know that one or two of the TM regulars are also micro generators, so I thought I would post our new installation up for anyone interested.
It's a 4KW system and it went live at the end of last week, but with so little bright weather over the last few days we have not generated very much electricity so far.
Cheers,
N-M

Yep, same here, our place is pre-1600 and as air-tight as a sieve - on the up side the walls are a couple of feet of stone so it stays warm in winter and cool in summer.

I'll almost certainly fit a PV array in the next couple of years, but of course the big challenge is not summer generation but winter warmth - and for that I'm planting plenty of trees and being very glad we have some mature ash trees which will be ready to come down over the next few years.

Ditto. We live in a Barn, the central part of which dates back to Tudor times with chalk-block and rubble walls faced with stone and old brick in lime mortar - ie mainly mortar! The whole thing works rather like a sponge in drawing water up osmotically in the centre of the wall - great for cooling in summer, but expensive to heat adequately in the Nov-March months. Our solution was to build a large extension in steel/glass to use as a day-house, heated by passive solar gain into a concrete thermal mass, augmented by heat-pump fed underfloor. This structure contains kitchen, open-plan day room, study, laundry, pantry, w/c, plant room. The 'old' section of the house is now treated as a dormitory, heated only for 1hr on retiring and waking, and using log-burners in the downstairs reception rooms when needed. Our oil boiler now uses 1220 l/pa down from 5000 l/pa - so our heat pump installation costs will pay off in 3 years even at current (low) heating oil costs. Of course, there is the small matter of the other extension build costs which I'll probably never recoup other than through the satisfaction of living in my own design of dwelling.

Our house is on a small development in Eton, mainly new build but our own house is a completely refurbed Victorian boat house with modern insulation and double-glazed sash windows. The development has 21 ground-source heat pumps and the water comes out of the ground at 39C to three central plants. It is then distributed to the thirteen houses/apartments and is brought up to operating temperature by electrical heaters in each individual house.

So far so good, but we have had quite a few problems getting the system operating properly as there were three contractors involved in the installation, GI Energy who did the heat source pumps and associated control systems, another contractor who did the piping to individual properties, and a local plumber who did the underfloor piping installation in the individual properties. Whilst GI Energy are very competent, less said about some of the others the better, but after much acrimony the system is now operating well and it is quite cheap to run, though more expensive than the developer claimed when selling the properties!

I think for anyone thinking of employing something similar and in order to stop the "blame game" it would make sense to have one contractor doing the whole installation, if possible.

Very good point Brian. If such a thing exists, we didn't find it. Our system design contractor was Nu-Heat who were very good, but only provide commissioning when local plumbing and electrical contractors have installed the system. Our plumber didn't use the correct insulation caps at each end of the very expensive insulated conduit, rendering it pretty inefficient, and the electrician fused the control box with his hit-and-miss attempts to work out what each terminal did. It will take a while for the trades to catch up with the technology.

I'm currently encouraging #1 Son to join the Royal Navy, get some apprenticeship qualifications in control systems, and set up a business in this specialty when he comes out. it has to be a growing area...

Just looking at the overview on the NuHeat site I think ours works in a slightly different way Stuart as we have 19-boreholes that I'm told go down about a mile each with a radiator type of installation at the end of each (don't ask me how they do it, must be like a ship in a bottle technology!).

Seems like the issues you've had are the same though, whilst GI Energy are as I said very competent and we are connected via the Net to them for monitoring purposes, the local trademen are not up to snuff with this technology. When we were having our 'issues' I visited another site in Windsor who had the same sort of installation, but by other contractors and they are now looking at installing a gas boiler as it seems their installation has been very badly done and they can't get it working properly.

From experience of boreholes in the Developing World they can have issues and become silted up, but nobody can give us an estimate of the life expectancy of ours. What happens if they malfunction as there's no opportunity to bring a derrick on site anymore or as it seems that it's a sealed system are we worrying unnecessarily?

I think you're advice to your son is very germane Stuart as there's no doubt that Developers are under pressure to install this type of technology and we're at the very beginning of the learning curve so its very much the one-eyed man in the land of the blind!

Great to hear...mines a bit off paying for itself but heading in the right direction.

Ours has paid off the £8,500 in 4 1/2 years. Now for the £4,600 for the battery back up. Certainly the best investment I ever made.

Great shame about the Irish equivalent - seems like they were paid to heat.

Something wrong with mine, they stop generating as soon as it goes dark ......

Arwyn

You need some powerful stadium lights. Then they will work, well.

Bit like indicators, then.