Environmental Lip Service...(Deep breath)

[GaryPanic]

They are rather efficient, however my point was the insanity of people and companies trying to sell GREEN products such as solar or wind power and having the consumer think it is efficient to generate power and save it then use inverters to put it up to 120/240 volt when the component uses a transformer to bring it back down again.

way to techinical for me ..
your living it - you have real hands on expereince - i presume you have a bit of land to play with - most of us brits have about a postage stamp in land to play with - so some of your solutions are viable to us - mind you you are an example to us that it can be done.. and solar (phot) does seem to be a solution - if all new build had thsi in it then more would be mad eandmore research would be done getting better effeciney out of them -

i have seem some combination solar roof tiles heating and photo - which looks interesting ..

 

[garethl]

heating should be treated seperately- whether it be a heat pump - solar (not photo) or wood pellets etc

thats exactly my point - in view of the much greater power requirments and the simplicity of just replacing the heat by burning biomas (which as you quite correctly pointed out is carbon based but carbon neutral as long as its a short cycle plant and not transported umpteen miles in a diesel burning truck)

and as i think you again pointed out you can use heat to store power by heating water or even to generate power by boiling water - i know someone who modified a solar water heating system using parabolic mirrors to focus the suns energy and had the water boiliong in the pipes (and this is in the UK!) they had to run the taps to release the pressure - that could have been providing hot water, space heating AND generating electricity to charge 'leisure batteries'

all the energy ends up as heat one way or another, its the managment of that heat which is key

and yes i agree heat pumps are definitly the way foward - wherever a wood burner is not practical (i'm not sure i agree they are NEVER practical in towns) a heat pump should be used instead