Has anyone had renewable energy fitted at home ?

What is best and most economical ?

biomass
ground source heat pumps
small scale hydro
small scale wind
solar photovoltaic (solar PV)
solar water heating

i'd go for small scale wind as cheap as £3000

if you have a big garden small scale hydro sounds and can look good makes a nice feature

I think solar hot water is the best and is probably close to being the most economical (if economical means cheapest-to-install).

By 'best' I mean it's the most efficient at extracting energy and converting it into something you can use (hot water). To really get the best benefits from it, you should get evacuated tube solar water heating panels rather than 'flat' panels. They do a good job of heating the water even in winter. There's a great price on evatuated tube solar water heaters from http://www.navitron.org.uk. I don't work for them but I keep an eye on prices and suppliers because this will be my next alternative energy buy.

There is also a cost associated with rejigging your pipework and possibly boiler. But it isn't sky high.

My folks put in a flat panel solar water heater four years ago. They really noticed the difference in their gas heating bill in summer. I think it fell from 30 squidlies to under nine squidlies per month. They have no regrets. The panel cost them three times as much as they could get an evacuated tube panel for today and is only about a third as efficient. Hope that gives you an idea of the savings they return.

I just did a course in micro hydro at http://www.cat.org.uk this weekend. It was great, hands-on experience but shocked all of us idealistic attendees with how expensive it is and how difficult to extract usable energy.

I'm going on their wind power course in a couple of weeks. Which reminds me, I'm blasting out a lot of hot air on this forum so I'll shut up now!

Coffeeguy

pmsl what no nuclear reactors?

Ran out of room in the boot.

They make nukes pretty small these days, they still can't find the ones that were set up in iraq...

I have found that fitting a solar panel to your car battery, or leisure battery is a good way of keeping it charged when not used or when in really cold weather. It can also charge your battery if the sun is strong enough, and you have suitable panels.

I find that these batteries are quite useful for indoor lighting with very low wattage power, and sometimes even some music from a DC CD/radio player.

When the prices are reduced on these products maybe more people might find it efficient to buy them. Until that day, the government and energy suppliers will remain in control of all your daily electricity supplies.

two. Audi A3 and an A8. A3's a turbo sport for runing round in and the A8's a gas guzzler for long journeys in comfort.