[Dangermouse]

Well I have just recieved a quote to have electricity connected up to my Barn.............10 Grand!!!!!!!!!

The bloody Robbing Blighter's

The High Voltage Pole is 10 yards from the Barn and its still 10 G's 

Anyone know if this is tax deductable? (may as well try and save something I guess)

[Hilarysmum]

Well its a long shot but .....  try talking to them and guaranteeing to take your power from them (is that feasible) might be able to do a deal.  Anyway its worth trying.

[Dangermouse]

Well its a long shot but .....  try talking to them and guaranteeing to take your power from them (is that feasible) might be able to do a deal.  Anyway its worth trying.

Morning Mum,

Thats not a bad idea, definately worth a try.......I did ask the guy where his mask and gun was 

[Rosemary]

Could you install PV cells on the barn roof then sell electric BACK to them? That's what we're doing here.

[bazzais]

Thats a crazy price isnt it?!

I had a shock the other day when I phoned BT and asked for a leased line for 2MB broadband - £9,000 p/a.

Its madness that you have to pay so much to install - their infrastructure.

Ta

Baz

[Dangermouse]

Could you install PV cells on the barn roof then sell electric BACK to them? That's what we're doing here.

That thought did cross my mind...is that expensive to install?

[Frieslandfilly]

Have you looked into the deal one company is doing whereby they install £12,000 worth of PV and connect you up, you dont pay anything but get free electric and the surplus they take, there are a few criteia, cant recall the name of the company at the moment but it was in my CLA mag and it is also mentioned on the moneyexpert website, there is a commercial scheme available too, worth a look.

[mab]

It might well be worth talking to one of the solar instal companies, though they might factor in the cost of connection to the grid.

If you don't need a lot of power in the barn you could have an 'off grid' solar / wind generator system for less than that, but that would limit your energy use a bit.

Or just buy a diesel genny.

mab

[Anke]

I know of people who have just gone down the diesel generator route, as they were quoted a similar price for agri building connections from a pole at the edge of their land.

How many years could you run a generator (on red diesel???) before you hit 10k? Have you done a calculation on how many amps you need? Is it only for lighting?

[Rosemary]

Speak to the Energy Saving Trust - they give independent advice. If you want the number of the folk doing ours, PM me.

You can do the thing Freislandfilly suggests - avoids the capital outlay. In our system, we pay upfront - there are no grants but I think you can get an interest free loan repayable over 8 years (or that might be the heat pump - my head's mince), then you get paid for every unit you generate whether you use it or send it to the grid.

[Calvadnack]

Be very careful about the "free" solar PV companies.  A number of them demand an upfront payment just for a survey.

[bazzais]

As far as I know you also need a three phase connection to supply to the grid - and you need this for 'feed in' payments.

If its only for lighting then there is probably a much better way to do it with generators and some kind and low energy bulbs.

Its horrible not having lights at this time of year though isnt it - the light is running low too early in the evenings this time of year.

Ta

Baz

[stephen]

i can recomend solar power... mum has 6 pannels on the back of her house and recieved a cheque for £54 the other day for the past couple of months (its only just been connected so was a back payment type thing) the pannels cost 6k to have installed and they were up and generating within a day... the longest wait was waiting for the electricity people / board / company to get someone out and connect her so she could send excess back to the grid... think she had to wait about 6 weeks for a 15 min job!

her house does have all energy saving appliances and low voltage / watt lights..

She was also able to claim a grant for 1k

she had them installed as the house is brand new and it was a condition put on her by the local building control dept to get the house singed off..... she wasnt too happy about the initial outlay but the cheque is more than she would get if she had left the 6k in a bank account and it makes the house much more attractive to potential buyers if she was ever to move!

oh and the company ordered the wrong pannels so she ended up with much better ones than she had paid for at no extra charge!

ive started waffling so ill stop now!! lol 

[Dangermouse]

I think I am going to have to bite the bullet and get them to connect the mains but I think I will go for the solar power as well

[Norfolk Newby]

I apologise if I appear to be going off the plot here but it might help someone to know...

If you put in a small generator using a water cooled diesel engine (or even a petrol engine but being water cooled helps) you can organise things so that for every Kw of electricity you can get 2Kw of heat. That's because the engine is only about 33% efficient.  This is called a 'Combined Heat and Power' system. It can be difficult to balance the need for both but you can use things like an immersion heater to maintain the balance.

The result is that the system is about 80% efficient in terms of what you get for each litre of fuel.

Diesel oil and heating oil are very similar. In fact, you can run some basic diesel engines on heating oil. It helps if they are slow running ones with simple injection systems (not electronic etc.).

The point about being water cooled is that a water cooled engine is usually much quieter than an air cooled one AND you can link up the engine cooling system to your house heating one. Either directly or with a heat exchanger between the two. You can also use the exhaust as a sort of boiler to capture a bit more of the heat.

Sorry if this is a bit techy but I hate to see people pushed into expensive solutions when something relatively simple can be made to do the job more cheaply. The engine doesn't have to be new and an engine from a scrapped car could be the basis if you don't mind a bit of tinkering. You may be able to find one of the ancient oil engines used many years ago on farms to power machinery and generators but that's a long shot.

Most car engines produce around 100 horsepower or 80 Kw at full throttle and can run at either 1500 or 3000rpm for long period provided they are properly cooled (that's the radiator and the engine oil as the latter is cooled by the outside air blowing over the engine in a car but not if the engine is in a shed at the back of your house). The generator is the difficult bit as this will have to be purchased separately and then fitted onto the engine. To get mains type electricity you will also need an electronic gadget which controls the engine speed to give 50Hz (cycles per second).

However, to size the generator you need to look at your use. I would be surprised if you need more than 10Kw maximum (= about 12hp) so a small engine and generator would do fine. The peak output of the engine is misleading as it is happier working at half to a quarter of that figure, possibly less if you get a generator designed to run at 1500rpm. This would also mean that the engine would be quieter.

Red diesel would be fine, possibly with old cooking oil added provided it is well filtered first. Again, this mix suits an older type of diesel engine better than the latest types. You could try heating oil as a fuel provided you don't mind the engine suffering a bit. It depends on what you can get and at what price.

I hope this story gives someone encouragement to try a bit of tinkering rather than paying the electricity company thousands to supply their highly priced amps.