The electric car revolution is well underway and many people in the UK are now taking delivery of their Tesla Model 3. But have you considered how you’ll be charging your new vehicle? What’s the best EV charger for Tesla cars?
The electric car revolution is well underway and many people in the UK are now taking delivery of their Tesla Model 3. But have you considered how you’ll be charging your new vehicle? What’s the best EV charger for Tesla cars?
The electric vehicle boom is imminent. The government recently pledged £400m investment towards EV charging infrastructure as part of its commitment to net zero by 2050. Emission-free number plates are set to turn green to boost driver benefits, awareness and uptake.
In a perfect world, UK roofs would all face south, with a 35° pitch and no shading in sight. But we don’t live in a perfect world. As solar installers, we have to find clever ways to maximise the potential power from roofs of all make ups, orientations and shaded spots.
This is best achieved by using micro-inverters or power optimisers - nifty bits of kit, collectively known as Module-Level Power Electronics (MLPEs). As that name implies, these bring a degree of power optimisation at the module level (i.e. at the level of each individual solar panel). This means you can get the most from panels under different levels of sunlight (facing varying directions or affected by shading, dirt etc).
But which is the best solution? Let’s focus on our favourite brand of power optimiser, and compare SolarEdge vs micro-inverters.
Another week and another upheaval in the world of solar… While the world wakes up to the imminent threat of climate breakdown, our trusty government has decided it’s the perfect time to hike the VAT on solar PV installations.
In the wake of the largest climate protests the world has ever seen, we have dug a little deeper in our own back yard to assess the ‘life time’ carbon footprint of a solar system...
While solar panels are traditionally retrofitted to an existing rooftop, it’s becoming more common (especially in newbuilds) to integrate the panels into the roof itself. With in roof PV, you end up with a sleeker, more attractive result.
We’ve recently done some modelling of the performance of solar tracking systems, but this can only tell you so much. What about how one would perform in the real world? Luckily we can answer that by looking at a solar tracker that we installed a few years ago...
Is it possible to get free solar panels for businesses? A lot has changed since solar first started gaining popularity, with prices falling around 50% in the last decade and many of the initial subsidies like the Feed-in Tariff closed to new applicants. But there are still opportunities for companies to benefit from financed solar systems, the most promising of which are Solar PPAs.
We hear more and more about Blockchain technology. The technology creates a transparent public ledger that records series of transactions, facilitating a fast, low-cost, trusted transfer of value without the involvement of traditional intermediaries.
Already used in the financial sector, it’s only a matter of time before Blockchain hits the energy sector in a major way, particularly with the explosion of micro-generation of electricity, the ending of solar subsidies, and the advent of smart meters.
With Octopus Energy claiming to have paid customers to use excess electricity at night on four occasions in the last 12 months, real time peer-to-peer trading of electricity is surely just around the corner. Other potential applications include authentication of renewable generation and trading of emissions permits.
