Green technology can save so much

THE main reason that heat pumps and solar are so popular in Europe is because they save money.

In the UK it’s the same. Alongside insulation, green technology is the best way to cut your bills. The people paying the most are people with fossil fuel heating and poorly insulated homes.

From April 1 the Ofgem Price Cap fixed electricity unit prices at around 24.5p per kwh and gas prices at 6p per kwh. The energy for a typical home is expected to cost around £1,690 per year.

But that’s not the whole story. The gas unit price is fixed, whatever time of day you use gas. Electricity is different, and green technology like solar PV and electric heating using heat pumps and home batteries allow you to get much lower rates. Using off-peak power can pull the average rate you pay down to below 20p per unit in January, and in summer solar PV can reduce costs to virtually zero.

Like for like, a home with renewables might pay £95 per month compared to £140 with gas heating and get an additional small income from the exported PV every year. Annual bills can be halved for some homes.

Spring is the best time to see

the impact this has. Anyone with solar panels is now seeing a noticeable reduction in the energy they need from the grid, 4kwh a day is possible from a typical home system even in March. By midsummer it can easily be 20 kwh a day.

Solar panels across the UK are already cutting domestic energy usage.

If you have electric heating, using a heat pump or radiant panels, or a heat store for hot water, then you can use even more of that free solar energy to reduce bills. There is also plenty of cheaper electricity available overnight when normal demand falls, just like the old Economy 7. EV owners already use this as standard. As heat pumps use a quarter of the electricity of other electric heaters for the same warmth, they are the most efficient choice for all except the

smallest homes. Plus, no more gas standing charges.

Batteries alone will save you money because you can use the cheap overnight tariff to continue powering your house during the day. National Grid see these tariffs as a long-term way to increase night-time use and get the most from our world-beating wind farms. Combined with PV you can use virtually no power from the grid in the four summer months, and even schedule the exports to maximise income.

For all these reasons, anyone buying a new house should be asking the developers for new technology as part of the build, and for enough to make a difference to bills.

Green technology is already saving people money and is helping to stabilise the National Grid, reduce pollution and increase the UK’S energy

security. It should be available to everyone, both homeowners and tenants. MADDIE EVANS