Innovation in social housing - case studies?

[LJWiltshire1]

Hi,
Does anyone have any experience of, or know where I can look up, case studies re. using renewables and "smart" technologies in social housing? For our own stock, we are looking at fitting out a cluster of properties that are off-gas (currently oil) with Quantum storage heaters (asset management's choice), combining with PV and either a battery storage system or the switches that allow you to flick unused power from PV through to an immersion heater for stored HW provision, rather than automatically diverting to the grid.
Any ideas gratefully received.
Thanks

[hazelhi]

The mix of PV, With Electric off - peak heating is a very good combination. The addedd advantage of diverting excess electricity to provide hot water provides the icing on the cake. This will add approx £500 costs per household.
the most important element would be educating those to use electricity " when the sun shines" to take highest advantage of the install and to run appliances in sequence. Regards
Hazel

[John]

Hi,

don't have a case study for that particular combination but have an alternate combination for future consideration which actually pays for itself and makes significant energy bill savings for the residents. If you'd like to discuss this please feel free to drop me an email.

Best regards,

John
john.eghan@markgroup.co.uk

[JonBird]

I would be very surprised if batteries are a good idea. Although battery design is constantly improving it's still unlikely to be cost effective to store energy at home in batteries. The only system I've seen advertised for home use with PV would not come close to paying for itself.

[LJWiltshire1]

Jon, I agree. Having looked into things in more detail the number of batteries requried to store anything useful for a household would have taken up an entire standard sized shed, it seems. Much more sensible to use hot water to store the excess energy. Plus as Hazel says to educate people to make the best use of their appliances in the day time etc.
Lisa