In this blog, Jürgen Huber tells us about his “Superhomes” project which is an eco-home in London.
For the last 6 years we live as a family of four in our converted terrace in West London (nearly) energy or carbon neutral. The home has been widely publicised over the years featured in the Sunday times and many others. The conversion was at the time affordable and with the cost of the technologies such as insulation products, PV solar, good LED lighting, air-to-air source heat pumps falling by the day, such a conversion is even more affordable today. The typical electricity generation from a south facing roof on for a 4 kiloWatt system is about 4000 kWh per year and will cost fully installed some £4.5k. The value of that investment or return can be calculated by the money you save by buying less electricity and a very low government grant meaning your investment should be paid back in 6-7 years. But surly the return of our financial investment should not be our only guidance? Do we calculate the return of our investment when we buy a TV, a fridge, kitchen, car, upgrade our car?? Much more important than a financial return is our obligations towards our children their children not just here but all around the world. Investing in energy efficiency and in on site energy generation in particular PV solar makes economically and ecologically perfect sense. PV solar enables us to harvest for free a tiny fraction of energy from this amazing nuclear fusion reactor the sun. Generating reliably electricity during day when most needed, and combined with electric car charging points will help to balance the grid clean the air and reduce our dependence on fossil fuel. Using our resources efficient is the key!
Saving energy and resources is our biggest yet only little used asset! Don’t complain about high fuel prices, start using it more economically, of course it’s kind of sobering to read that some energy companies have made billions £ profit over the last years, but we are in control. How much energy did computers, big computers consume some 25years ago? Some people carry more capacity in their pocket today and that tiny thing runs on a fraction of the energy the big predecessor used. Nobody needs to live in caves and you don’t have to dispose of your car, just use it wisely. We have the means by using technology such as LED, microwave, induction cooker, hybrid and electric engines, air/ground source heat pumps, etc. to live much more energy efficiently.
There is enough for all the Billions of people in the world but only if we live considerate and not so wasteful! Sorry to spell out the obvious but it’s not just the energy we use directly but also indirectly such as the embodied energy. Yes, even eco products need energy to be produced in first place, some less than others, importantly the eco car will enable you to reduce your carbon foot print in comparison to the old banger and the bicycle even more so if you use it instead of your eco car. There is no point in showing off ‘green bling’ but you need to replace broken or utterly inefficient devises with most up to date energy saving ones.
We live in terribly exciting but equally unsettling time because an amazing energy revolution is happening all around us. Renewables offers much cheaper energy and importantly power to the people and true democracy, because responsibility and income can be spread between many with only little risks for humanity now and in the future, something which cannot be said about the much longer established ways of power generation such as fossil and nuclear.
The bottom line is: To maintain our living standard drive the economy, create economic growth and prosperity we need energy but we don’t need to waste it.
http://www.superhomes.org.uk/superhomes/london-du-cane-road/
http://www.superhomes.org.uk/get-inspired/video-flythroughs/?id_sh=782#prettyPhoto/28/
https://medium.com/@TheCCoalition/5-community-energy-projects-you-should-know-af5398efec8d
http://fftf.org.uk/2017/06/30/stories-of-change-2-jurgen-huber/
http://storiesofchange.ac.uk/content/nuclear-wind-and-bauhaus-barge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6STW6TXuWc
Jürgen Huber