Introduction| |Background

This paper is a report on energy consumption in a house presenting average energy

usage in Scotland. Based on energy usage by household, a solar energy solution is presented
to develop a plan to reduce demand and, consequently, the greenhouse gas emissions
produced, contributing to achieve Scottish Government's target to meet 15% of its energy
consumption from renewable sources by 2020 [3].

The solution here presented proposes a sustainable domestic heating system

composed by active solar panels.

Economic issues may be analysed including feed-in tariff payments.

First things first || Scenario

First of all, the scenario here presented is based on official reports [12,5,6,7,9,10]
about dwellings consumption in heating. The proposed system focus on reducing energy
consumption using policies (smart use) and using two renewable energy sources to generate
and supply house demand.

The chart below is showing that 55% of all energy demand in Scotland is to heat.

Figure 1. Sources: Department of Energy and Climate Change, Scottish Government

All energy features in the house will follow average usage registered in official reports.
So taking into account only domestic sector, gas accounts for total household’ primary heating
systems, following a national trend [5,11]. More than 80% of total energy usage is to heat, as
shown in Table 1/Figure 2.
Figure 2: Total greenhouse gas emissions from residential sector (base year to 2013, Scotland) [17].

kWh per
household
Space heating 61.9%
Water heating 18.3%
Lighting 3.1%
Appliances 13.9%
Cooking 2.8%

Average Tonnes CO2 per

4.5
household

Table 1. Following average trends from Tables 5a-i [12].

Domestic gas consumption is about 14.3 kWh per consumer [5,11], consequently 71.5
kWh (5 dwellers, parents and three kids), Table 2/Table 3.

Its deployment will be gradually in 3 years from 40% to 80% (28.6 to 57.2kWh) of all
usage and there will be no batteries. In order to complement the system appliance demand,
when the panels are shading or the demand increases, which will improve its reliability, a grid
connexion will remain to supply electricity consumption (Table 1) and remaining heating need.
This decision is more cost effective and has lower initial investment [19].

Ave.
Region Consumption
(kWh)

Scotland 4,465
South West 4,417
East England 4,364
South East 4,358
West Midlands 4,028
East Midlands 3,970
 Wales 3,935
North West 3,892
London 3,782
Yorkshire and
Humber 3,776
North East 3,549
Great Britain 4,092
Table 2. Average domestic electricity consumption per household (kWh), by UK Region, 2014

Number of habitants 5
Total consumption kWh 71.5
Table 3. Domestic electricity consumption

The heat provided by this system will depend on local climate, the type, and efficiency
of the collectors. Smaller and less costly heating system can be designed incorporating
passive solar heating techniques [4] which will be discussed later on.

Renewable solution will not only be a good idea to save money and be autonomous
but to reduce greenhouse gas emission as well, Figure 3, as the residential combustion is has
the highest emission.

Figure 3: Greenhouse gas contribution for residential emissions (base year to 2013, Scotland) [19].

Solar Panels| |Design

Solar domestic hot water systems use water as a fluid which is used to transfer and
store the heat in boilers with hot water radiators. This type of system may be called active
solar heating system. This stored solar heat will be transferred directly to the interior space or
to a storage system for later use.
 The solar panels will be composed by silicon photovoltaic cells as these are the most
commercially used ones. Being a mix of silicon and organic substances (hybrid cells) to cost
less even though they have a lower efficiency if compared to pure silicon cells [16,19].

Flat-plate collectors will be used (the most common one available). In the collector, the
working fluid, water, absorbs the solar heat to transfer it through the central heating, where a
controller operates a circulating pump to move the fluid through the collector.

Figure 4. Active, closed loop solar water heater

The temperature should be controlled in safe levels because high temperature

increases heat loss decreasing the efficiency of the system. The liquid flows to either a storage
tank or a heat exchanger for immediate use.

Some features in the system are extremely relevant and related to its efficiency, the
orientation and tilt of the collector. Both will affect its performance.

The system should be oriented geographically to maximize the amount of daily and
seasonal solar energy that they receive. In general, the optimum orientation for a solar
collector in the northern hemisphere is true south [10].

Other factors can affect collectors’ optimal orientation, such as roof orientation and
local weather conditions, specially if foggy or cloudy periods of time are often as in Edinburgh.

Today, most solar water heating collectors are mounted flat on the roof. However this
system will be installed face to South 45 degrees, even though the optimal tilt angle for the
collector is an angle equal to the latitude of the building, this is for fixed collector [10]. There
are some flexible collector (smart panels) that can change its position to achieve optimal angle
according to current weather conditions.

A research of Napier University can show annual delivered energy in kWh for
Edinburgh city [16].

Table 4. Delivered energy, kWh/240W module per day

Figure 5. Monthly average daily sunshine duration hours e baseline resource in Scotland
(1961-1990). [2]

Table 5. Comparing average annual horizontal surface irradiance with PV. [2]
 Figure 6. Solar irradiance figures for Edinburgh in kWh/m2/day [8]

 Peak power generation: 14kW at a solar irradiance of 2400W/m2/day and cell

temperature of 21oC.
 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland
 PV module aspect/slope: Due south at a tilt angle of 45 degrees (Ψ = 180, β = 45
degree)
 Government supported feed-in-tariff: 21p/kWh for energy exported to the grid.

Considering the annual PV electricity generation per 2kW module for Edinburgh would
be 1.7 kWh, to obtain 14kWh peak output will be needed 9 PV modules. They’re estimated
cost is £36,000 (£4,000 each module). [21]

The annual generation would thus be 1.7x 9 = 15.3kWh and that would save more than
20% of heat energy a year. If sold, the energy could bring up £ 321.3/annum in the first year
and £ 1,491 by the last year when production will achieve 80% of all heat used. So it should
be viable sell energy in hot months when production can exceed demand. [20,21]

During the winter, biomass should work more to compensate the house energy needs.

Installing and Maintaining the System

To avoid heat loss and improve heating system efficiency, the leakiness of the house
(its envelope – walls, doors and windows) should be decreased. It may be done by improving
its insulation. It can be achieved using double or triple glazing in the case of windows, for
instance [14].

Maintenance on simple systems like this can occur every 3 years

Biomass Boilers| |Considerations

Basically biomass can be explained as a carbon based component composed of a
mixture of organic molecules and it can maintain a closed carbon cycle, keeping CO2 levels in
the atmosphere with no increase [1]. So, biomass can be classified as carbon-neutral
renewable energy.
 Biomass is a trend in renewable solution in Scotland [6] since it was accounted for over
79% of renewable heat capacity and almost 82% of renewable output in this country in 2012.

A domestic solution is easier to implement than solar panels. The owner can install
compact biomass boilers [16] choosing ones which are not noisy (safely environment sound)
and good efficiency.

These boilers will burn biomass fuels and use heat produced to provide heating and
hot water. They are more cost-effective, efficient and clean than fossil fuel boilers.

Figure 7. Compact biomass boiler.

Costs| |Feed-in Tariff payments

One of the most attractive things involved to solar panels system is that you can
receive payments from Feed in Tariff. This scheme is an incentive programme that can
propitiate receiving payments for generating electricity from renewable resources. It can work
for both on and off-grid systems. The owner can sell the energy produced back to the grid,
offsetting cost (accelerating payback and helping to maintain the system). [10]

So this is an incentive to be explored in the proposed system. For that, it should be

designed to be qualified for FiT payments (Feed-in Tariff). The installer and the generation
equipment must be registered under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme.

There are other initiatives available, specially for covering initial costs of installation.
However the owner will not be able to receive profits from FiT once the company that performs
the installation receives them [19].

Another issue related to solar panel installations is related to house price. A system
with FiT is more attractive neither only because it can help to pay it back nor only because it
may be used to maintain the system but it has a good impact on property value. The house
may have higher price if it has a system like that (solar panels with FiT).
 Conclusion
This project could show that there are many factors involved to this topic. If well
explored it may have a good return (payback, less greenhouse gas emission, self-energy
production).

However this discussion continues since solar energy generation in Scotland is long-
term return investment. Probably because of this other sources became more popular as wind
and biomass even knowing their own disadvantages.

It should be a better investment to off-grid system but more expensive ones because
of safety issues and some requirements as batteries bank.

The clearest conclusion of it is that solar panels cannot be used as the only source. It
can be done but it will not be so cost-effective specially in cold days when it would not be
enough to supply a house demand and if designed over its demand it should be pretty
expensive.
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