Campaign to reduce planning red tape on solar panels

The "chaos surrounding solar panel installations" could soon be cleared up as Ministers pledge to tackle the planning red tape.

That's according to an article on Heating and Ventilating.net who cite several local councils who've insisted homeowners obtain planning permission for solar panels, where none was required.

Government guidance currently states that planning permission is not required unless the property is a listed building or within a conservation area.

Building regulations are not needed as long as Government Competent Person Scheme contractor is used.

Solar companies are welcoming the news that Ministers are finally getting involved, and hope that once and for all, the confusion for homeowners, installers and local councils will be cleared up.

Remember if you're planning a solar panel installation to take advantage of the Governments feed-in-tariffs, you must use a FiT accredited installer, or at least get the installation 'signed off' by an approved installer.

photo credit: liz west

Winsford thermal hot water scheme gets EU funding go-ahead

With the recent media attention on domestic fuel oil thefts, especially from isolated dwellings, comes this very welcome story from the Winsford Guardian.

After a successful EU funding bid, over a hundred homes in the Winsford and Northwich area will benefit from thermal hot water and solar panel installations.

All the properties are not connected to mains gas.

It's expected the solar panels will heat up to 60% of each dwellings hot water needs.

£3.6 million of funding was secured by the local and neighbouring councils with the amount being matched by the Eu funding.

The money must be spent on installing renewable energy and work is expected to be completed by 2013.

Read the full story in the Winsford Guardian here.

It's really great news for the residents that will benefit from these installations who should see a real drop in their present domestic energy bills.

photo credit: uggboy

Joe (public) versus the Volcano - how will volcanic ash disrupt solar panels

If it weren't for the Icelandic volcanic eruption paralysing european air travel - pretty much everybody knows (or has heard of) someone affected by the travel disruption, then it's probable that the UK Election would have grabbed all the headlines.

Deities work in mysterious ways indeed.

Of course the real question on everybody's lips has been - "Will the volcanic ash spewing forth affect solar panel energy output?"

I've quoted a couple of sources below with links to the actual web pages.

Have a read, discuss it with others and if you have any further insights or articles you've come across, then please share a link to them here.

"European oil, gas and electricity production is not expected to suffer. Some helicopter flights to and from oil rigs in the Norwegian Sea have resumed; the effect on solar power plants is unlikely to be greater than the impact from any other passing cloud, while wind power industry sources said cold volcanic dust on wind turbines should not cause any problems."
source - Alertnet.org

"On an index of climate change since 1980 run by the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, conditions got worse every year except 1982, 1992 and 1996. It links the dips to volcanic fallout from Chichon, Pinatubo and Monserrat in 1996."
source - TVNZ

"Altered weather patterns worsened the effects of the eruption by causing ash clouds to stay over Europe for a longer period, according to Christophe Cassou and Eric Guilyardi of the European Centre for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computation in Toulouse, France."
source - finchannel

photo credit: rednewport