off grid electricity

davesko

Hi All,
Just looking to buy a plot of land to move onto and have been quoted the best part of £27,000 by Western Power distribution to connect to the Electricity Grid.
Is there an alternative supplier i can try or will it be a case of an "off grid" solution?

TIA

Dave_Fowler

davesko wrote: »

Hi All,
Just looking to buy a plot of land to move onto and have been quoted the best part of £27,000 by Western Power distribution to connect to the Electricity Grid.
Is there an alternative supplier i can try or will it be a case of an "off grid" solution?

TIA

If Western Power are the District Network Operators in your area then you are stuck with them. However I think that £27,000 will be a small amount compared with the cost involved in going off-grid. You'd need a decent sized pv array, battery and inverter to start with. And then for the cloudy winter's days a good sized generator.

Dave F

Martyn1981

davesko wrote: »

Hi All,
Just looking to buy a plot of land to move onto and have been quoted the best part of £27,000 by Western Power distribution to connect to the Electricity Grid.
Is there an alternative supplier i can try or will it be a case of an "off grid" solution?

TIA

Hiya, you might want to ask on forums with off-grid experience, but I suspect for less than £27k you could have a very decent off-grid set up, and that would include the cost of the leccy too! But what about heating, where you aiming for a heat pump?

I've definitely heard of people negotiating with the DNO, and if a lot of the cost is trenching and refill, across land, then folk have saved a fortune by getting a friendly local farmer with a backhoe to do the work for far, far less.


Running before we jump, but instead of a back up generator to support an off-grid set up, there might be a way of utilising an EV car, charged elsewhere, to fill in gaps, as they have massive batts compared to off-grid set ups.

1961Nick

How about solar + wind + battery + generator.

Random example of a domestic WT.....futurenergy.co.uk

It looks as if 8kWh solar, 3kWh wind, 19kWh battery & a generator would equate to just less than £27K.

Heating could be a combination of ASHP & a wood burner?

EricMears

Dave_Fowler wrote: »

If Western Power are the District Network Operators in your area then you are stuck with them. However I think that £27,000 will be a small amount compared with the cost involved in going off-grid. You'd need a decent sized pv array, battery and inverter to start with. And then for the cloudy winter's days a good sized generator.

Dave F

But do bear in mind that spending the money on a grid connection just gets you the 'right' to spend more money on buying in electricity for the rest of the building's life whereas spending the money on RE equipment should get you an independent power supply at minimal cost for any future maintenance requirement.

If the connection charge is that expensive, it might suggest that the plot is fairly large and remote from neighbours - in which case other forms of RE might be worth considering as well as or even instead of SPs

Dave_Fowler

EricMears wrote: »

But do bear in mind that spending the money on a grid connection just gets you the 'right' to spend more money on buying in electricity for the rest of the building's life whereas spending the money on RE equipment should get you an independent power supply at minimal cost for any future maintenance requirement.

If the connection charge is that expensive, it might suggest that the plot is fairly large and remote from neighbours - in which case other forms of RE might be worth considering as well as or even instead of SPs

I don't think the costs of running off grid are all that minimal. Even with my simple 6kWp system - no batteries, no back-up generator to run - I've had to replace one SolarEdge optimiser, one PV panel and one inverter in the past few years. But in the grand scheme of things, I suppose that isn't too high a cost.

If you're going to be running an 'all electric' house, I acknowledge the cost of buying grid electricity will be high.

Dave F

pile-o-stone

If you're going to build a house on your plot of land then I'd look at making it as airtight and as well insulated as possible (look at the Passive House standard). This means that you don't have to install a heating system, except for perhaps an electric fan heater if we get a really cold winter. Under normal circumstances the heat generated from cooking, showering and body heat are sufficient to heat the home.

Your cooker could be run off gas canisters (lots of my European pals have these) or if you have a free supply of wood, then perhaps a rayburn cooker that will also supply hot water.

A large cylinder connected to your PV would provide a lot of hot water, plus use up the large amount of spare PV energy you'll have in Summer.

If you're building a house, then you can also design it so that the pitch and orientation of the roof is perfect for winter solar. Id also look at installing a rainwater harvesting system for flushing the toilets, washing the car, watering the garden and for use in the washing machine.

Ground mounted solar would also be useful, especially if you can manually adjust the angle of orientation to the sun (much cheaper than buying a mounting that automatically tracks the sun). You'd probably just adjust three or four times a year to line it up with the sun (more horizontal in summer when the sun is high in the sky, more vertical in the winter when the sun is lower).

You'd obviously need a battery and as others have suggested, a generator for those long winter evenings.

davesko

Thanks for all the helpful replies.
Initially i'll be putting a static on for a few years until i can afford to build.
Heating / cooking will be a combination of wood and gas (unlimited supply of firewood)
Theres a beck running alongside the plot with a 33KVA underground cable just the other side, alternatively, there are overhead cables approx 200 mts from the plot.
I've got a mini digger so any excavations can be done by myself.
I've asked for a cost breakdown but as yet nothing.
Need to run a fridge, broadband and CCTV throughout the day, TV and computer in the evenings.

pinnks

On the fridge front I listened to an interview on, I think, radio 4 a few years ago with a brilliant idea for a new type of fridge based on freezing a layer of water around the fridge compartment as it is quite cheap to freeze the water and takes ages for it to defrost when you have ice in melt water. At that time I think the prototypes were about the size of caravan fridges but the idea sounded quite good to me, especially for PV'ers. Freeze the water during the day using PV and run the fridge for one or two days from that...

Anyone know whether this idea has be further developed? Would be interesting for off-griders in particular but for all of us in the longer term...

EricMears

davesko wrote: »

Theres a beck running alongside the plot . . . .

Is there enough water flowing through it to turn a small turbine ? Higher flow in winter would nicely compensate for lower PV generation.

Hexane

davesko wrote: »

Heating / cooking will be a combination of wood and gas (unlimited supply of firewood) ... Need to run a fridge, broadband and CCTV throughout the day, TV and computer in the evenings.

Slightly stating the obvious, but by eliminating, as you have, high power requirement items (e.g. dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer, immersion heater, electric kettle, most or all forms of electric heating) this makes it much more suitable for an off-grid RE/battery setup. Total battery storage requirement will be lower, daily generation requirement also lower.