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Renewables uptake near you

Well & Truly Off The Grid

Last Post by Tim441 1 month ago

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Majordennisbloodnok

(@majordennisbloodnok)

Famed Member Moderator

Joined: 5 years ago

Posts: 2089

Topic starter 04/07/2026 10:02 am [#3083]

My wife and I live in a pretty rural setting and our home is one of a cluster of nine or so properties. When we had our heat pump and solar PV fitted about four years ago, we were the first to do so.

In the intervening period, one of our neighbours used us for lots of information and then did the same as us. Yesterday, I was talking with another of our neighbours and found they’ve also followed suit. That means a third of the houses near us have heat pumps, solar PV, batteries and some form of electric transport. Delighted as I am, this strikes me as an unusually high cluster.

How many installations of renewable energy and/or heating do you have around you?

105 m2 bungalow in South East England
Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5 kW air source heat pump
18 x 360W solar panels
1 x 6 kW GroWatt battery and SPH5000 inverter
1 x Myenergi Zappi
1 x VW ID3
Raised beds for home-grown veg and chickens for eggs

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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Toodles

(@toodles)

Famed Member Contributor

Joined: 4 years ago

Posts: 2928

04/07/2026 10:18 am

In our road of approx. 100 houses, I know of only one other dwelling with 5 solar panels installed last summer by Octopus. 2 roads away I know of one person who has installed solar panels, a battery and a heat pump, (This was after he had spent some considerable time looking at our systems), err that’s about it really. Toodles.

Toodles, heats his home with cold draughts and cooks food with magnets.

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EtchedPixels

(@etchedpixels)

Estimable Member Member

Joined: 3 months ago

Posts: 152

04/07/2026 3:47 pm

Close to me very very few indeed. It's a conservation area and most of the people living in it are elderly and rich so haven't actually noticed that energy bills are expensive. Those that have really don't want to go through all the nightmares of planning and LBC at their age. The new housing being built opposite (assuming the builders and council finish beating each other up and approve something) does have solar from the start and EPC A and the like, although how it actually behaves and performs in the end given the awful state of the UK building trade who knows.

The road our rental property is in has a fair number of solar installations including the one we put in for our tenants. It's not conservation zone, has lovely north/south roofs, contains real working people, quite a few of whom are in the trades and both owners and some of the council/social landlords have been putting solar on quite a few. Slowly spreading there.

I've also been helping various people with DIY non grid tied solar installs and a bunch of folks are waiting for the moment that it becomes "legal" to charge down to Aldi and put in their 800W grid tie and 2kW of panels.

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Tim441

(@tim441)

Honorable Member Contributor

Joined: 4 years ago

Posts: 460

06/07/2026 9:46 am

In a village of under 40 houses...Conservation Area. I'm in a listed building adding to the pain. Oil primary heating here.

At least 8 houses with solar - maybe around 4 or 5 with batteries. See my post on overvoltage issues - possibly impacted by excess production vs usage in summer.

A few EVs but guess less than 8

Afaik heat pumps less than 5

Listed Grade 2 building with large modern extension.
LG Therma V 16kw ASHP
Underfloor heating + Rads
8.7kw pv solar
3 x 8.2kw GivEnergy batteries
1 x GivEnergy Gen1 hybrid 5.0kw inverter
Manual changeover EPS
MG4 EV

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