Agricultural/commercial

Wherever electric power is needed there is a renewable energy solution. You may have the facility to capture significant quantities which can drive down your costs and provide power where mainstream sources are not available or the alternatives are expensive fossil fuels such as oil. Our product range can provide for large or small scale applications whether urban or rural.

Solar systems usually give at least 20-30 years useful service, during which time the money saved more than repays the initial cost.  Solar panels are cost effective for heating swimming pools and for some industrial and agricultural uses, particularly where other energy sources are not available (warm water facilities on allotments for example).

Enhanced Capital Allowances (ECAs)

Enhanced Capital Allowances (ECAs) enable a business to claim 100% first-year capital allowances on their spending on qualifying plant and machinery. There are three schemes for ECAs:

• Energy-saving plant and machinery

• Low carbon dioxide emission cars and natural gas and hydrogen re-fuelling infrastructure

• Water conservation plant and machinery

Businesses can write off the whole of the capital cost of their investment in these technologies against their taxable profits of the period during which they make the investment.
This can deliver a helpful cash flow boost and a shortened payback period.

Payback calculations

Energy prices are constantly on the rise. Wholesale gas prices are now 80% higher than a year ago and this baseline cost has tripled since 2003. Gas is still used to produce 40% of our electrical power and both gas and electricity has rapidly increased in cost to the end-user. Some of the increase has been due to seasonal demand, reliance on imports and the operation of foreign markets but the basic gap between supply and demand is set to grow wider.

Essentially the energy harvested through a renewable energy system is free so its cost is the capital invested in the installation and the maintenance charges to keep it running.
It is possible to calculate the time it takes for the system to ‘payback’ its costs. For example, a renewable energy installation which costs £5000 in a building which consumes £1000 of energy per year would have a payback period of 5 years.

In addition, the efficiency of the system should be taken into consideration. If the goal of the installation is to provide space heating for a building, the most efficient and cost effective way to do this is to produce the heat itself rather than electricity to power a separate heating system. In this way, even if the building is already fitted with an existing electrical heating system, it is almost certainly less costly to install a biomass boiler and radiator system than to install photovoltaic modules capable of generating enough electricity to power the existing system.