Solar roofing panels meet Code and planning requirements

A new addition to Solar Century’s award winning family of solar roofing materials is the C21e slate, which makes sustainable building even easier and better looking. The C21e Slate delivers the same high power output as the award winning tile format, it has a sleek aluminium frame to fit with a range of natural, fibre cement and reconstituted roof slates.The slate product follows demand for a solar roofing material compatible with slate roofs not only in the UK but across Europe, and is already in use on more than a dozen roofs in the UK helping house builders meet planning requirements and the Code for Sustainable Homes.

Since its launch in 2005, C21 solar electric and solar thermal roof tiles have been installed on over a thousand roofs by house builders such as Barratt, Fairview, St James and Croudace. Feedback from initial C21e Slate installation has been positive.

Simon Gerrard, Solarcentury’s residential sales manager, says: “An increasing number of developers are choosing photovoltaics as part of the solution to help them meet The Code for Sustainable Homes at level three and beyond. This is because photovoltaics are easy to specify in SAP, easy to install, have a proven performance in the UK and are comparable in price to other renewable options.”

Solarcentury also has ‘Orbit’, the new solar energy display system for homes with C21 roof tiles. It is the only consumer friendly display on the market to show both energy consumption and production in a clear graphical format.

The simple wall mounted wireless device follows consumer demand for a clear graphical display to encourage energy saving at the same time as demonstrating home energy generation, and is an innovative addition to the Solarcentury product family.

More information: www.solarcentury.com

Super efficient ground-air heat exchanger

What is described as a “super efficient” ground-air heat exchanger system has been launched by ADM Systems. It claims a Coefficient of Performance (COP) of around 50. This compares to a COP on ground-source heat pumps of around 3-4. It significantly reduces the amount of energy the mechanical ventilation with heat recovery unit (MVHR) system requires to heat or cool the incoming air.

It does this by exploiting the natural temperature of the ground to provide a cost effective source of renewable energy. At a depth of 1.5 to 2m, the earth’s temperature is a constant 8-12˚C throughout the year.

By drawing air through an underground network of pipes, it is either pre-heated by the ground in winter or pre-cooled in summer. In combination with an ADM Systems MVHR unit this significantly reduces the heating and cooling costs of a building.

For example, an outside air temperature of -5˚C during winter can be raised to +4˚C by the heat exchanger, before it enters the MVHR unit, based on a constant average ground temperature of 10˚C. Similarly, during summer a 28˚C outside air temperature can be pre-cooled to +16˚C, again by using the heat exchanger and constant 10˚C ground temperature, before it enters the MVHR unit.

Chris Marriott, ADM Systems’ managing director, says: “We’ve had a tremendous response to the new system from customers looking to significantly reduce their heating and cooling costs in the building. By using the earth’s natural stored energy we are able to offer an amazing COP of around 50.”

The MVHR units, fitted with the new system, works by a series of ducts that collect stale moist air from inside the house, from areas such as the kitchen, laundry and bathrooms. This stale contaminated air passes through the MVHR unit and is exhausted to the outside. Clean fresh heated (or cooled) air from the heat exchanger is then drawn into the MVHR unit, as the two air streams pass each other, the heat is transferred from the outgoing stale air to the fresh incoming air.

There is no mixing of air streams. During winter, the system is able to capture over 90% of the energy from the outgoing stale air before delivering it as warm filtered, preconditioned air into the living areas of the property through the ducting.

ADM Systems is able to offer customers bespoke design software to calculate the expected output of the system, based on UK weather data. This software shows the kilowatt-hours per annum that can be saved in both heating and cooling operations and also the COP of each project.

More information: www.admsystems.co.uk