We've done it!
At the beginning of the year installing solar panels was just a pipe dream. In March we had hope of turning the dream into reality when we received our first funding - see our previous post Stepping Towards Net Zero. Well, as we enter Advent to prepare for the coming of Jesus, the light of the world, here they are, installed and working!
Massive thanks to our funders:
- WY Mayor Community Climate Grant - £10,000
- Benefact Trust Methodist Grants Programme - £4,300
- Bradford North Methodist Circuit (10% Property Grant) - £2,202
- Bradford North Methodist Circuit (Net Zero Grant) - £1,362
- Yorkshire West Methodist District Advance Fund Grant - £3,564
- John Devereux Bequest (remaining balance) - £378
Remaining funding came from our church funds.
Huge thanks to our Lettings & Property Team for seeking the above grants and preparing the plant room, and to Carlo and Ian from Yorkshire Energy Systems for their excellent work and attention to detail during installation.
Within a day of installation we were producing 3.6kw, using electricity 1.32kw, and storing 2.23kw.
Solar panels don’t require sunshine to produce electricity: just daylight. However, the amount of electricity they produce is greater on a sunny day.
As the solar panels are generating electricity, the inverter makes sure that electricity is first used within the church. If there’s any spare (the panels are generating more electricity than we’re using at the time), the overflow is directed into the batteries. Once the batteries are full, the overflow is sent back into the National Grid (exported) and we receive a payment for every kWh we export. Our church becomes a mini power station!
When using electricity, our building will first try and use any electricity currently being generated by the solar panels. If there isn’t enough there – for example it’s night time – then the building will draw power from our battery storage. Only when the batteries are empty will we have to draw electricity from the National Grid, getting charged for it by our electricity supplier in the normal way.
We will still have to buy some electricity from the Grid – particularly during winter when the bulk of our building/electricity usage is during dark evenings and there are fewer daylight hours to recharge the batteries. But this will hopefully be more than offset by selling surplus energy, eg during most of summer when we’re generating a lot of energy but our building is quieter and not using much electricity.
Our hope is that we will make an annual saving/benefit of approx £1,500. This will be reinvested to replace our current boilers with more sustainable solutions. Apart from the obvious environmental advantages, financial savings will put us in a much stronger position to keep our room rental rates to a minimum to benefit all who engage with our community groups.
Survey for Beneficiaries
One aspect of the evaluation of our project for the WY Mayor Community Climate Grant is designed to capture feedback from people in the community who might have participated/benefitted from the project. We invite you to complete their survey for beneficiaries; it should only take you 5 minutes to complete.