Going for Solar

It was dreich ould time last week. If it wasn't raining, it was either just finished raining, or was looking to start raining. The brightest thing on our lane was a dozen canary & green pumpkins which I hooked on the gate for Hallowe'en.

At Friday teatime we were scheduled for a Knowledge Transfer Group KTG meeting down at the mill in the valley . . . to learn about Solar Power. KTG is an excellent scheme to encourage adult education among farmers. Farmers work hard all day, every day, and won't be stopped by a drop of rain: but they are conservative and won't leave the routine, needed, work for fripperies. Being a member of a KTG and turning up to meetings comes with a small inc€ntive to cover time and petrol.  Knowledge is quite the broad church for KTG. Last Friday Solar Energy, last June we hosted KTG to have a couple of dozen farmers be skeptical about our Traditional Hay Meadow. The best thing for many of them that day in 2024 was the brack and flapjacks and the tureen of tea I made.

But often education is a seed sown rather than a stick to beat you. Seeing those strangers up the lane managing their fields in 1940s style, coupled with the ruinous increase in the cost of nitrates, might have made a couple of our neighbours ponder whether there might be a better / different way of doing things in their own patrimony.

I have been a Great Solar Bore GSB since our solar panels went live on 30 Apr 2025. Obsessively running upstairs to switch on the immersion heater when the sun breaks through and the panels start to snag kWs; or setting a batch of sourdough going before breakfast when the forecast is giving ☀️ or even 🌤️ after lunch. It was of course ironic that it was all grey drizzle on KTG Solar day - "Hydropower, so it is" as one wag put it. Here we all are [L] looking at a Fronius dc/ac inverter buzzing away in a shed - much drier than us. Fronius inverters are guaranteed fireproof and weather proof. After looking at the inverter and the array of solar panels it serviced on the roof above, we repaired up the hill for tea and biscuits [some chocolate: thanx D!] at the village hall.  Tea and chat [and biscuits] is an important part of these meetings. The organizers hope that folk are talking about alternatives to perennial ryegrass or how many kW does a slurry-stirrer draw. But any ould chat will do to cement community and make people comfortable. If KTG reminds anyone of, like, school as it was practiced in the 20thC it will likely freeze every mind in the room with stress. 

After tea, there was a short, on message, informative, presentation. The take-homes:

• most people, even those who can change a plug, don't really know how much it costs to boil that vs that kettle or do 2 slices in that toaster from Harvey-Norman
• a 10 year guarantee won't do much for you if the company that issued it has folded
• if you are making your own power, try to use it all in-house
• selling surplus to the grid is only possible while it is politically expedient
• the steady state established norm is that you don't get paid for surplus
• there are cheap solar panels and panels which are fire, hail and storm-proof 
• community buy-in may get you bulk discounts 
• informed independent advice from someone who is not selling product may save you heart-ache and money