SOLAR POWER SCOTLAND

Funding For Renewable Technologies in Scotland

To encourage people to install renewable technologies the Government has devised a scheme whereby financial incentives are available via grants.

For Solar Thermal and Ground Source Heat Pumps

Scottish Community Householder Renewables Initiative (SCHRI):

• FUNDING FOR HOUSEHOLDERS SET AT 30% OF THE INSTALLATION COST UP TO £4,000
• RESIDENTS IN SCOTLAND CAN CHOSE TO HAVE A SCOTTISH COMMUNITY HOUSEHOLDER RENEWABLES INITIATIVE (SCHRI) OR A LOW CARBON BUILDINGS PROGRAMME (LCBP) GRANT
• APPLICATIONS LIMITED TO ONE GRANT PER TECHNOLOGY FROM EITHER OF THESE PROGRAMMES
• MORE INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE AT THE WEBSITE FOR THE LOW CARBON BUILDINGS PROGRAMME

Planning permission for solar panels

From 6th April 2008 the Government legislation ruled that the installation will not require planning permission and will be classed as a permitted development. This may not apply if the building is within a conservation area or on a listed building).

More information is available from the Energy Saving Trust.

Building Regulations for solar panels

Building Control supervision may be required for some types of roof, particularly where load-bearing capacity is in question or where considerable aging of structure is evident. C Hanlon can help you identify and solve any issue which you have with your roof.

Further Information – the Energy Saving Trust

The Energy Saving Trust offers free, impartial, expert advice about home energy efficiency and local grant schemes.

ELECTRICIANS GLASGOW

TIPS FOR CCTV INSTALLATION

Tips on installing CCTV to your home. 

WES ELECTRICAL WESTEND GLASGOW

The prospect of drilling a hole through the outside wall of your house to run the power and video cable for a camera may seem a big job. With a little forethought it can be quite simple. 

Positioning of cameras
Most people want to hide the camera as much as possible. The modern cctv camera can easily be located under or on the fascia/soffit boards where the roof meets the wall. When located here it is sheltered from wind and rain and can be shaded from most sunlight. The height of the camera gives a good area of view and minimizes the risk of vandalism. 

Another advantage of this location is cabling. It is pretty easy to run the cables into the loft from this position. Many houses have a small ventilation gap between the roof tiles and the external wall, or a small hole may be drilled in the fascia board to gain access to the loft. 

Cabling
It is usually quite easy to pick up mains power in the loft or, if additional cabling is required it is now internal. Wireless transmission can be used for the video signal with the receiver being placed next to the monitor or recorder (TV, VCR, PC etc.). That's it, job done. 

A 'hard-wired' system is almost as easy to install. Locate the TV aerial down-lead that may be in the loft or run down the outside of the house, then run the CCTV camera video cable alongside the aerial cable, which will lead directly to the TV. 

A good method of connection is an RF modulator. This changes the camera's video output to an RF output. You can pipe the CCTV images down the existing TV aerial down-lead and view on the TV/VCR as if it were another channel. If your house is fitted with a TV distribution system, this method will allow the pictures to be seen on all the TV sets. 

Addition of Switchers etc.
Consider placing switchers, multiplexers or DVRs in the loft. This keeps all the cabling in the loft with just one output cable to your monitor. It also hides your recording device. 

electricians partick glasgow

LED Lighting In the home.

For most of my customers in Glasgow the issue of lighting is never a dull subject to discuss, with the advancement in LED technology, the dawn of the new more powerful and colourful led lamps is upon us. I can assure customers that if the purchase the led lamps i recommend for their lighting the would not notice much in a way of difference in light but a significant reduction in the cost of running their lighting in the home.

The UK is in the top five nations in Europe for buying energy saving light bulbs, but lagging behind in the purchase of ‘next generation’ lighting such as LEDs.

More testing, information and certification of the kind we’re involved in through the PremiumLight scheme should certainly help increase consumer confidence. But outside the domestic market, it seems companies do not need much extra convincing.

Forbes grandly decreed recently that “LED retrofits are the ‘Trojan horse’ of the Internet of Things” with the market for just sensors and applications related to LED lighting set to more than double to 2020. This is not so surprising at all if we are to take the Carbon Trust’s director of implementation Myles McCarthy at his word:

A business, such as a warehouse or large hotel, can save up to 70% of its electricity costs by switching to LED lights with motion sensors…and receive a payback on the capital outlay within two years.”

Efficiency, cost reductions and the kind of light quality benefits that we saw in our Lit Up report on LED lighting in social housing schemes in Westend Glasgow are a potent combination.

Increased take-up of new technologies tends to mean falling prices and a growth in demand for fittings and extras – in this case those extras which play into the idea of a future of smart energy management. The future is suddenly looking very rosy indeed for LEDs. And that’s before we’ve even touched ‘Li-fi’.

Yes, that’s right – LED-based Wi-Fi connectivity may be another imminent boom to the LED industry, with a tussle for technological supremacy seemingly opening up between the UK and China.  Visible light communications, or VLC, can produce high data speeds at low cost, and while there was some scepticism about recent claims of a breakthrough in Shanghai, a British collaborative study seems to have backed them up.

Micro LED bulbs can handle millions of changes of light intensity, which can in turn transmit data. Parallel streams of light can multiply the amount of data transmitted – something likened water out of showerhead by a University of Strathclyde scientist.

Whether we’re bathing in an LED glow or using LED light to stream a video, this is certainly a technology we’re going to be well acquainted with over the coming years.

WES ELECTRICAL 

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