Energy storage project to help homes be less reliant on grid

The European-funded project will allow participating homes to store excess solar energy in either batteries or hot water tanks for use in the evenings.

Energy storage technology means less reliance on the grid, creating more sustainable communities. The project will also research the issues and parameters of community energy schemes that sell and share self-generated energy from homes in the project.

It will use ‘communal batteries’ as part of this, located in the area’s schools.

Some 37 homes from across the neighbourhood will take part in the project, and 22 of these will receive technology that will allow them to use significantly more of their clean green energy generated from their own solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. Installation begins early 2017.

This innovative project, SENSIBLE, which aims to show positive ways to reduce fuel poverty, is led by The University of Nottingham and MOZES, the Meadow’s ‘Community Energy Group’.

The Meadows is an ideal community to trial the technology as it has a large proportion of houses across different tenures, housing types and ages and socio-economic groups installed with solar PV panels following the receipt of a Department of Environment and Climate Change grant in 2010 which made it one of 11 UK Low Carbon Communities.

Its residents are therefore relatively used to ‘test’ initiatives regarding energy and efficiency because of this and the related work MOZES does within the community. This range of demographics relating to how and when electrical energy is used in The Meadows will go on to help the SENSIBLE researchers to draw more accurate conclusions from the gathered data.

Julian Marsh, architect and member of MOZES said: “This project is making the most of domestic solar energy generation; this means more energy will stay within the community, reducing the need to draw on energy from the grid, thus reducing household electricity bills.”

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