WHB Wehmeyer

The Sun – a free source of energy

The Sun produces a huge amount of enery – both light and heat – that sustains us and keeps our planet Earth alive. Amazingly, in less than one hour the Earth receives enough energy from the Sun to supply all our word´s power needs for a full year.

The process to convert sunlight intoelectricity is called photovoltaic. Often the wordphotovoltaic is shortened to simply PV foe ease of use.

For a number of years we as timber construction specialists at Wehmeyer UK Ltd. have already put our trust in the technology and the benefits of using PV systems. The use of sunlight, which is available to us daily free of charge, as well as the conversion of this renewable energy into electricity – without producing harmful chemicals – is an important contribution to protecting our atmosphere.

A Feed in Tariff or FIT is a mechanism used in many countries to help support renewable energy technologies.  In the UK the Government has a Renewable Energy Strategy (RES) target of 15% of electricity coming from renewables (such as PV) by 2020. To help achieve this goal the British Government´s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) introduced the UK FIT „clean energy cashback“ scheme in April 2010. This was specifically to encourage investment in small scale low carbon (renewable) electricity production in return for a guaranteed payment (tax free) for the electricity produced.

In most domestic PV installations the PV modules are roof mounted. These can be either fixed on top of the existing roof or mounted into the roof itself. For existing houses it is simplest to mount the modules onto the roof and there are a number of fixing methods available to achieve this without causing leaks!

Some points to have in mind:

• The modules work best when pointed at the Sun so South facing is best
• Shading from trees or other buildings can reduce the system performance    considerably
• The life oft he panels is in excess of 25 years. Make sure your roof is in good condition and will be able to last at least this long
• PV modules can be quite heavy (as much as 15 kg/m²)! Some roofs may not be able to take the weight without additional strengthing – if the modules and support frame increase the roof load by 15% or more then a structural survey is usally required 

In general we use exclusively high quality solar modules, which we guarantee to operate at 80% of their minimal output with a performance guarantee of up to 25 years.

Our special service:

1. Location analysis
2. Stock-taking
3. Customised overall plan
   • Component evaluation
   • Static equilibrium testing
   • Payback analysis

Find out about it now, because we offer quality that pays!