It has been found that tenants are already realising significant savings on their energy bills, following the installation of batteries across 75 of the Cannock Chase District Council properties which have CCS’s panels on their roofs.
Installations were completed by November, with a web portal providing extensive data, including levels of self-consumption on site. Beat the Cold have started to contact tenants and have been able to advise them of the savings they have each made. These have naturally varied from site to site, but data shows that tenants with a battery installed before July had already saved £80-£120 each by November.
Partner in the project, National Energy Action (NEA), have now completed their second round of research interviews to understand how tenants have found using the batteries. They will continue their research until July 2023, which will give them a full years’ worth of data. Anecdotal evidence is showing the importance of the visibility to tenants of battery status, e.g. having an LED screen showing the battery state of charge, thus allowing tenants to tailor their electricity usage according to when their battery is sufficiently charged.
In addition, Beat the Cold are scheduled to complete home visits in the spring of 2023 to give the tenants access to the online battery portal allowing them to see when their battery is fully charged.
Solar Immersion Devices
Throughout September, tenants with CCS’s solar panels who were not provided with a battery but who had a hot water cylinder, were approached by Cannock Chase District Council and offered a Solar IBoost, which enables excess power from their solar panels to be diverted to heat their hot water. 35 IBoosts were available to tenants and there was much interest, as over 50 tenants applied for one of these in the following week.
The IBoosts were installed on a first-come, first-served basis during October, and a visit from NEA was scheduled for each tenant during November.
We look forward to gaining useful information on the usage of the PV, the batteries and the IBoosts, their usefulness to tenants, and any savings which the latter make, and we hope to provide you with some of the insights we gain in future posts.