Solar Co-Op Renewable Energy
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A co-operative network of
people helping one another with simple, low-impact energy solutions
What’s the Co-Op about?
Well, at the outset we’re focusing on
solar water heating, i.e., solar thermal - a lovely simple technology. We’re focusing
on this initially because, after insulating your house, solar water heating is
pretty much a no-brainer in terms of the potential energy benefits. It’s also
much easier to do than most people think, so it’s an easy win. Hopefully your
neighbours will also think it’s pretty cool you have a solar panel and ask you
about what you‘ve done & why you’ve done it - maybe you can even
help/advise them on how to get a panel up themselves, who knows! This is pretty
much what the Solar Co-Op is all about - helping us see just how easy some of
these alternative energy solutions are, & encouraging us to think about our
energy usage and what we can do to make it
all a little bit more sustainable (a little bit less reliant on fossil
fuels).
Aims & Objectives of the Co-Op:
To provide information & advice on simple, safe, &
inexpensive solar water heating systems, both off-the-shelf commercial systems
and of course DIY systems.
To encourage local communities to work together on
small-scale renewable energy projects, helping one another by sharing skills
and experience.
To encourage groups of solar enthusiasts to share tools,
knowledge, experience, &, where appropriate, to bunch together when
purchasing equipment to get a fair deal from your local plumbing & solar
merchants.
To encourage safe DIY installation of
solar water heating systems by focusing on lesser-known simple, inexpensive
methods, technology and techniques.
To raise awareness of the essential
safety considerations. As with most Do-It-Yourself stuff, DIY solar heating
installation presents some risks which are easily addressed once you know what
to look out for!
Not for Profit:
The Co-Op is not a commercial enterprise, and whilst we
don’t aim to profit from any of the advice we give, we don’t aim to make a loss
either. Our policy is therefore to recover fully the cost of any minimal
expenditure we incur in promoting the Co-Ops aims and objectives. So e.g., if
we organise a workshop, we don’t expect those running the workshop to be out of
pocket - that’s just plainly unsustainable. Our aim is to get people using
small scale renewable energy in their everyday lives and to share our enthusiasm
– All of us together as a Co-Op can only succeed in doing this in the long term
if we make sure our members are not out of pocket!
We’re not paid to promote any specific commercial supplier, e.g.,
of solar products or plumbing supplies. Whilst we encourage DIYers to make
their own gear where possible, where someone just wants to keep it simple &
install something off-the-shelf, we’re keen people use a variety of suppliers
and then let us know how they get along. How else would we learn which suppliers
are best? Where, from first-hand experience or from that of other energy
DIYers, we identify a supplier who offers good value products & a good
support service, we’ll post a link to their site, etc. If a supplier wants to offer
our members a good deal on bulk purchasing of solar, plumbing or other interesting
products all the better!
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