Rethinking household energy provision – bringing energy into your own greener hands.

Where our energy comes from has a big impact, and to reach a Zero Carbon Britain it needs a major rethink. If you’d like to install renewables in your home, but are unsure how, what option to go for, and what the likely costs and benefits are, this course will give you a broad overview to help you make your decision.

Key information

• Duration: one day
• Upcoming date: Saturday 5 March
• Start and finish times: starts at 10am and ends at 4.30pm on the last day
• Fee: £75
• Includes: tuition, all materials.
• What to bring: waterproof clothing is recommended
• Terms and Conditions:
  • you must be 18 years or over to attend our courses.
  • For full list of terms and conditions click here

What you will learn

Covering the basics of wind, solar PV, solar thermal, biomass and heat pumps, the course will enable you to identify which renewable technologies are best suited to your needs.

You will be guided in how to construct a household energy profile, and how to modify it to suit your available energy provision. We will look at the important points of technology selection and use, including options for energy storage. You will also learn where to find relevant data, how to analyse the data and take account of seasonal variations.

Topics covered include:

• Power and energy demand profiling
• Site assessment and technology selection strategy
• Accessing resource data
• Hybrid systems
• Basic frequency analysis and output modelling
• System basics for wind/solar/biomass/heat pumps
• Understanding the process of technology selection
• Energy storage and battery basics

A basic knowledge of MS Excel (or equivalent) is desirable for this course.

Follow on courses

This course is the introduction to a series of in-depth practical one day courses exploring different renewable energy technologies. As a series these courses will equip you with the skills and knowledge to implement different renewable technologies in your home, however they can also be taken as standalone courses.

• Renewables for Households: Insulation – Saturday 26 March 2022
• Renewables for Households: Wind Turbines –  Saturday 2 April 2022
• Renewables for Households: Solar PV – Saturday 7 May 2022
• Renewables for Households: Solar Hot Water – Saturday 4 June 2022
• Renewables for Households: Biomass – Saturday 25 June 2022
• Renewables for Households: Heat Pumps – Saturday 2 July 2022

Meet your tutors

Alan is a Charted Energy Engineer and lecturer on our postgraduate courses here at CAT. His research ranges from numerical modelling of sustainable energy systems and resources in Europe, to developing international sustainable energy policy and strategy in post-conflict/post-disaster areas of South East Asia.