Banging the renewable energy drum and proving the sceptics wrong

Tuesday, 16 February 2010

Earlier this year the Hon Simon Howard, owner of one of Britain’s finest historic homes, Castle Howard and setting for the series Brideshead Revisted made a groundbreaking decision.

He decided to embark on the largest renewable energy installation of its kind and use the stunning lake as the heat source to provide the 142,400 sq ft house with heating and hot water.

Ecovision, renewable energy specialists based on the Highgrove Estate in Gloucestershire, designed and implemented a huge number of ground loops in the area of the drained lake and by doing so utillised the naturally replenished energy source. In this way Ecovision made the best use of the natural resources at Castle Howard and radically reduced energy bills and CO2 emissions. The original system required 50,000 litres of oil per annum and the new one only a small amount of electricity.

Peter Randall, Chairman of Ecovision commented: "We live in a time when it is of fundamental importance that we address the impact of climate change and follow the lead of Simon Howard. Half of the UK’s carbon emissions come from the Built Environment and we are passionate about providing economic solutions to reduce these carbon emissions now. If we replaced all our fossil fuel heaters and coolers with heat pumps now we could reduce our carbon emissions by 75% and as the Built Environment accounts for 50% of our carbon emissions we would then cut our total UK carbon emissions by a staggering 37%.”

Simon Howard commented: "I am delighted with the system we have installed. Not only does it work, it is quiet, clean and the heat and hot water that it produces is more than adequate for our needs. Although we have only been running the system since the middle of September there have already been tangible results. September was the bedding in period, so the comparisons with last year can only be made from the 1st October onwards.

"The cost of running the system for that month, were £425.31 compared to our oil costs last year of £4,164.73. Likewise, from the 1st - 12th November the costs have only been £242.45 compared to £2011.71 last year. We have also been monitoring the thermal usage and the carbon output and these have been reduced dramatically.

"However we are continuing to tweak the system and we hope that once it is fine tuned we will see further savings in all these areas. Not only that but we no longer have oil tankers visiting us on a regular basis meaning that we can enjoy the property more. There were many who were sceptical of the project, it being an effective retrofit, so I am delighted that we have been justified in taking such a bold step with this technology as the figures speak for themselves."