Wigan & Leigh Housing and its tenants are benefitting from solar PV technology fitted by npower.
“In mid-2009 we were considering how we and our tenants could benefit from the Feed in Tariff [FIT] scheme, which was due for introduction in April 2010,” recalls Mike Sterlicchi, director of asset management and development at Wigan & Leigh Housing (WLH).
W&LH was set up as a separate, not-for-profit company in 2002 to manage and maintain council homes on behalf of Wigan Council. It is responsible for managing all landlord services for Wigan Council’s 23,000 homes, including rent collection, repairs and maintenance, dealing with empty properties and all tenancy matters.
The FIT scheme enables people and businesses to receive a fixed payment (“generation tariff”) from the government for electricity they generate from renewable sources such as solar panels and wind
turbines. For every kWh they export to the National Grid, they receive an additional payment (“export tariff”). These payments are in addition to bill savings made by using self - generated electricity.
“To ensure a practical solution and best value, we entered into discussions with several providers of solar PV [Photovoltaic] systems,but npower were able to give us a modelling system that showed how we could upscale from a pilot scheme to fitting solar PV technology to hundreds and even thousands of properties under our control.”
The benefits of fitting Solar PV systems were clear to Sterlicchi and his colleagues – it was better for the environment; it could lead to lower electricity bills for tenants; and, via the FIT scheme, it could generate
additional revenue for W&LH, money that could be used to maintainand upgrade other properties. “But we wanted to better understand the practicalities of installation, so we needed a pilot scheme. You’ve got to test these things on a small scale first,” Sterlicchi stresses.
“For the pilot scheme, solar PV energy systems were fitted by npower to eight two-bed bungalows in Mosley Common, a suburb of Tyldesley at the eastern edge of the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester. The properties are a sheltered scheme where older members of the community live.”
Work got underway in November 2010 and was completed in December 2010 – despite heavy snow and often freezing conditions. Surveyors, designers, contract management, installation engineers and support staff from npower were involved in the successful completion of the contract.
According to the Energy Saving Trust, a typical home solar PV system could save about 1 tonne of CO2 a year. Furthermore, a typical home solar PV system can produce around 40% of the electricity a household uses in a year. If the system is eligible to receive the FIT, it could generate savings and
income of about £1,170 per year.
Sterlicchi is pleased with how the solar PV energy pilot in Mosley Common went. “The tenants and Wigan & Leigh
Housing are already experiencing the benefits and if we can find a way to pay for it, I certainly would like to see more of our properties fitted with solar PV technology in the near future,” he concludes.