Shout it from the rooftops

New tile should make solar pv simpler for builders

Bog standard photovoltaics for any builder - that’s how solar energy specialists solarcentury would like us to think of their new C21 tile. “It’s a genuine building material, not just an extra that generates electricity,” emphasises Kathryn Hull. Designed to match grey slate tiles, it can be fitted by your regular tiler, with no extra training needed. Launched at the Interbuild construction fair, the C21 was shortlisted for the Best Exterior Product Award - to Hull’s obvious delight.

“There’s been lots of scepticism behind photovoltaics, and getting on to this shortlist gives the product credibility in the building market.” But solarcentury already has ambitions to take its C21 technology further. The company has been awarded an innovation grant through the Carbon Trust - funded by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) - to help fund this (so far undisclosed) product development. Meanwhile, as fitted on a house near Grantham in a new development by Gusto, C21 tiles will supply around 2 kW of electricity annually - about two-thirds of an average house’s needs - at a capital cost of £16,000.

This hefty outlay can be partly offset by a grant from the Energy Saving Trust (EST, also funded by the DTI), but however you do the maths it won’t work out as a quick way to save money on the lecky. You’d still have a bill (albeit a reduced one) for much of the year. But you would have the pleasure - and financial benefit - of selling electricity back to the grid when your system is running at peak output, through a ‘net metered’ link that credits you with 4p per exported unit.

Part of the problem with getting pv off the ground until now has been government reluctance to commit to a bold market-making initiative. Even the 50% capital grants now available through the EST under the ‘major demonstration programme’ for PV look like too little, too late. On the other hand, given our national obsession with house prices, it may be more significant that the pioneering blue roof of photovoltaic tiles which solarcentury CEO Jeremy Leggett put on his Victorian house in Richmond five years ago was credited with boosting its value by a tidy ten grand when he sold it on. Gusto Industries, 01636 894905

3 June 2004