I now have a financial incentive to live until I am eighty-three and a half. That’s the time it will take for the cost of the solar panel system I am contemplating to be amortised through my injections of surplus power back into the National Grid. The scheme has the government’s blessing though there are no grants. There is no salesmanship since the price is fixed (£6750) and it takes two hours to explain even though, in the end, it is relatively simple to understand. One misconception needs to be cleared up: the panels convert sunlight not heat into powerSwitzerland and Germany have used such systems for decades. Inevitably the UK is behindhand in meeting its target of 15% of energy consumption from renewable sources by 2020 and is now looking for a take-up rate of 700,000 houses a year. Which seems mighty optimistic.
You ask the obvious question: suppose a rapidly ageing scribbler, on the verge of his seventy-sixth, snuffs it in the interim, goes into a home or is locked up for sedition? Well, the house is likely to sell for a price over the odds since the buyer inherits reduced electricity costs without the capital expenditure. More on this if there is a scintilla of interest.
OH JOY! In the last post I included a list of what Lucy elegantly described as my anathemata. To them I could have added caravans. My neighbour has one and he’s a techno-freak. Not for him the back-breaking task of manoeuvring the thing into his driveway. He uses a remotely controlled tug. This may be the only true pleasure to be derived from his box on wheels
