“Lucion Energy seamlessly managed the entire installation process of a new Geothermal Heat Pump. Consequently my once cold house has never felt warmer or more comfortable, and being able to leave the heating on 24 hours a day still feels like an extreme indulgence.

Charles clearly  set out the process from the beginning, keeping me informed and fully aware of exactly what to expect at each stage. At the beginning, the drilling of two 100 metre deep holes inevitably created some short term mess, which was cleaned up professionally and even polished off with newly laid gravel. From then, the plumbers and electricians came in when expected and got the job done on time and with no unexpected problems. Finally, Charles from Lucion gave up his weekend to personally “fire it up”, and from then onwards it’s worked like a dream.”

The RHI is a financial incentive designed to get more homes and businesses in the UK converting from fossil fuels to renewable heat. The benefits of this are blatant – no more oil or gas bills for the rest of your life! On top of this, renewable heat offers a more even, regulated heat (no boilers kicking in and going off).

However, some people have found the initial installation cost too much as a one off payment. This is where the Renewable Heat Incentive comes in:

“The tariffs will be paid for 20 years to eligible technologies that have installed since 15th July 2009 with payments being made for each kWh of renewable heat which is produced.”

Department for Energy & Climate Change

So,  if you have a ground source heat pump installed by an MCS accredited installer such as Lucion Energy, you would have no more oil or gas bills to pay for, your home would be heated, and you would be eligible to receive 4.3p on every KwH produced by your system (this is designed to cover your increased electricity costs, making your heating system cost neutral). On top of this, you could receive an upfront payment of up to £1250 for each ground source heat pump unit installed through the RHI Premium Payments scheme.

If space is at a premium and you’d prefer to have an air source heat pump installed, you would be eligiable to have £850 taken off the price of installing the unit. Unfortunately, as yet the government has not introduced any annual payments for the air source heat pump in the way they have for the ground source heat pumps, but such a reduction in cost of installation makes it still a sensible renewable solution to replace your existing boiler.

The details:

• RHI tariff payments will start for homes alongside the Green Deal from 2012 to allow a more whole-house approach to heat production and energy saving. 
• In the meantime, up to 25,000 installations from July will be supported by a “RHI Premium Payment” to help people cover the purchase price of green heating systems. Those taking up the Premium will then be eligible for a RHI tariff from October next year when the Green Deal begins, as will anyone else who has had eligible equipment installed from July 2009.
• For new build homes, an RHI tariff will be considered for the 2012 phase

For more information visit: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/PN2011_023/PN2011_023.aspx

Or call Lucion energy today on 0191 461 8999 to discuss the possibility of a bespoke renewable heat solution for your home.

The company has now been accused of profiteering during this winter’s unusually cold weather. Many people in the UK have ran out of oil to heat their homes this winter as the temperature dropped well below freezing throughout December and into January.

DCC Energy which is a company based in Dublin is the owner of supposedly independent oil supplier comparison website boilerjuice.com. The website claims to find the lowest price for oil across the UK, but its prices have been found to be up to 60% higher than local suppliers genuine oil prices.

The Daily Mail reported that the website yesterday listed the best price in West Cornwall for an urgent 500-litre delivery at £493.50 from an unnamed firm. But independent Consols Oils was charging £316.58.

Paul Ward, Managing Director of BoilerJuice.com stated on the boilerjuice website: “I would also like to emphasise that BoilerJuice.com does not benefit from the increased cost of heating oil. We are simply acting as an intermediary to help bring better deals to the consumers, by negotiating deals and offering group discounts to our users.”

The firm’s pricing structure is now being monitored by The Office of Fair Trading.

Read more:

 http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/bargains-and-rip-offs/household-bills/article.html?in_article_id=520998&in_page_id=510#ixzz1AciV02pd

As part of this on-going major re-development project, a £1m scheme is in place for a 2,000 meter geothermal borehole underneath this site at the heart of the city centre. The project, run by Newcastle and Durham Universities, is hoped to bring hot water up from the borehole at 80C degrees.

The extreme temperature the borehole is expected to accomplish is due to the high volume of granite rock that Newcastle is built upon. Due to the scale of the borehole, drilling which is expected to begin this year will last approximately six months. However, once complete it will provide the heating necessary for the new Science Central site.

Director of the Newcastle Institute for Research on Sustainability, Professor Paul Younger said of the geothermal borehole: “This would provide a fully renewable energy supply, massively reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and reinforcing Newcastle’s position as the UK’s most sustainable city which we have won two years running” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12065918). With the new development being built in what is already a highly populated area, the borehole is an obvious renewable solution as once complete it will take up very little space, and produce very large results.

Lucion Energy provides a large range of renewable energy solutions, including geothermal bore hole ground source heat pumps. Click here for a brief description of a bore hole ground source heat pump we installed at a 3 bedroom suburban home. To find out more about Lucion Energy and the bespoke renewable services we offer, call us now on 0191 461 8999 or visit our contact us page.

In his interview for the Guardian, Chris Huhne suggested that while Labour was in power, little was done to move to a greener future. In 2008 the UK were ranking third from bottom in the EU renewable energy levels, above only Luxembourg and Malta. Discussing this he said “We have got massive catch up. We will be the fastest improving country on renewables in the EU between now and 2020. I’m absolutely determined about that and it will happen” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jan/03/renewables-green-energy-huhne).

There has also recently been a report carried out by Bloomberg Energy Finance for Pew Charitable Trusts which predicted that £73bn of investment in Britain would be put into renewable energy between 2010 and 2020. This is not the highest amount in the E.U, as the report also forecasts that Germany will spend more, yet its actual rate of investment will fall.

There is no doubt that Britain’s future will be greener, although the Committee for Climate Change’s (CCC) Chairman Lord Turner advised Huhne not to be over zealous with the UK’s renewable targets, as our aim of 15% by 2020 will still be hard work and a great achievement if successful.

The Government is pushing for both commercial and domestic buildings to be converted to green energy wherever possible, and it is not a hard argument to push as oil prices continue to rise and areas of Britain have struggled to find oil this cold winter due to large oil shortages.

Lucion Energy provides a wealth of renewable energy alternatives, to make heating and powering your home easier and cheaper. Our team work with clients every step of the way, from designing a bespoke solution right through to installing your new heat and/or electricity source and helping you benefit from Government initiatives such as the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and Feed in Tariffs (FiTs). Contact Lucion today.

Lucion Energy fitted our head office with a new air source heat pump this December.

Now however cold and icy it may be getting outside, we’re all warm and comfortable in the Lucion H.Q, and we don’t even need to worry about the cost of the heating bill after this long winter either!

This is because we’ve just invested in an air source heat pump which will heat and cool our office all year round. The pump took less than 3 days to install for the Lucion Energy team and now not only are our fuel bills reduced but we’ll also be looking forward to receiving payments from the Renewable Heat Incentive when it comes into force in June 2011!

How do air source heat pumps work?

Air source heat pumps extract heat from the air outside your building and pump it back through the building to provide heating. They can be connected with radiators, under floor heating or hot water.

The heat pump we chose to use for our building is a Delongi AW HT 20 KW – What does this mean?

AW: means Air to water, so it takes heat out of the air and puts heat into the radiators

HT: means high temperature: The heat pump outputs at 65 degrees enabling it to directly replace a gas or oil boiler as the temperature is compatible with the output temperature of these appliances.

The heat pump is coupled to a buffer tank to enable it to work at maximum efficiency. It has a COP of 4.2, which means that for every unit of electrical energy it uses, it captures 4.2 units of heat energy for the year – a 420 % efficiency, and to top this off, it is not dependent upon oil or gas supplies!

Come on in, its cold outside!

Get out of the cold and come and speak to Simon – our Lucion Energy Manager today at the Lucion office. Our team can help you from the initial bespoke design of a new heating system right through to the installation, and then you’ll be feeling as smug as us when you see your heating bills!

Savings

Below is a summary of the savings we will make annually having installed our air source heat pump. This does not include additional payments to be received from the Renewable Heat Incentive, as we are yet to find out the exact amounts available. Watch this space as we will update this information when we receive payments from the RHI – a truely win win situation.

There have long since been plans to fix this problem, with the Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) planning to construct a power line to make the connection between highlands and lowlands next year (2011).

Complaints erupted yesterday as the SSE announced that construction would not be commencing next year as had previously been planned. The project cannot go ahead they explained because the wind farm developers have stated they could not afford the £95 per megawatt charges from the National Grid, and without this financial support the SSE could not continue with the project.

Western Isles councillor Angus Campbell has claimed that he feels this is discrimination against the Isles and is looking into getting the European Union involved:  “This appears to be simple discrimination against Islands and we have perhaps reached the time when the European Union has to be engaged to investigate the approach.”

This area of Scotland could easily benefit from an economy boost should this project have hone ahead as planned because the area boasts availability of the natural resources required.

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change is now reviewing the situation.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/transport-environment/energy-company-shelves-wind-farm-scheme-1.1067537

Lucion Energy also held a stand at the event which proved to be a huge success with a continual flow of visitors throughout the weekend.

The event was hosted by Homebuilding and Renovating Magazine, a leading UK monthly magazine which covers the whole spectrum of trades needed in building and renovation projects.

The event also included an ‘ask the experts’ section, seminars and masterclasses alongside the exhibition stands. The Lucion team found the day highly interesting and a great chance to meet people interested in renewable energy. It was also a great opportunity for the team to bring out their demonstration bore hole heat pump kit!

The Lucion team met lots of enthusiastic people interested in how renewable energy could benefit their home, and have enjoyed following up the projects and designing some renewable energy solutions!

It is well known now that renewable technologies are the future for sourcing the energy needs of the United Kingdom. Britain needs to meet the 2020 renewable energy targets, so throughout the next few months and years the Government will be creating great incentives to get Britain going green.

This is great news for home builders. Renewable energy solutions work perfectly when installed into new builds. For example, ground source heat pumps are the best partners for under floor heating. Under floor piping is a method of heating that is now highly popular in new builds as it provides a stable amount of heat throughout the house and over time, keeping your house at a constant cosy temperature and heating the room evenly.

Heat pumps aren’t the only option. There are lots of different renewable technologies coming on the market all the time. This can be confusing. Lucion understands that you want to find the best and inexpensive ways to provide heat and electricity to your home, and this is why we provide an all encompassing service. We will help you choose the most suitable renewable energy methods for your home. Then we design the complete package for you, making it bespoke to your home. What makes us the best renewable energy provider is not only do we provide the bespoke design for your solution, we are also MCS accredited to over see and install the complete package for you. This will allow you peace of mind that you have had a professionally designed and installed heating and/or electricity system installed into your home.

So, if you are considering building or renovating your home, come along to the show in Harrogate and see us there for a chat. The exhibition boasts 200 exhibitors, in depth seminars, master classes and more, and it only costs £5 if you book in advance, or £8 for a ticket on the door. The Lucion Energy team are looking forward to talking to home builders and renovators about their projects and how renewables could be designed into them.