28/02/2019
Summing up Solar
A blog by Abundance bookkeeper and finance manager Lara Trinder
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Abundance
Feb 15
Over the past few years we’ve begun working with a number of ‘green’ or ethical businesses; a caterer, a funeral company, an ethical investment company and a local solar installation company to name but a few and it got me thinking about my own green credentials as a business.
We do all the easy stuff; use recycled ink cartridges, we’ve bought software that will help us make the move towards paperlessness and one of our employees takes the shredding home to use as rabbit bedding, but we’re hardly saving the planet. I’ve seen the pictures of the emaciated polar bears on the shrinking ice caps and they break my heart.
I’m very fortunate. I have a purpose built office space at home. It has a glass back that looks out over the garden, it’s lovely but economical with our energy we are not. The whole thing is powered by electricity; the lights, the heating, all the computer equipment and the heat pad that keeps the elderly canine team members toasty. It costs a fortune!
As my electricity bill has crept inexorably upwards I’ve found myself feeling irritable when I arrive back at the office to find it’s hotter than Satan’s armpit. Would my employees crank the heating up to 11 if they were paying for It? Can’t they do a few star jumps or something when they feel cold?
The reality is that bookkeeping is a sedentary job and is fuelled mostly by tea. We sit, we work, we turn up the heating and we turn on the kettle. We burn electricity.
So, I made a decision, I spoke to my client, the solar installer. He did a site visit, measured my office roof, measured my electricity consumption, did some clever sums and announced that we could, potentially, become a carbon neutral business. He gave me a quote, HSBC gave me a loan and, during possibly the wettest, coldest, darkest month of the year the solar system has been installed.
Installation took about a week, was relatively free from disruption (just half a day with the power off in the office) and the panels themselves lie virtually flat to the office roof and are smart and unobtrusive. So far so good.
Let’s be clear though, solar needs sun. My consumption is at its highest in the winter when, even on a clear day we only get about 5 or 6 hours sunshine on our panels. Anything we don’t use can be stored in the battery and used to run the office, or the electricity in the house in the evenings, but let’s be honest in January and February that just isn’t going to happen.
I believe that over the course of the year , with a half reasonable summer I will offset all of my annual electricity consumption. The money I save (approximately 50% of my annual energy bill) will go towards the repaying the loan. Nevertheless it will take me 7 years to earn back the cost of the panels, therefore this had to be an ideological as well as an economical decision.
So is it worth It? Well perhaps if you measure your world in purely financial terms you will struggle to make the sums add up BUT if you care about the environment, climate change and your own sense of wellbeing, if the polar bear gets to you, then, yes, totally.
Let me tell you about the app. Every evening I log in and I can see how much power I have consumed, how much was generated by the panels, how much was pulled off the grid. I can see a linear graph and I can see the ‘spikes’ where our consumption has increased suddenly. I try to work out what we were doing when the spikes occurred (that damn kettle!). I turn off lights, I wear a jumper. It has REALLY made me think about my energy consumption, and, when I look at the app and I see that I have generated 37% my own energy and have, so far, ‘planted’ 1/10th of a tree, I feel brilliant.
Annually at New Year I make a list of things I want to achieve in the coming year. Last year, my goal was to study. It took me a whole year of blood, sweat and many tears to achieve my qualification. This year when people ask me what the year has in store, I can already say that I’ve become a green business, no blood, no sweat, no tears, just some sunshine. Hopefully.
