Sunshine Batteries for Trelay

Sunshine Batteries for Trelay

Trelay Cohousing is a vibrant community of twenty-two adults and nine children. It is an educational facility which has hundreds of visitors. The community was founded in 2007 when a group of people bought a thirty-two acre farm in North Cornwall complete with a set of stone buildings.

We aim to live together cooperatively, with comfortable housing for young and old; growing some of our own food; with new rural businesses developing; caring for nature. We work hard and we have fun! We hope we are becoming an inspiration to people who wish to live together happily and well.

When we came here, the old stone houses were damp and hard to heat. Some were close to the lowest energy assessment rating. We insulated, double glazed, and knitted thick woolly jumpers but were still spending large amounts of money on electricity as we have no gas nearby. That means we have less money than we need for developing sustainable businesses; and sometimes we are cold and fed up with the mould that grows in damp houses. Using too much fossil-fuel electricity is not good for the environment. So what have we done and what more do we want to do?

Just over a year ago we put a 20kW solar photovoltaic (PV) system up on the barn to provide our own electricity. In spring this year we installed two ground source heat pumps which extract heat from the surface of the ground and provide heat to most of our houses.

The heat pumps run on solar electricity when the sun shines, so we get heat without producing carbon dioxide. From now on, we shall use less electricity on heating and get renewable heat incentive payments from the Government – these two sources of money will be enough to pay back the money we borrowed from our friends and to help us survive here.

Now we need batteries! The heat pumps use electricity in a clever way, giving out 4.2 units of heat for every unit of electricity. We supply the electricity, as far as we can, from our own PV system. Of course, it all depends on the sun; some days there is no sun, and sometimes too much!

That’s why we need a battery system. So we are seeking funding for a battery storage system to make our local energy use even more environmentally-friendly and inspirational. Storage systems are still expensive and we wish to install a 10kWh system which, combined with the heat pumps, will provide more than 40kWh of heat. Not quite magic heating but not far off!

Trelay is proud of its development as a cohousing community in the Cornish countryside. We have strong links with the local community, and with UK Cohousing Network. We were even featured on the BBC! We are working on plans for a new central building for the Trelay Community, which will also be heated by our heat pump system using the batteries. In the future there will be courses and conferences held in this hall, all about a better future for us and our children.

“Our conference centre will be heated by the heat pumps, using the new batteries”

Please vote for us to have the funding for a sunshine battery system!