Renewable Energy

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RENEWABLE ENERGY

We offer a free of charge design and quotation service where we will come out to the property home or office, carry out a survey taking in to account your requirements.

HEATING AND GAS SERVICES

Boiler servicing, Boiler breakdown repairs, Central Heating installations, gas hobs & ovens, landlord gas safety certificates for natural gas & LPG applications.

UNDERFLOOR HEATING

Specialist in underfloor heating design and installation. Save money from reduced heating temperatures

GENERAL PLUMBING

All our engineers are City & Guilds qualified with years of experience. We can cover all jobs from leaking taps and burst pipes to full central heating installations.

BATHROOM INSTALLATIONS

Aquila has extensive experience in bathroom design and installation. Installing over 40 quality bathrooms year on year, Aquila became one of Bathstore’s top installers.

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Renewable Energy

With global warming and climate change becoming an ever increasing concern, many countries around the world have made significant commitments to reducing their CO2 emissions.

By the year 2050 the UK government has made a commitment to at least 50% of all domestic and commercial energy requirements to be produced by renewable sources.

In order to get people to invest in renewable technologies the government introduced the FIT (Feed In tariff) in April 2010 which applies to electricity producing technologies and in June 2011 they are introducing the RHI (Renewable Heat Incentive) for heat generating technologies.

In essence what this means is that you do not just benefit from the energy saving you make by using renewable technologies, on top of this the energy suppliers pay you for everything you produce whether you use it or not, but obviously the more you use the more you benefit from reduced energy bills.

For example using a 2.8Kw Solar PV array (Electricity producing modules) that would cost around £12,000 you could potentially return savings and cash payments of around £50,000. The FIT and RHI payments are guaranteed for 25 years, are TAX FREE and index linked.

To Ensure that consumers are protected and system benefits are not being ‘over sold’ the government have also introduced the MCS scheme to apply to all renewable technology manufacturers, wholesalers, designers and installers. What this scheme aims to achieve is the following:

All products must be manufactured to a high standard and have performance guarantees that last up to 25 years
Designers and specifiers must follow strict methods when calculating annual benefits of the technology
Sellers must follow REAL’s (Renewable Energy Assurance Ltd) guidelines on consumer code, to avoid over selling and pressure sales.
Installers are suitable qualified and standards of workmanship maintain high. Aquila are accredited and MCS registered (Reg No. CC/MCS/228) to supply, design and install Solar PV, Thermal Solar and Air source/ground source heat pumps. Please follow the relevant link for more information.

Solar (PV) Photovoltaic

How does Solar PV work?

Unlike Solar Thermal panels that need a relatively high intensity of sunlight to produce enough ‘meaningful’ energy to heat your hot water or central heating, solar PV will produce electricity even in low light conditions, but obviously the more intense the day light, the more electricity will be produced.

Within the solar modules are two layers one with positive charged electrons and one with negatively charged electrons. When day light hits these cells the electrons become attracted to each other and begin to move across the layers. The result of the electrons moving around produces an electrical field. The more intense the light is, the more the electrons move around and more electricity is produced.

Solar panels can be sited almost anywhere, on roofs, walls or on ground mounted modules in a garden or field, but orientation and angle are critical to optimise the panels output.

Air Source Heat Pumps

What are heat pumps and how do they work?

The principle of heat pumps has been around since the 1800’s and works on a similar principle to today’s fridges and freezers. Although not as obvious as solar panels but heat pumps also utilise the sun’s energy to enable them work. Heat pumps use certain liquids that have a very low boiling point, around -20 degrees, unlike water which boils at +100 degrees. This means that even at extremely low temperatures heat that is extracted from the ground or air can cause the liquid to boil and become a gas. This gas is then pushed through a compressor which produces heat. Although heat pumps use electricity to power the compressor some manufacturers are claiming over 500% efficiency, this means that 1Kwh of electricity used will produce 5Kwh of heat. This is under standard test conditions but the efficiency is governed by external temperatures (more critical with air source) and the temperature the heat pump is required to run at. 30-40 degrees would be the optimal temperature for efficiency but this is not high enough to satisfy hot water requirements and some heating systems. These temperatures would be great for say swimming pools but in most domestic and commercial situations a secondary heat source is required to meet the temperatures required for Legionella regulations in hot water and design temperatures in certain heating systems. Given that most of today’s high efficiency condensing gas boilers are only 90-92% efficient, heat pumps are unbelievably efficient way of providing 60-80% of all your hot water and heating demand.