“Whilst Gordon Brown’s £1bn energy package for helping households cope with rising fuel prices is a welcome move, it does little to help with the spiraling costs of oil-fired central heating which is prevalent across rural areas”, says Norfolk solar panel distributor, Tony Freeman.
“Many houses are still fired by oil from back in the day when the average cost was just 13p per litre, but at a current rate of 58p per litre, businesses and homes are being crippled unnecessarily”, says Tony.
Tony, who has a new generation of all year round solar panels powering the central heating and hot water at his three bedroom bungalow in Wymondham, Norfolk believes that rural areas in particular will continue to be adversely affected by the rise in fuel prices. Many homes in rural areas are still powered by oil, or to a much lesser degree ‘rip off’ LPG. Tony claims that cash handouts during the Winter are just a ‘short-term solution to an ongoing problem’.
Tony, first saw the solar system in Portugal two years ago and was so impressed with the possible cost savings and reliability of the system that he flew out a fortnight later to obtain the UK distributorship from Energie Est LDA.
He installed the system in the U.K 18 months ago at his own bungalow, removing the gas boiler completely in September 2007. And when BBC Look East came to film the system in February 2008, the temperature inside the bungalow was 21C, whilst outside it was -2C.
The patented heating system is made in Portugal and over the last four and a half years, Energie Est LDA has completed over ten thousand installations ranging from single panel hot water for a family of five through to over a hundred panel industrial process systems.
“Many rural areas are currently using oil as they have no alternative and would see a very significant savings through switching to a solar system, which can be powered by a standard 240 volt supply”, adds Tony.
