The Beginner’s Guide to Garden Technology - Part 1: Renewable Energy
Renewable Energy in the Garden
As the UK moves towards a low (or net zero) carbon economy the ways in which our houses are powered becomes increasingly important to consider - especially when designing your garden. It is indeed the outside space that bears the brunt of these changes as we shall see - and garden design will increasingly have to cope with details that may want disguising. It is no longer just the bins that will want to be sensitively located…
So what is heading into our gardens as this technology advances? Mainly different ways of heating our homes - from solar panels, to heat pumps - and, for those who have the luxury of a front garden, electric points for cars and other EVs are increasingly requested.
Heating our homes
When it comes to heating our homes those with larger gardens can select ground source heat pumps. These consist of large loops of pipework buried about 1m below the garden across a large swathe (usually 700+ square metres), feeding back to the pump itself that is then housed within an outbuilding (often purpose built).
Alternatively air source heat pumps are increasingly popular and these consist of units that look like a traditional air-conditioning unit (and they work in a similar way). Before selecting a unit though you need to consider how large your home is, the insulation already in place (insulation is vital if heat pumps are to work as they warm to a lower temperature than a gas boiler does), the size and location of the heating system (i.e. radiators and pipes - because heat pumps take longer to warm up they need a larger surface area which would include underfloor heating and larger radiators), and the outdoor temperature also affects how warm a unit can get - all of which will impact how warm your house can be.
For an air source heat pump it is therefore important to bear in mind how they will be integrated into the garden. They shouldn’t simply be dropped onto the patio for example. They do need to be located on an exterior wall, and legally need to be 1m from the boundary, but crucially they also need to have an unobstructed area to the front to allow them to work properly - an area of around 1.5 - 2.0m clear space. They therefore need carefully positioning away from where you might want to sit (so as not to obstruct them and especially as they do make a noise - and they work harder when heating water as opposed to warming the house). Consideration therefore needs to be given to whether they can be sensitively screened, to the sides, and possibly whether they can be wrapped in acrylic (like a commercial van would be) to try to minimise their impact visually.
Powering our homes
Another technological advance, that has been around for a lot longer, is solar (or photo-voltaic) power. Gardens are unlikely to have these at ground level though (ground-mounted panels) and instead they can be incorporated into the roof line of the house - whether in-roof, on-roof, or mounted onto a flat roof (although this could be space that could instead form a roof garden)?
An important consideration though, in the UK certainly where sunlight is patchy at best, is whether you can store the energy gathered from photovoltaic panels for use at a later time, and for this battery storage is becoming slowly more prevalent - with a variety of brands at a variety of efficiencies and price points. These batteries need positioning outside safely - with adequate ventilation, out of direct sunlight, away from flammable materials, whilst being accessible.
Indeed if you have an EV charging point close to a parking space (which itself needs sensitive placement and consideration for safe access with wires trailing across the garden) you may be able to look to your own batteries - or perhaps simply sell the power in the batteries to the grid at a premium time and charge your EV at a different time, saving yourself money.