The NICEIC have today, 6th January 2011, released their Jargonbuster on Microgeneration.
They say "Although microgeneration is set to revolutionise the way in which energy is produced for use in the home, there’s no shortage of technical terminology surrounding this subject. To help you understand what you need to know about microgeneration, we’ve put together the following guide to explain some of the terms that are commonly used.
I think this is a great idea and a great resource for householders. There really is much confusion with the terminology and what things mean like; Biomass and CHP for instance. This downloadable PDF document is great for explaining the technical terms of Microgeneration.
The document can be downloaded from the NICEIC website HERE or you can read the document below without leaving the My Local Electrician magazine:-
Biomass
Biomass involves the burning of organic material. For household microgeneration biomass most often takes the form of wood pellets, wood chips and wood logs, but biomass can also apply to both animal and vegetable derived material.
Carbon neutral
Being carbon neutral, or having a zero carbon footprint, is achieved by balancing the amount of
carbon dioxide (CO2) produced with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset. Sometimes
companies plant trees to offset the CO2 released by burning fossil fuels. Alternatively, the term can be used to describe energy that does not cause the release of any CO2 at all – the vast majority of
microgeneration technologies produce electricity without releasing CO2.
Carbon dioxide (CO2)
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is probably the most important of the greenhouse gases and is currently
responsible for 60% of the 'enhanced greenhouse effect'. It is thought that it's been in the atmosphere for over four billion of the Earth's 4.6 billion year geological history. Although the amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by plants is almost perfectly balanced with the amount put back into the atmosphere by respiration and decay, small changes as a result of human activities can have a large impact on this delicate balance.
CHP
CHP stands for combined heat and power and describes a unit that simultaneously generates heat
and electricity.
Dwelling Emission Rate (DER)
The estimated annual CO2 emissions per square meter due to space heating, water heating, ventilation and internal lighting, minus any CO2 emissions saved by the generation of electricity.
Feed-In-Tariff (FIT)
Introduced by the government on 1st April 2010, the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) scheme is also known as Clean Energy Cashback. FITs pay householders for all the electricity that they generate from a renewable source and homeowners receive 41.3p for every unit of energy they generate, regardless of whether they use the energy or sell it back to the National Grid.
Heat pumps
Heat pumps come in three types - ground source, air source and water source. They all extract ambient temperature and pump it into the hot water system in your house. Heat pumps use electricity to extract the heat but can deliver 2.5 to 4kW of heat for every kW of electricity used.
Hydro power
Hydro power refers to any system that generates electricity from water.
kW/kWh
A kilowatt (kW) is a unit of energy and a kilowatt hour (kWh) is most commonly used as a billing unit for energy delivered to consumers by electric utilities. Many people get confused about the difference between watts and watt hours. As a simple rule of thumb:
* Watts measure the rate of use at a particular instant.
* Watt hours are the total energy used over a period of time.
Microgeneration
Microgeneration is the production of zero or low carbon heat and power. This essentially means
creating your own energy to power your house by means of a renewable energy source such as solar
panels and wind turbines.
Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS)
The Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) is an independent scheme that certifies
microgeneration products and installers in accordance with consistent standards. It is designed to
assess them against robust criteria, which will provide greater protection for consumers. NICEIC runs its own highly successful MCS.
MCS Installation Database
The MCS Installation Database was launched on the 1st April 2010 and is used by MCS certificated
installers to register MCS installations that have been carried out. The MCS Installation Database is used to generate a certificate for a customer’s installation which can be used by the customer to obtain FITs, provided it was commissioned on or after 15th July 2009.
National Grid
The National Grid is the electric power transmission network which ensures that the entire UK has a
ready supply of energy regardless of where it originates from. As part of the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) scheme, any extra power generated from microgeneration based systems goes back into the National Grid.
Planning permission
You don't usually need planning permission for the installation of microgeneration systems, but it is
worth checking first with your local planning officer, especially if your building is listed or is in a
conservation area.
Renewable energy/renewables
A term often used in conjunction with microgeneration. Renewable energy comes from natural
resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides and geothermal heat, all of which can be naturally
replenished.
Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI)
This is a similar scheme in principle to the Feed-In-Tariff (FIT) scheme but will focus on heat generation. The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is scheduled to go live on 1st April 2011, however, the new coalition government is still to confirm its support for the scheme and respond to the consultation. Its decision is due at the same time as the spending review which will take place this autumn.
Savings
The national average household consumption of electricity in the UK, excluding heating, is 3300kWh. A 2kWp solar PV system in a good location in the UK will generate around 1,700kWh of electricity per year. This is enough to meet just over half of the average household's electricity needs and the system would also save almost a tonne of CO2 a year.
Solar photovoltaic (PV)
A technology used in solar panels, the flat, black glass panels that are usually installed on roofs to
convert sunlight into electricity. Solar PV technology is improving at an impressive rate, allowing it to become more efficient and effective at generating electricity.
Solar thermal
Similar in appearance to solar PV panels, solar thermal systems are situated on roofs to provide a
property with hot water by using the sun’s rays to heat water flowing through pipes on the panel. This is then passed through a coil in the household hot water cylinder or heat store, where it heats the domestic hot water supply. A typical domestic solar hot water system can provide almost all of an average family's hot water in the summer months and about 50-70% of its annual requirement.
27%
The amount of the UK’s total carbon emissions that are produced by our homes. The increased
adoption of microgeneration technologies will significantly reduce this figure.
Wind turbines
The UK has an abundance of good quality wind. Wind turbines allow the wind to turn blades which are linked to an internal generator which produces electricity. These are free standing machines, which are usually erected in suitably exposed positions where there is plenty of wind – the more wind, the more electricity produced.