Location: Gerddi'r Mynydd, Brecon, Wales
Date: November 2010
Category: Social Housing

Melin Homes is a housing association working towards making a positive difference for their tenants. At the end of last year they decided to be the first housing association to self fund solar PV on their housing stock. Southern Solar Installed 1.5kW systems on 24 or their new affordable homes.

The 1.5 kW systems will generate around 1351kWh which should save the tenants an average of £100 a year on their electricity bills, as well as instigating a behaviour change by communicating the importance of energy saving. Each property has a system made up of 9 175W Sharp panels, These panels are manufactured in Wrexham Wales, we believe that it is crucial to help build the UK solar manufacturing industry and boost the local economy as much as possible!

We provided all of the tenants with advice on how to keep their electricity bills as low as possible. As part of the project each home is fitted with a smart meter which helps the tenants to keep track of how much energy they are using, how much they are using themselves and how much is feeding back into the grid.

The Smart meter also feeds back to Melins management team to they can ensure that all the solar systems are operating at their optimum level.

Melin will allow the tenants to use all of the electricity coming from the panels to reduce their bills. They will claim all of the income stream generated by the Feed-in Tariff they will use this to fund additional renewable projects for their tenants.