Case Study

Halton Borough Council, Runcorn, Cheshire, UK

Energy & Services Manager Dave Hayman says: “I have been interested in solar power for many years. The problem has always been that the early technology relied on heat from the sun and here in the North West we don’t get a reliable supply. But now with vacuum tube technology, which relies on light rather than heat, we have a workable solar power system for Britain. And the Solar Tracker in which it is installed gives us an added advantage. It tracks the sun through the sky during the whole day, whatever the weather which gives us hours more light than a static fixed solar panel would be able to.”

Halton Borough Council’s Energy & Services Manager turned to this unique piece of technology because of the cost of electricity: “When I realised how much the immersion heaters were costing us to provide hot water for the toilets on each of our eight floors, I thought I’d take a serious look at solar again.”

Dave admits that like so many other people he was sceptical to begin with, until he discovered the Solar Tracker and its vacuum tube technology: “I have always felt that the 800 watts per square metre you got from the heat of the sun would not be enough for us up here, but this new solar application was very different. With our toilets being heavy users of electricity I had the best reason in the world to act. I opted for the Solar Tracker because my calculations tell me that it will provide for our needs for at least 78 per cent of the year, with the rest being topped up by our immersion heaters. And even though September has been a wet and rainy month up here we have not used immersion heaters yet. I forecast an average saving of 30,000 kilowatts a year or 16 tons of carbon dioxide that is not being pumped into the atmosphere. So the Council is saving money and dramatically cutting pollution. It’s amazing. In fact the Solar Tracker is doing more than anything else to change the minds of a lot of sceptics up here!”