The car, which took several months to design, is equipped with a 2bhp electric engine fed by a battery that stores energy harnessed by roof-mounted reflective solar panels.
Although the region is blessed with abundant sunshine, the car battery can also be charged using mains electricity on cloudy days.

We live in an old terraced house on a cloudy, rainy island. Yet the solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on our roof, put up two years ago, are supplying around 90% of all the electricity used by my family.

The initial cost is high, but don’t let that put you off. Two key developments in recent months have made it worth considering solar PV panels.

One is that a government incentive for PV doubled on 1 April and the other is that interest rates on many savings accounts have dropped to about 0.1%, meaning it is time your money worked harder.

And don’t be deterred by the idea Britain doesn’t get enough sunshine. In fact, solar radiation here is remarkably consistent and only around one third less than southern Italy or Spain. I have just come to the end of my second year with a solar PV system on my roof and it has been a great success.

We have a 3kW peak system (about 4m by 3m) on the roof. It produced 2,703kW hours (kWh) in its second full year (to 5 April), only 1% lower than the 2,730 kWh it produced in the first year, and that in spite of a lousy 2008 summer.

That was about 80% of the 3,500 kWh we used, and our usage was up because we had builders do some underpinning, which meant lots of kettles and cement mixers on.

The previous year we – a family of four – used 3,000 kWh, so the solar system produced 92% of our needs, a figure we expect to return to in the coming 12 months.

The panels, made by Kyocera of Japan, come with a 25-year guarantee and should last a lot longer than that. What you effectively do when you buy a solar PV system is pre-buy decades of electricity at today’s price, thus shielding you from price rises. One great thing about a PV system is that it is “fit and forget” with little or no maintenance or noise. And they don’t have to go on a directly south-facing roof – ours points south-east and works very well.

So how do the figures work out? Well, buying 3,000 kWh of electricity normally would cost around £420, based on 14 pence/kWh with npower, our supplier. We end up saving almost £400 of that by producing nearly all our own.

On top of that, we were getting payments under the government’s Renewable Obligation Certification (ROC) scheme of around £35 per megawatt/hour, rounded to the nearest whole one. So that is £105, putting us about £70 in the black for the year.

Since 1 April, that ROC payment has doubled to £210, putting us about £175 in the black. That compares with £420 in the red without the panels – a gain of almost £600 a year.

Indeed, the system means that, with a condensing boiler, we are now down to only about £30 a month to heat and light our property while our carbon emissions are very low. So what about the investment yield? The system cost £17,000, for which we got a 50% grant, making £8,500. With a return of £600, that’s around 7%. It’s not taxed, so is equivalent of about 9% for a basic-rate taxpayer and 11% for a higher-rate taxpayer. You’d struggle to do better buying junk bonds and this stuff is ­certainly not junk!

Moreover, that gives you a crude payback period of only 10 years, not the 100 years that some critics have claimed.

Ah, you say, but that 50% grant is no longer available, the maximum is £2,500. True, but systems have come down in price since we installed ours, so your post-grant price for a system like ours would be around £12,000 now. The £600 saving gives a return of 5% (or 7% or 8.5% gross – not bad when compared with just about any other kind of investment these days).

And, if you are lucky enough to be on a tracker mortgage that is close to 0%, you could add on to your mortgage and it would really pay to invest in a PV system.

That 5% yield is likely to improve – next April, the government plans to introduce a so-called feed-in tariff (FIT) when you get paid an above-market price for every unit of electricity fed into the grid.

The ROC system gives you the equivalent of about 27p-28p per exported unit, but the FIT could well be higher than that. It is not clear how the FIT will work but it will probably replace the ROCs and the £2,500 grant.

And the yield will likely improve further as electricity prices are almost certain to increase faster than inflation over the next three decades.

Some critics say PV is an expensive way to save carbon, but system costs are plummeting as world supplies of silicon, from which PV is made, have shot up. Moreover, global panel production has rocketed in response to FITs in other countries. A PV system in Germany, for example, is about half the UK price – no wonder the Germans have 300 times as many PV systems installed as we do. But even with the higher UK prices, it is worth investing in a PV set-up.

Ah, but what if I move house, you ask? Well, I am convinced that a system that saves you £600 a year and protects you against future rises in electricity costs will add to the value of your house. How could it not? 

From the Guardian Saturday 9 May 2009

Well here’s a video explaining how:

Wind Up Radio for times when you want to chill in your tent or worse, when its raining.
Wind Up Shaver so you won’t look like a caveman!
Wind Up Headlamps are really useful if you need to do something with your hands whilst in the dark. Rolling something perhaps

There’s nothing worse than your mobile phone battery dying on you when you really need to find out where to meet your mates. Especially when you’re stood with 50,000 people in a field. Get yourself a Solar Mobile Charger and keep all you mates phoned charged up. They’ll love you for it. Oh and a few other things you might want to take!

Absolute essentials:

• Credit card
• Tent
• Sleeping bag

Toiletries:

• Deodorant/body spray.
• Asprin and a disinfectant like Germolene or Witchazel as well as plasters
• Toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash as well as mints
• Antibacterial handwash. Yes, this is a must!
• Loads of toilets roll and a few packets of tissues to carry round with you
• Baby Wipes. You can never have too many!
• Sun cream. If the sun is out all weekend you WILL burn – there’s often nowhere to hide.

Clothes:

• Loads of socks
• Old t-shirts / tops
• Two pairs of trousers that you don’t mind getting dirty
• Underwear – the amount depends on just how hygienic (or ‘un’) you are
• Waterproof jacket (eg cagoule or a mac)
• A warm jumper – the days may be hot but the nights do get cold
• A hat/bandanna to keep your head protected from the sun.

Miscellaneous things:

• Food. Tins will only weigh your bag down so don’t pack too many. Some crisps, cereal bars, high energy, high sugar foods
• Bin liners. Wet, muddy grass just isn’t nice to sit on. Also slip one into you rucksack and pack everything in it to avoid your clothes getting damp
• Money. Take enough to last you the weekend – cash machines tend to have massive queues and often run out
• Ear plugs. A god-send when you’ve had enough but 50,000 people haven’t!
• Torch with spare batteries
• A tin opener with a cork screw on it for the baked bean/wine lovers
• Condoms if you’re feeling lucky
• Sunglasses
• Tickets!!