Transition Town Worthing has launched its fourth Eco Open Houses Worthing, in collaboration with Green Open Homes.
The Shoreham house on the trail was among the first in the country to get a Powerwall, which stores energy produced by the solar PV and uses it for power when there is no sun.
Warren and Bairbre Philips bought the house at 14 Juniper Walk, Shoreham, in August 2015 and set it up with the solar panels a month later, then bought an electric car the following month. Warren said: “We were looking for a property to facilitate this. We did it for our daughter, Senna. It is the future and we are at the cutting edge.”
The 14kW Tesla Powerwall 2 battery was added last July and Warren said the whole set-up cost them about £15,000. Thanks to the battery, during the summer months, almost all the electricity they use, including charging the car, will be generated from the sun. Bairbre said: “It is silent and the great thing about it is it is fully automated. It is much easier than we predicted, so it is not just for the technology types, it is for the faint-hearted as well.
“The whole idea of storing energy in your house is the future going forward. The energy companies don’t have the capacity for storage, so it has to be constantly produced. By having home storage, every home is using a more stable, steady amount of energy, which means they will need to produce less.”
At first, Bairbre was having to think about timing things like the washing machine for when the sun was at its strongest but with the Powerwall, there is less need to worry about it.
Warren said: “It is so simple. The monitoring is amazing. It’s a lovely little piece of kit. The beauty of it is there is nothing to do.” He can keep an eye on everything using an app on his phone, which shows what power has been generated and when it has been used.
Read more: Shoreham Herald