Slowly, Slowly...

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When it comes to selling green tech and energy generation to the general public, I would say we've been using the wrong narrative to convince people with limited resources to buy into the the new low-carbon revolution. Everything hitherto has been framed in grand gestures and bleeding edge technology, none of which is affordable to most of us. £30-40k for a car? £10k for a solar installation? Heat pumps, ground source, passivhaus, triple glazing and the rest of it spell a second mortgage [if you're lucky enough to own your own place] even given any available grant support. Couple this with the largely shaky trustworthiness of pretty much global private outsourcing in the provision of the stuff, and you have a pretty solid recipe for general apathy regarding adoption, leaving the uptake of green tech to the fashionistas-with-the-dosh who oh-so-want to demonstrate their green creds in offsetting their otherwise ludicrously energy-profligate lifestyles.

A re-framing of the basics is needed to attract a sufficient number of the general population into joining the 'club', both in terms of cost and in terms of ease of adoption. Which means thinking incrementally rather than globally. As the old saying goes, 'Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.' Get people on board making small changes to both their impact on the environment and on their energy bills, rather than going big and trying to sell the world in a basket at great cost to them, will achieve far more in the long run towards achieving the broader goal of actually saving the planet from the activities of our species. 

One such entry-point piece of technology is plug-in solar: already popular in many countries, this simple, cheap addition to a household's energy flow offers approximately a 20% supplement to an average UK home's power usage - not the full whack that a ten grand full solar installation could achieve, admittedly - but a one-fifth contribution towards the annual fuel bills for all of us, if adopted, can't be scoffed at. And if everyone takes on the option of a capital spend of just a few hundred quid - a typical two-panel 800w setup is about £400 - then the overall carbon savings across the UK would be pretty damned significant.

Once everyone's on board with the idea that they can actually start saving money and by default, our planet, for the cost of a quick trip to their local DIY store for an off the shelf solution that doesn't require 'experts' to install, we can genuinely start thinking about a green revolution as being realisable and normal rather than simply some fashionable virtue-signalling by the wealthier amongst us. Green power for the masses has to start small, and in the world of recognisable household commodities, and I think that plug-in [balcony] solar is the right first step in that direction. We're considering it strongly here in Fairview Heights. Watch this space... 

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