Mike King is the proud owner of the largest domestic solar array in Shropshire, featuring a whopping 48 panels. Not surprisingly, Mike’s whole house – and 2 cars – run on green clean electricity. What is perhaps surprising is that Mike actually makes money on his energy bills! We met up with Mike for a tour and a chat.  

• What motivated you to buy all this wonderful green tech?

Our motivation is environmental.

Since I was a boy I was always fascinated by carnivorous plants. I remember my Grandmother comforting me when I got stung by a wasp, telling me about plants that eat insects. I got my first carnivorous plant in 1979 and now I have a nationally recognised collection. Some of them are endangered because their native habitat – in the deep south of the US and Florida – is now so limited, barely 1% of it remains, lots of it has been drained and developed.    

In 1983 I was studying A level Geography and our teacher was really passionate about renewable energy. He was really forward thinking and he inspired me. The North Sea oil bonanza was going on at the time but he said we just can’t keep on burning stuff, it’s not sustainable. We visited Dinorwig hydro and we passed close to the Centre for Alternative Technology. I remember he said that renewables would be our future – and he was right.

The motivation for us is concern for the climate, we just love renewable technology, but I have to admit the economics are great too.

It is my belief that mankind has a responsibility to be a good custodian of this planet, not just for future generations but for everything that lives on it. Ethically I just believe it’s wrong to keep on burning stuff which we know is causing climate change and harming the natural world.

• So how does it all work? Practically and financially

Everything in the house runs off renewable electricity, including our heating and hot water thanks to the heat pump. We run two cars which are both EVs, so we burn no fossil fuels at all. The motivation for us is concern for the climate, we just love renewable technology, but I have to admit the economics are great too.

Being disconnected from the gas grid means we pay no standing charge for gas, which saves us £130 a year.

I had always wanted to have solar PV, it just makes so much sense to generate your own power. We had them at our previous house, so it was the first thing we did when we moved here in 2017.

In no time at all the gas boiler was on its last legs, so my wife suggested we replace it with an air source heat pump. The house doesn’t actually take a lot of heating because it’s so well insulated, we have underfloor heating and the heat pump is so efficient. 400% efficiency is the stuff of dreams! We topped up the loft insulation to 310mm and installed triple glazed windows. Everest put them in, there wasn’t much difference in price between new triple and new double glazing. Whether you have gas, oil or electric heating it makes sense to insulate your home to reduce the amount of heat you need – so you’re saving both money and carbon. 

Over the year we actually make money on our energy bill. Everyone’s ears prick up when I tell them the figures. Actually making money on our energy bills, that really tickles people! 

The battery is a real gamechanger, combined with Octopus’ Intelligent Go tariff. You have to have an EV to qualify for this tariff. It gives you 6 hours electricity overnight at a cheap rate, currently 7.5p per kWh. We can draw as much as we need, so we don’t just charge the cars, we run the dishwasher, fill up the battery and get the heat pump running so the house is nice and warm, and we have a full tank of hot water. That’s the beauty of using cheap electricity at night when demand is really low. 

Best of all, in the summer we hardly use grid electricity at all. And by summer I mean 6 months of the year, May-October. In the height of summer the battery is usually full by 10 in the morning, from the solar panels. So we can then start exporting to the grid, and we get paid 15p per kWh for that. My wife and I live here with 2 teenage boys who love their X Box, so we do use a fair amount of electricity at home.

Plus we also run two electric cars! So we don’t spend a penny on petrol or diesel.

Smart tech runs it all for me so I don’t actually have to do anything, once I’ve set up how I want it to operate. I just use an app on my phone to check on the figures. 

The net result of all this is over the year we actually make money on our energy bill – about £10 a month so £120 a year. 

Running our home is zero carbon, burning no fossil fuels. I’m really proud of that. 

And more importantly running our home is zero carbon, burning no fossil fuels. I’m really proud of that. 

We know how lucky we are. We’re very aware not everyone can afford all this stuff – although prices have come down a lot since we installed the solar panels. It was just really important to us to get off gas so we prioritised buying green tech over buying other things. And as you can see it’s a really good investment!

• So would you encourage other people to take the plunge and go green?

Absolutely. If I get the chance I love to show people round the house and talk to them about green tech.

People come to visit us to buy carnivorous plants or just have a look at them. You can hardly miss all the solar panels when you visit our house! Some people are really interested, like me, in the tech and how cool it is. They can’t resist going for a spin in the Tesla! The sat nav screen lights up with all the charging points within 5 miles of our location – and there are lots where we live in Telford – so that deals with the ‘I can’t get an EV because the charging infrastructure is rubbish’ argument. Everyone loves the acceleration and the comfort in the Tesla, electric power is so immediate.

Everyone’s ears prick up when I tell them the figures. Actually making money on our energy bills, that really tickles people! 

You can visit Mike’s home to learn about solar PV, heat pumps and insulation during Green Open Homes, 19^th – 20^th and 26^th – 27^th October 2024.
Details will be available here: https://www.greenopenhomes.net/

In the meantime catch up with our really informative and interesting webinar on solar PV here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfEGcDX64o