What a great idea

[Joeboy]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62351448

[Bugtownboy]

Presume this -

https://boxpower.io/

Does look good, particularly as an option following natural disaster/grid failure in less developed/remote communities.

Suppose even if you lived in the U.K. and had a lot of land, could provide a quick PV option. No worries where to site your inverters/batteries, especially their minibox system.

[Oldgreybeard]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62351448

Pity they had to use a Canadian couple as an example, though. There are several UK off-gridders around, a good start would have been the Lammas community, that the BBC has already covered some years ago: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articl ... r-10-years or if they wanted a YouTube channel then they could have picked Kris Harbour: https://www.krisharbour.co.uk/ and https://www.youtube.com/c/KrisHarbour

[Stinsy]

Weird that the BBC are positioning this as sometimes g “one couple” are doing! There is a movement of people from the cities in the US cashing in the equity of their homes to buy land and self-build off-grid.

My favourite of the YouTube ones is: https://youtube.com/c/WildWonderfulOffGrid

[Mr Gus]

Not surprising that they choose to use Canadians at all to me.
Considering the "dirty hippies" govt agenda against the likes of swampy & co, be it for new roads, deforestation, nukes, ..this instantly removes the likelihood of established UK folk getting a foothold as someone who talks sense & gets camera time / maybe enough to stick it to govt at some time in the future, via the green party or drumming up locals against a polluting corporation on their doorstep.

The you tube footage is already there, so it's an inexpensive grab & edit a feel that fits whatever the BBC want to put out under its govt owner management.
They also avoid the solar panels using saplings forsupport, improper construction & bracing thats a stark contrast to rest with a solar build in the uk on a box estate with typically boxed in tiny gardens. (But close to a mega-tescos right

More exciting visuals because they have a "garden they can fit a tractor into" offgrid, = instant cool compared to visiting some bloke in Surrey whose garden has a few panels installed at various angles & has knowledge of the whats,watts, what & wherefore that would complicate things for the film crew they don't want to send out, ..connotations such as shed men, eccentric tinkerers etc, neatly avoided for something more "romantic" ...meaning about as far away as you can get from any aspect of the same project carried out in the UK by folk who don't whore themselves for you tube hits & monetisation, ..is zero science, just a bit of zoo-tv.

Those accents & their apparent enthusiasm.

Lammas community do not fit with screen time production values (sorry) hand knits, some hippy names & what some consider the back of beyond where there can also be, courtesy of the internet + local papers contrasting reports on community clashes ...so safe ground using Canadians eh!?

Yup, Kris harbour could have been a contender, but too technical for the majority of what they wanted "at this point" to achieve a collation of info around the likes of box power who get a big piece of the page, at least they have a basic explanation of grid suppliers not wanting that due to live power works, ..but that's been something any basic sparky has to deal with & work around in many a home in their careers, "to find & make safe"

[openspaceman]

I have just been speaking to a mate who lost his job in engineering design in UK and has moved to his grandparent's old home in North Spain. They only have electric heating or LPG.

As the PVGIS data for the site looked 8 times better than my house in January and December, and given I am veryhappy with my PV+battery, I suggested a modest investment in PV. He won't do it because he says it is taxed so heavilly there.

It seems a bit counter productive.

[Oldgreybeard]

I have just been speaking to a mate who lost his job in engineering design in UK and has moved to his grandparent's old home in North Spain. They only have electric heating or LPG.

As the PVGIS data for the site looked 8 times better than my house in January and December, and given I am veryhappy with my PV+battery, I suggested a modest investment in PV. He won't do it because he says it is taxed so heavilly there.

It seems a bit counter productive.

Some friends of ours live in Spain (more accurately Catalonia) and they have said the same. The taxation on solar panels there makes it prohibitively expensive to fit them. Seems that the Spanish power companies have a strong hold over the government and are determined not to allow anything that may impact their profits. Not that dissimilar to here, really.

[openspaceman]

Government is always looking for something conspicuous to tax, once it was windows perhaps PV panels next

[nowty]

Government is always looking for something conspicuous to tax, once it was windows perhaps PV panels next

Think of all that VAT on the lack of leccy import they are losing.

[openspaceman]

Yeah I hadn't considered that, I wonder how long we have got.

Most of us pay the government 33% on most purchases once we have used up the first £12k