The First Entry

Well, this is the first entry in my new blog. I thought I ought to start one so I can look back and see what I have done with my time.
As of Monday I am working full time on a new venture RenSMART. A a cost comparison web service for renewable energy systems in the UK. The project did not start well as I immediately came down with a cough and cold. The first cough I have had in years.
Now it's Wednesday and I'm back on track. The first tasks I have decided to focus on are an energy use service for measuring the energy used on a site minute by minute and the RenSMART financial model that estimates projected revenue from any renewable energy system installed in the UK.
I decided to work on the energy monitoring service as my initial investigation into the financial model showed that the amount of energy a site uses and when it is used is the biggest factor in predicting profitability. Although a site with a given renewable energy system may generate more energy that it uses, if the energy is generated at a time when the site does not require it, the revenue generated is at the export to grid tariff rate. If the time energy is generated matches the requirements of the site, the revenue generated is the saving of the electricity that does not get imported from the grid. The export rate is set at about 5p per kWh whereas the import rate is about 12 to 14p. You can see that energy that matches site requirements is worth 7 to 9p more than energy that is exported. By monitoring energy use, we can build an average profile for a site and better estimate the revenue generated.
The RenSMART financial model takes this profile, renewable system information and estimates for renewable energy available and gives a 20 year projection of estimated returns (25 years for Solar PV as the technology lasts longer)
And there we have it, my first post, and a long one at that.