h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This coming week we are having photovoltaic panels fitted on our roof. We already have solar panels which heat the water, and the remaining heating is done by pellets. We had a complete overhaul of the system about 5 years ago.

When we moved in in 1987 the house was heated by oil, but shortly afterwards the boiler went on the blink and we converted to gas. Now the old space where the oil tank was houses a sort of canvas bag with the pellets in, which is approximately the same size.

We get 4 tonnes delivered every couple of years. They are fed into the canvas bag by means of a huge pipeline from the lorry, which looks like a tanker. The little worm-like pellets rattle down the drive and down the cellar steps in yards and yards of this pipeline and make one helluva din.

This new system means that we shall be spending the weekend making space in the cellar for the huge batteries. That is easier said than done. There are centuries'-worth of junk down there that I have been trying to sort through for years. Plus several baskets of ironing and more pairs of shoes than Al Bundy sold in his entire career.

Somehow I'm just too whacked in the evenings to do much there (this applies to the past 20 years) and most of the time it's "out of sight, out of mind". So - this weekend, we'll probably end up bulldozing the junk from one side of the cellar to the other.

Back to the electricity: These days, apparently, you don't send all the power you produce up into the grid, but store it and use it yourself (hence the batteries). In summer there may well be a surplus, which is fed back to the grid, and in winter there may well not be enough, so the grid supplies us at a reduced rate. Of course the initial outlay is huge, and we're going to have to live a long time to reap the rewards....

We will have to get used to using washing machine, oven and other big users during the day, so we are using "free" electricity.

That's very exciting and forward-thinking.

Excellent! I heard today that used batteries, that are no longer powerful enough for electric cars, can still be used as domestic storage. Good move!

We are getting the hang of this PV lark. As it has been really sunny, we have produced quite a bit of power already. The house takes its power first directly from the panels, of which there are 20 now on the roof, 1.5 sq.m. Then, if there is no infrarot coming from the sky to produce electricity, it gets it from the batteries in the cellar and thirdly, if we haven no power of our own, it takes it from the grid.

I shall be doing my ironing at night time, mainly (because I'm at work during the day) but it would be more economical to do it during hours of sunlight.

We are also now officially a small business and have a VAT number!

Hoe do you start a small business?

Start a large business and then mismanage it so it shrinks.