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Shetland's first zero carbon houses

Posted: 04/09/2007

The fight against climate change has received a boost from a Shetland partnership who have pledged to build the isles' first houses with no carbon footprint by the end of next year. The "unplugged hydrogen houses", claimed to be the first in the world, will not be connected to the mains and will solely use wind, solar and renewable hydrogen technology for heating and electricity.

The co-operation between the Unst based PURE energy centre and the Hjaltland Housing Association (HHA) was endorsed by founder of the microchip processor ARM, Sir Robin Saxby, who was in Shetland to launch the pioneering scheme.

The housing revolution is due to take place on a greenfield site in Eshaness, in Northmavine, overlooking the Drongs, one of Shetland's outstanding beauty spots.

Initially two houses are to be built in what Sir Robin described as a "serious feasibility study" to get valuable and reliable data to develop the next step.

Over the next 10 years, PURE and HHA hope to become a market leader for a product, that is predicted to have a worldwide appeal.

PURE Energy Centre managing director Daniel Aklil said the company was to install two combined heat and power (CHP) systems, which could be run on wind as well as solar energy to heat the house.

The wind is also being used to produce hydrogen, which will be stored in a state of the art fuel cell, smaller than a dishwasher, to heat the house at times the wind was not blowing. "Forty per cent of the worldwide population lives with no access to electricity and heat. The CHP scheme will provide these populations with such access. It will also provide communities around the world with access to clean hydrogen fuel to power clean vehicles," Mr Aklil said.

Sir Robin Saxby said Shetland was the perfect place to start a project to find energy solutions as all the expertise and ingredients were readily available.

"The fact that all this wind is sitting here waiting to be harnessed gives you your global competitive advantage. The idea is very appealing, as it is clean energy." Mr Aklil said: "There will be no impact on the environment whatsoever. This is totally clean energy."

HHA managing director Robin Sandison added that the association had been keen for many years to move into this new sector. He said: "It is incumbent on us to make our houses as efficient as we can. That means we make them efficient through passive means such as increasing insulation, but we also need to go for greater fuel efficiency. We have a lot of energy in Shetland that we are not making proper use of at all, and it always has been a bit of a dream of mine that we move in that direction, and now we have got the opportunity to do that."

The two super-efficient houses are being designed by Nick Brett of Richard Gibson Architects. An application for planning consent has been lodged and Hjaltland Housing Association is confident that the first tenants will move in by November 2008.

Hans J Marter / The Shetland News  
 

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