City of York trials Vaillant solar domestic hot water

The City of York is trialling Vaillant’s solar DHW system in a property in the village of Wheldrake to the south east of York, which is expected to halve the cost of DHW. British Gas Housing Services Group is installing the auroTHERM solar panels, an ecoTEC plus condensing system boiler and a 200 litre auroSTOR cylinder. Steve Lawson, senior projects surveyor for the City of York Council, comments, ‘All local authorities and housing associations are now looking into having renewable energy sources as part of their housing stock. This solar trial is the first renewable energy project we are running. We will be looking at other schemes in the future to determine which options are the best value. The installation of the solar panels went very smoothly. We will now be monitoring the use of this fuel against the gas bills for the previous two years to evaluate the payback and benefits this type of installation could have for our customers. ‘It has been useful for our contractor, British Gas, to receive training and gain experience installing solar panels. We selected Vaillant for this particular project because we have experience of them as a supplier and are confident about the quality of their products and service.’ Dave Sullivan of British Gas Housing Services says, ‘Our installers attended a training course at Vaillant’s training centre prior to the installations. It meant that we were really familiar with how Vaillant’s domestic solar hot water system works before we started.’

Related links:

• www.vaillant.co.uk/

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