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Lower Brockhampton July 2007
July 14th-15th Green Event at Lower Brockhampton, Herefordshire.

National Trust property, Lower Brockhampton - a fourteenth century moated manor house played host to a green weekend, exhibiting various renewable technologies, organic foods, home composting techniques and advice from the local Energy Agency. During the event, Navitron's 440W solar PV array turned the bright sunshine into electricity which was fed directly into the National Grid. Navitron also exhibited their new low-cost solar-kettle concept to the public for the first time - serving up piping hot cups of tea, coffee and soup, heated directly from the sun, inside solar vacuum tubes (visible to the right, in the picture below)

Susan Brace, Visitor Services Manager for Lower Brockhampton samples solar-powered tea for the first time, courtesy of Navitron.

Old versus New - Navitron's 440W grid-tied Mobile Photovoltaic Array against the backdrop of the fourteenth century manor and gatehouse.

The Solar Vacuum Tubes, normally employed in 20 tube arrays for heating domestic hot water, can be cunningly converted into zero-carbon solar-powered kettles. It took approximately 2½ hours to heat the water sufficiently to make tea and coffee - rather longer than a standard kettle, but unlike a regular kettle that requires 2-3kW of electrical power, the solar kettle requires not electrical energy whatsoever - it's entirely carbon-neutral - whereas a regular kettle would produce over 30litres of carbon dioxide emission each time it is boiled.

Steve K of Navitron checking temperatures of the solar-kettles

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Steve serves a cup of solar-powered tea to a bemused visitor.

One of Navitron's youngest representatives