Space-age roof

Sometimes, when I'm walking along streets blessed with an absence of traffic, I look up at the roofs. Sometimes these are pretty and atmospheric, with gothic turrets, or art deco friezes, or perhaps they are thatched or gently undulating along the ridge where weight has been borne for hundreds of years. And sometimes, they are just ordinary. Our roof is, or at least was, definitely the latter.

And that is why we had no difficulty deciding to put its large, and previously idle, area to some use: making electricity. We invested in a project to install nine of these futuristic works of art:


On the big day, the British weather obliged with its finest, wettest, rain!


But the gentlemen who came to do the work were no sissies, and carried on regardless

In just one day, everything on the roof was finished!

Arty close-up:


Another atmospheric shot, with reflections of clouds (for people who like that sort of thing):

There's something pleasingly geometrical about that pattern (getting a bit carried away now):


It also co-ordinates perfectly with the décor in the room inside the roof:


It's an interesting coincidence that a set-up like this provides roughly the same amount of energy that a person would spend on physical work (for the curious, the daily average of 4 kWh is the same amount of energy as 3,440 food calories).