Quite often people don’t always associate places of outstanding natural beauty with eco products. Some see solar panels and wind turbines ugly structures which are a blot on the landscape.

However, there are places where both our great English countryside and new green energy sources can work together in harmony.

One particular place where green credentials and the beauty of our countryside meet is in south Cornwall, on a small National Trust beach called Kynance cove. Between the waves, rocks, caves and beach lies a small cafe and holiday cottage, which at first glance, looks pretty normal and like many other cafes and small holiday cottages, but take a closer look, and you may notice its many, many solar panels. Both the cafe and cottage use a roof full of solar panel tiles in place of normal slate tiles to produce clean renewable energy. And because these tiles look very similar to slate they blend into the building and surrounding countryside very well.

Kynance cove has been owned by the Nation Trust since 1999 and the cottage and cafe underwent an eco transformation with the help of its new owners. In fact it was the very first National Trust building to be fitted with solar panels; 564 of them to be exact.

Over the years these PV (Photo-Voltaic) solar tiles have really proved themselves. They feed into the national grid and over the period of a year can produce 5,000 kilowatt hours of electricity which is enough for the cafe to make a staggering 45,455 cups of tea! Plus, the solar panels will work even on cloudy days during winter, proving just how good solar technology is. And as you can see by the image above they haven’t faded or discoloured at all.

But that’s not all. Alongside the cafe and holiday cottage are some eco friendly public toilets which use water from a nearby spring and use low-flush cisterns. Beneath these toilets lies an ingenious sewage treatment system which deals with all the waste water from the public toilets and cafe.

The waste water is collected and aerated in a balance tank (1) and once full it is pumped into a biological reactor thank (2), where it is digested by bacteria. This ‘treated’ liquid passes through a screening sack which removes any non-organic material before being disinfected by ultra-violet lights (3). Finally the clear, clear water is discharged into the nearby stream (4).

This process can take as little as 24 hours on busy days and over the course of a year uses less electricity than the solar panels on the roof of the cafe and cottage generate.

This small, but beautiful National Trust area in the south of Cornwall proves that the natural beauty of our landscape doesn’t have to be compromised by installing large or ugly renewable energy sources to be environmentally friendly. Renewable power can be obtained while sitting comfortably into its surroundings.