As I mentioned on Monday, I’m in Belgium and visited Boss Paints on Tuesday to interview the boss, Toon Bossuyt. Boss has done many clever things, many of which will feature in my next book, but one is to produce 25% of the electricity supply from solar PV on the roof.

Belgium has gone solar mad – there are incentives for installation and a feed-in tariff to guarantee a decent return. When Boss first put 64 panels on the roof, it was the biggest in Belgium. Now they have 1477, but they’ve still not retained that accolade. When I’ve been travelling to and fro by train it is rare not to see one roof in every suburb or village with a sizeable array.

In the picture above, there’s a silver coating on the roof which keeps the buildings cool in summer – it also has an albedo effect – reflecting the suns’ rays back into space without causing climate change. Clever.