Free solar panel discussion

sennenboy

We live in south Glos and had PV cells installed in the middle of July By Ecocetera ( a local Bristol company.) They came up with a cost efective price and the owner is commited to Green energy. They did a brilliant job. As of today we are crrently running at over 10% more electricity than was projected using the government figs. ( That is already over £500 in FIT payments let alone the free electricity we have used.)
Thje negative side is that to make the most cost effective use of the free electricity you have to set off the dishwasher, washing machine in the middle of the day when you are generating the most electricity. It has been fun having the oven on and the meter still not moving. It has also changed the way we look at things which has saved us even more.
If you want to see what our sytem looks like I have added an address below. Am a great convert it is great to do something for the enviroment ( reducing my C02 footprint and also make some money.) Am more than happy to talk through my experiences if anyone needs more info.To see our system go to ecocetera.com and look for large domestic system yate.

John_Pierpoint

pauldreed wrote: »

ASG installed their system on my home yesterday, and here are a few photos of what and how it was installed.
1) Firstly the scaffolding was erected (a few days earlier)
2) 18 Panels fitted
3) The Inverter, Isolating Switches and Meter fitted in the loft
4) A separate fuse and isolating switch fitted in garage next to consumer unit
5) Seperate power tails (coming from 4 above) being fed into the meter via a Henley block

What is interesting, is that their system is totally separate to the home circuit and does not feed in through my consumer unit - this is reallly good because I am able to monitor what is being generated, as well as how much is being used within the home.

Overall, a very tidy and impressive installation. No mess, and everything done very neatly.

(Also posted in the thread - 'Free solar power system. Is it a scam?')

Excellent posting Paul.

For the likes of me, who are not very technical and out of date, could you just talk us through the pictures 3 4 & 5, so we know which coloured wire leads to which chocolate/silver coloured gizmo in your meter cupboard?

EG: The direct current from the two arrays of 9 panels comes down from the roof in the two black wires.
These pass into a white di pole 16 amp isolating rotary switch. (turning the black rotor on the white switch disconnects both wires between the panels and the inverter if maintenance or replacement should be required)

Two black wires come out of the bottom of the isolating switch and carry the direct current into the "EFFEKTA" inverter.

The "EFFEKTA" inverter incorporates....................................

grahamc2003

jackieblack wrote: »

It is my understanding (but am happy to be corrected if I have mis-understood this) that if you have solar pv and use your immersion heater to heat water during the day while the panels are generating electricity, you're getting your hot water heated for free

No need for seperate solar hot water panels - saving of £939!

Hi again Jackie ... well you did imply your were willing to be corrected, so I'll be the bearer of bad news this time (as opposed to Cardew, who has taken a bit of abuse for posts as I am about to make).

No, you won't get your hot water for free, and no you won't save £939 with a typical 3.3kw capacity pv system. Not anywhere near in fact.

You immersion heater is probably 3kw. A typical system will generate 3kw only on the sunniest midsummers day, and only for at the most a couple of hours around midday. I'm afraid, even at that handful of hours during the whole year, you are still very unlikely to get free hot water - because you also have some background power requirements for things like fridges, standby, battery chargers etc etc, say typically alternating between 50w (for the very careful) to 200-300w (for the not so careful). So add in the background use, and almost certainly, when you turn your immersion heater on during the most favourable few hours pa, you'll almost certainly still be drawing power from the grid, which you'll pay for.

Of course, the other 99.5% of the time, the panels won't generate anything like 3kw, so at those times, you'll always be drawing grid power. From the distribution of power generated posted above by Zuepater, half the generation (which translates to much more than half the time, probably 90% of the time) is below 1.5kW.

The best estimates for the savings on electricity bills with a typical system are between £40 and £140. The sting in the tail is, if some people who get cheap nightimne rates, like those on e7, switch high powered items from nightimes use to use around lunchtime to use the 'free' electricity, then they are likely to have higher power bills, not lower.

energysavingexp

jackieblack wrote: »

It is my understanding (but am happy to be corrected if I have mis-understood this) that if you have solar pv and use your immersion heater to heat water during the day while the panels are generating electricity, you're getting your hot water heated for free

No need for seperate solar hot water panels - saving of £939!

Very true but will your pv system generate enough lecy on a dull and rainy day to produce the 3kw required to heat the emersion heater plus all the other stuff pluged in ie: telly, fridge, freezer ect.
the hot water panels are a lot more efficent than pv.

Doc_N

jackieblack wrote: »

My system is due to be fitted next week! I'm feeling sick with worry about this, it is a major amount of money for us. I never thought we'd be able to afford solar panels, but am investing an inheritance I received, (the FITs made it look like a good long-term investment) and if they cancel it with immediate effect we'll be up the creek without a paddle.
Keeping everything crossed!

I think you can breathe again, Jackie. There was no specific mention of the existing FIT payments in Osborne's speech, and all I can see in the Spending Review document is this:

The efficiency of Feed-In Tariffs will be improved at the next formal review, rebalancing them in favour of more cost effective carbon abatement technologies. This will save £40 million in 2014-15.

Jon_Tiffany

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Hi again Jackie ... well you did imply your were willing to be corrected, so I'll be the bearer of bad news this time (as opposed to Cardew, who has taken a bit of abuse for posts as I am about to make).

No, you won't get your hot water for free, and no you won't save £939 with a typical 3.3kw capacity pv system. Not anywhere near in fact.

graham - I hope you are willing to be corrected.

£939 is the cost of the solar hot water. That and the large smiley that Jackie added leads me to believe that she was saying the saving is from not having to buy a solar hot water system, not from savings on gas/electric....

Cardew

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

graham - I hope you are willing to be corrected.

£939 is the cost of the solar hot water. That and the large smiley that Jackie added leads me to believe that she was saying the saving is from not having to buy a solar hot water system, not from savings on gas/electric....

Jon,
Agreed that the £939 was from not needing solar thermal panels.

However the way I read this:

It is my understanding (but am happy to be corrected if I have mis-understood this) that if you have solar pv and use your immersion heater to heat water during the day while the panels are generating electricity, you're getting your hot water heated for free

Is Jackie believes that solar PV will provide all heated hot water by powering an immersion heater.

The point zeupater made in another thread(backed by myself) is that using any high powered electrical appliance like an immersion heater(rather than gas or E7) to heat water will result in higher bills, rather than reduced bills. Graham2003 has explained why.

Many of the people getting the 'free' panels seem not to appreciate that for the vast majority of the year the panels do not produce sufficient energy to power these appliances and so the cost of using electricity from the mains to 'top up' the power to 3kW will exceed what it would cost to heat the water using gas or E7.

In very round figures the panels will need to be producing above 2.5kW to make heating water economical.

energysavingexp

Cardew wrote: »

Jon,
Agreed that the £939 was from not needing solar thermal panels.

However the way I read this:



Is Jackie believes that solar PV will provide all heated hot water by powering an immersion heater.

The point zeupater made in another thread(backed by myself) is that using any high powered electrical appliance like an immersion heater(rather than gas or E7) to heat water will result in higher bills, rather than reduced bills. Graham2003 has explained why.

Many of the people getting the 'free' panels seem not to appreciate that for the vast majority of the year the panels do not produce sufficient energy to power these appliances and so the cost of using electricity from the mains to 'top up' the power to 3kW will exceed what it would cost to heat the water using gas or E7.

In very round figures the panels will need to be producing above 2.5kW to make heating water economical.

That is why you need to get solar hot water panels so you can have
free hot water even in winter.
if you get the vacume tube ones, you still get water up to 40'c on the dull winter days.
and 40'c is hot enough for a shower.

Jon_Tiffany

Cardew wrote: »

Jon,
Agreed that the £939 was from not needing solar thermal panels.

However the way I read this:



Is Jackie believes that solar PV will provide all heated hot water by powering an immersion heater.

The point zeupater made in another thread(backed by myself) is that using any high powered electrical appliance like an immersion heater(rather than gas or E7) to heat water will result in higher bills, rather than reduced bills. Graham2003 has explained why.

Many of the people getting the 'free' panels seem not to appreciate that for the vast majority of the year the panels do not produce sufficient energy to power these appliances and so the cost of using electricity from the mains to 'top up' the power to 3kW will exceed what it would cost to heat the water using gas or E7.

In very round figures the panels will need to be producing above 2.5kW to make heating water economical.

I wasn't disagreeing with that aspect of the post - I agree that its much better to heat water with gas at 3-4p than leccy at 9-12p. I was pointing that graham had jumped on Jackie's post without fully understanding what she had said.

The exception is that of boiling a kettle, where it is cheaper to heat with electric than on a gas ring. This is because the electric kettle is so much more efficient at heating the water its enough to offset the higher energy cost.

What is needed is a simple device that can sense when your pv system is exporting and direct the correct amount of leccy into the heating element for your hot water.

energysavingexp

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

I wasn't disagreeing with that aspect of the post - I agree that its much better to heat water with gas at 3-4p than leccy at 9-12p. I was pointing that graham had jumped on Jackie's post without fully understanding what she had said.

The exception is that of boiling a kettle, where it is cheaper to heat with electric than on a gas ring. This is because the electric kettle is so much more efficient at heating the water its enough to offset the higher energy cost.

What is needed is a simple device that can sense when your pv system is exporting and direct the correct amount of leccy into the heating element for your hot water.

Re the simple device that you need.
ive got an old meter so when im not in or not using leccy the meter will goes backwards then when i come home i can re use the leccy
for free.
another way you can store it is by plugging in a battery charger during the day and charge some deep cycle batterys. then using an inverter to run your equipment on at night for free.