Free solar panel discussion

Henbest

My ten years experiance with PV panels both on my shed roof and the front of the house facing south along with a much larger thermal tube collector is I have battery storage and a standard inverter so I am in control of my own genarated electricty.
My reason at the time was making sure my gas boiler and central heating pumps continued to run during possible power cuts. My back shed roof at almost a 15 degree angle is a 700 watt system conected to 6 x 100 Ah batteries wired to a 1,500 watt inverter that is wired into my 2 240 volt 3 pin sockets which are conected to my rain water harvesting pumps.
In the summer I switch my household AC off to run my deepfreeze in the shed 100% from my solar array.
If I sell my house as I plan as I now have new advanced designs for all 3 technologies, I do plan to buy into the feed in tariff, but tripple my battery bank using latest in battery technology and without given to much away, transfer 100% of all the day time PV genaration to receive the £0.41.3 p with zero exported to the grid, thus maintaining my security of supply to reduce further my electricty needs outside sunlight hrs

beedydad

Hi Graham2003 - your post 340

MCS installers

Interesting what you say that it is the company not necesarily the individual.

However, you will still need as many competant persons be they "subbed" to install the amount that these companies claim.

Secondly they will have to have an absolutely watertight checking process that the installs are up to MCS qualification, they will have to have, probably photo evidence, project worksheet, stage fittings etc and fully qualified electricians.

I would expect those whom are empowered to give out the FIT's will want such checking etc in place.

Otherwise another potential nightmare if not installed correclty.

Oh dear!

Regards

Henbest

Jon, as electricity cannot be stored, the household during the day as no need of it, why is the Utility via Ofgem paying out £0.413p a kWh and if that is so, where does the £0.3p exported electricty figure come from?
If we matched our electricty consumption over a year with the genarated solar electricty matching, surely we would not be paying anything for our electricty and gaining still the £0.413 for what was genarated ?

John_Pierpoint

That is right, your electricity supplier pays you for not using their high carbon electricity.

Jon_Tiffany

Henbest wrote: »

Jon, as electricity cannot be stored, the household during the day as no need of it, why is the Utility via Ofgem paying out £0.413p a kWh and if that is so, where does the £0.3p exported electricty figure come from?
If we matched our electricty consumption over a year with the genarated solar electricty matching, surely we would not be paying anything for our electricty and gaining still the £0.413 for what was genarated ?

There are two tariffs in the scheme:

Generation tariff - this is paid for every kWh generated, regardless of wether it is used on site or exported to the grid.

Export tariff - this is paid for every kWh exported to the grid.

IF your electricity meter goes backwards during export, AND you match your useage to the same as or less than the generation AND your electric co does not have standing charges, then your bill would be zero.

grahamc2003

Henbest wrote: »

If I sell my house as I plan as I now have new advanced designs for all 3 technologies, I do plan to buy into the feed in tariff, but tripple my battery bank using latest in battery technology and without given to much away, transfer 100% of all the day time PV genaration to receive the £0.41.3 p with zero exported to the grid, thus maintaining my security of supply to reduce further my electricty needs outside sunlight hrs

Sorry to be the bearer of possibly bad news, but I don't think you qualify for the FIT, since you already have a system installed (could someone else confirm that is correct please?)

In any case, to get the FIT, you have to have someone working for an approved company to install the system - whether they would or are allowed to install the system as you wish (which makes perfect sense btw) I don't know.

Jon_Tiffany

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Sorry to be the bearer of possibly bad news, but I don't think you qualify for the FIT, since you already have a system installed (could someone else confirm that is correct please?)

In any case, to get the FIT, you have to have someone working for an approved company to install the system - whether they would or are allowed to install the system as you wish (which makes perfect sense btw) I don't know.

Correct, on the assumption that the equipment and installer are not MCS approved.

Henbest

Digitaltoast, you are not alone regarding the inificiency of PV panels at 14-16% ending up covering the roof to genarate 24-48 volts of DC power that is then converted to AC power (using electricty) and then exported into an inefiecent transmission system where 7% of electricty genarated is lost in transmission from the power station to the home and business.
I have always consided expanding my solar thermal vacuum tube from 44 tubes to 90 tubes (12m2) that through the test reports show an output during peak hrs of 2,500 watts per 4m2.
My mid terraced home of 3 beds ect requires space heating from Mid October to end of May, even June in past years.
No transfer of energy to the grid as unlike genarated solar electricty unless battery storage is used, the solar thermal heated water transfered through a thermal store (no not a twin unvenetd cylinder) allows 100% of all that day time thermal genarated heat to be circulated through the heating system throughout the day while everybody is at work, thus reducing the amount of fossil fuel heated water to bring the house back up to 22c from the low temperture of 13c or lower depending on levels of insulation.
How will pouring billions into genarating electricty from solar DC panels, of which 80% are imported along with Inverters keep this countries homes and business heated ? while no insulation in the world or changing a light bulb from 100 watts to 10 watts will affect how much energy is needed to heat our tanks of hot water up 2-3 times a day for 365 days a year.
This country spends £70 billion + on its energy needs, with gas and oil disapearing faster, as Europe sucks in supplies for the comming winter, HOW WILL UK PLC MANAGE TO BALANCE OUR TRADE PAYMENTS IF OUR GROWING GAS IMPORTS AND OIL AND COAL AND SOON URANIUN = SOLAR PANELS AND INVERTERS BE PAID FOR?

Henbest

I was not aware with the feed in tariff the meter went backwards.
So those who are not happy about the amount of electricty they are genarating, in affect consuming more than they produce from the solar panels?
Surely it must make financhial sence for all of these reading and contributing to this Forum who are complaining about returns from investments and cash in the bank less inflation and tax paid (as Martin keeps talking about on the Jerimy Vine show) and while they lose money left in bank and building society accounts, then complain about greedy Utility suppliers like British gas and again told by Martin to switch suppliers.
Sorry rabbiting on
Back to my reasoning
If both money in the bank is rubbish and everybody excepts that gas and electricty prices will rise (ontop of the Utility charges for the FIT) lets at water and sewage as well, then the first thing a home owner should be doing is to dispose of every appliance that is not AA rated, fit a device that turns off stand by appliances and exchange every light bulb with the very expensive LED lamps now coming to market that use less than 3 watts compared to say a 50 watt Halogen.
Doing that would cost ??? £2,000, but then you have an electricty cost being a closure match to the solar array and may even cost less now the homes consuption has been cut.

Cardew

Henbest wrote: »

Can sombody in this forum confirm the following:

If during the day while the familiy are at work and kids at school in say the 6 months of summer, the only electricty demand is from the AA rated energy efficent fridge consuming 300 watts an hr.
Nothing in my house is left on standby.
My 2.5kWh PV system on a clear blue sky day during peak hrs is genarating 2kW, either side of peak hrs 50% less at 1 kW giving a total days genaration of 9,000 watts?

In the six hours my fridge has used 1,800 watts which pays me £0.41.3 p a kWh.
The balance of electricty genarated goes to the Utility and pays out £0.3p per kWh.
Is this about right?

In winter months where peak hrs of sun light with be around 2 hrs and subject to the angle of the flat panels, wuth the sun not rising until 8am and going down at 4pm, what amount of the FIT can be expected with rising levels of genaration as the sun rises earler and sets later.

For an extra £2,000 on top of the supply and fit of the PV panels, I have worked out that I could gain 100% from all the electricty genarated throughout the year and use that electricty outside sunshine hrs.

Your 2.5kWp system will produce between 2,000kWh and 2,400kWh per year depending where you live in UK.(if you live in Northern Scotland or West Cornwall it might be slightly lower/higher)

Your fridge only uses 300 watts when the compressor is running which is only for a fraction of a 24 hour period.(otherwise it would cost about £260 a year - instead of £30 to £40)Most of the time it is using no electricity.

However it is irrelevant how much your fridge, or indeed your house, uses for the FIT income; you will get 41.3p for every kWh you generate regardless of using none in the house, or all of it in the house. So FIT will be around £900 a year.

Additionally you will get 3p for every kWh you export(if you have an export meter) or they will assume you export 50% of your generated output - so around £36 pa.

The big unknown, as you imply, is estimating just how much of the generated electricity you will use in the house. With smaller systems it appears that most people can use 40% to 50% of the generated output. It is reasonable to assume that with bigger systems it will be much less.

The big mistake some people are making is to assume that somehow they will be able to 'match' their consumption to the output of the panels; they won't! Even if they sat monitoring the output of their their panels, they would have to switch off, say an immersion heater every time a cloud caused the output to drop.

In any case, the majority of heating is required in winter, when output falls off.