So now I have a solar PV system how do I make the most of it???

furndire

Sorry to be so late answering. We do get quite large bills. I think its only showing up because the sun has been so bright this last few days & I expected my weekly reading to have dropped.
When we first had the panels installed, we were away for a couple of months - its only this last of months that I have been really trying to monitor our usage properly - I expected the amount we are consuming to have gone down quite a bit, but it hasn't, just staying the same, or using slightly more. Its difficult to monitor if its only a couple of units per day. We have a digital electric meter so you don't see a "wheel spinning" only just when it clicks up a KW.

How do I isolate the inverter from the AC?

The reason I came to the conclusion that the meter can't differentiate between export & import is the fact as soon as we turned stuff back on it took a lot longer for the mains meter to click over -
so when we didn't have anything on it was clicking up really quickly - the panels producing a lot, and as the independent monitor registered 1 KW, the mains meter added another one on after a few minutes - its as though all the effort we are putting in to cut down our usage is being defeated because the Mains Meter is adding it on.

Sorry, this does seem to be rambling - difficult to explain in writing - explanations aren't my strong point.

As regards our Electric Bills, the electric company say we have dropped out consumption considerabley over the past 3 years, so they don't think we have a problem. Personally I think its because we are more aware of what we are using, and we have all new A rated appliances, low energy bulbs etc. I've now arranged to pay to get the meter checked.
When the panels are just ticking over, we will be using all that we produce - ie background usage fridges etc, but its only showing now that the sun is blazing.
So basically we need to use the electric before it hits the meter which is quite difficult a the moment.
We produced 26 KW today, but still managed to use 14 KW (and this was mainly before we turned stuff back on fully)

free_juice?

My system was doing something similar when first installed, fortunately I noticed quickly. The inverter was connected to the grid side of the meter, so if I used my own generation it still got metered. My supplier offered to compensate me but I lost less than £3 (it was January!) so I told him to forget it. He was round pretty quick once I sent him a photo of the meter cabling. :j

John_Pierpoint

Mine is similar to this guy's, set up for "Economy 7"

http://www.btinternet.com/~jon00/electmon.shtml

John

PS is this the future:

http://www.bwired.nl/

:eek:

furndire

Just been having a look at meter - can't work out if its wired wrong, as everything is covered up. I need to find out if our Electric Meter is capable of feeding back into the grid I have the meter number. Its a Siemens S2AS-100 FF88K 79091 anyone any ideas where to look

John_Pierpoint

I found the picture of "my" meter by putting "electricity meter" into Google and then going for the "images" option rather than the "web" option.

furndire

Cheers for that Jon - no joy googling images unfortunately - looks like I'm going to have to stew until after the weekend!!! and in the meanwhile while the sun is shining, we are going to have to put everything on to use up the excess electricity we are producing, or we will be getting charged for using it.

My next thing will be to work out who is to blame, and how they are going to compensate us.

Another thought is, has the excess electric that we have been paid 3p per KW actually been going to the grid, and if I can get any of the money back that I have paid for the priviledge of producing my own electric.

This doesn't bode well for any one who doesn't realise they have this problem on a rent a roof scheme - they could easily be well out of pocket, and not know for quite a while, as if they can use most of the electric daily, its only when we have prolonged sunshine that you can work out whats happening.

zeupater

furndire wrote: »

...... How do I isolate the inverter from the AC? .............

Hi fundire

You should have rotary isolation switches for the AC & DC circuits next to your inverter .... your installer should have gone through the isolation procedure with you at the commissioning/handover stage.

HTH
Z

furndire

zeupater wrote: »

Hi fundire

You should have rotary isolation switches for the AC & DC circuits next to your inverter .... your installer should have gone through the isolation procedure with you at the commissioning/handover stage.

HTH
Z

They did, but that was 9 mths ago, and I've forgotten.

John_Pierpoint

furndire wrote: »

looks like I'm going to have to stew until after the weekend!!!

My next thing will be to work out who is to blame, and how they are going to compensate us. Presumably its the installers??

Good luck with getting the wiring put right; I hope you get someone to accept responsibility, without your effort turning into this sort of bureaucratic nightmare:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2708749

Posting #40 is a real classic.

furndire

Just had a look at the post and the ending - must have been a nightmare - we had a similar situation many years ago when we rented a shop - landlord was running freezers off our electric - until we threw the switches on a Friday & all his icecream melted over the Long Bank Holiday we took..