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

ely_ellis

Last summer I had Solar PV fitted and made changes to our routine to make the most of it.
After a very lean winter of generation, our habbits have changed even further to the point that now we are getting some decent generation, we have even more spare and have ran out of things to do with it.
Over the winter we got into the habbit of stockpiling the washing, ironing, vacuming etc so that on the rare sunny day we got everything done as much as possible.
Now, still in that frame of mind, 1st day of sunshine and all the above tends to be done in the one day. 2nd day of sunshine, nothing left to do!
About 2 weeks ago we had our first full tank of hot water provided by Mr. Sun (as the wife calls it), since about last October.
We never (so far) use the oil boiler to give us hot water on its own, the hot water is only ever turned on when the heating is already on!
Yesterday was the first day since October we didn't have the heating on at all and we have a lovely tank of hot water too.
As all the washing, ironing etc had been done, I even got the mower out yesterday to use up some spare.
We have a Wattson and the wife will shout at me if it turns purple and scream at me if it turns red. She likes to see it green all the time. LOL.
Even our cooking habbits have changed as we have electric oven and halogen hob. So we tend to cook in the day and if necessary a quick re-heat with the microwave in the evening!
Each ring on the hob is 1kw, the oven is 2kw.
Over winter it looks like we have saved around 1/4 off our lecky bill, which can't be bad.
Oops, rattling on again as per usual, so will cut my life story short.
Cheers

EricMears

ely_ellis wrote: »

. . . now we are getting some decent generation, we have even more spare and have ran out of things to do with it.
. . .
About 2 weeks ago we had our first full tank of hot water provided by Mr. Sun (as the wife calls it), since about last October.

Difficult to be sure your DHW tank is really full of hot water. Unless immersion element is right at bottom of tank or you have a destratification pump, there's usually some cold water at bottom of tank.
Unlikely that a destrat pump is worth the expense of fitting it but you might be able to get a similar effect by turning the central heating circulator pump on whilst boiler is disabled.

rodee13

my 1.5KW portable electric oil filled radiator (which I already owned) is proving to be great for heating a room using excess energy (via iBoost+) on days like today when its sunny and cold. I am sure days like today are frequent in feb..march...april and less frequent in may.

warrenb

I have forgone the expense of an IBoost for the heater in the conservatory
I have a Smart plug which when I see the production is up I just switch on via wifi.
£20 against £350.

pinnks

I am something of a fan of diverters, despite the price. I view them in the same way as any other investment. I am looking at about 3 to 4 years to repay my investment which, without subsidy is not bad.

Good day today. Immersion hot, home office warmed with its oil rad on the diverter, and 10kWh pushed through the two oil rads in the living room on the other diverter, raising its temperature by nearly 4 degrees. Oh, and ran the dishwasher all for free, though that was not on the diverter of course. Saw a cloud around lunch which caused 100Wh to be imported making lunch, coffee and tea but that's it, the rest was home grown. Even managed to make dinner before the sun went down.

Generated 20.5kWh and used 18kWh. Imported just 600Wh between sun up and sun down. Nice...

ASavvyBuyer

warrenb wrote: »

I have forgone the expense of an IBoost for the heater in the conservatory
I have a Smart plug which when I see the production is up I just switch on via wifi.
£20 against £350.

We looked at the expensive diverters and worked out that the payback time would be too long for us. Bought a device from REUK which monitors the red LED on the import meter. When it stays on for more than a set length of time, (adjustable between 1 and 10 minutes) it switches a relay in the circuit to the immersion heater. If the immersion heater uses more than the excess power, the import meter LED goes out/starts flashing and switches the heater off automatically. Device only cost £30 and was easy to fit into existing wiring.

shavy65

warrenb wrote: »

I have forgone the expense of an IBoost for the heater in the conservatory
I have a Smart plug which when I see the production is up I just switch on via wifi.
£20 against £350.

Hi, which Smart Plug did u go for? I was considering the same thing and have been considering one of the unbranded cheaper ones on e-bay....around a tenner???

rodee13

warrenb wrote: »

I have forgone the expense of an IBoost for the heater in the conservatory
I have a Smart plug which when I see the production is up I just switch on via wifi.
£20 against £350.

It might be expensive if buying on its own but I got it for £200 extra as part of the PV installation. The main advantage is it detects any excess over 100Wh to trigger and the output is proportional so nothing is imported during use. This of course cant be replicated manually using the smart plug (which I use for powering my AV devices using its timer based power on and off )

warrenb

I already have Hive heating so they have just released a smart plug which I use.

pinnks

I just picked up a G-Homa smart plug for about £23. It works well normally but is having one or two issues at the moment. I think it might be a wifi issue, not the plug itself as it is in the attic and seems to be a bit of a blind spot. I used to have my router there and had one or two issues so moved the router and all is fine. will do a few tests when I get time...