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

digitaltoast

penrhyn wrote: »

Never heard of Electric storage cookers, I assumed electric aga.

Everhot is one I found on Google, a little expensive, but whoever said going green was cheap.

EVERHOT 100 £5,875.00 inc VAT at 20%
EVERHOT 100+ £6,730.00 inc VAT at 20%EVERHOT 100i £7,320.00 inc VAT at 20%

I'm pretty sure that you could safely say that an Everhot is NOT a green measure!
"When set at our recommended cooking temperatures our 2/3 oven cookers will consume around 85 units of power per week."

That's the same electricity cost that us, as a family, working from home, both using computers all day, use in a week for hot water, showing, lighting, working - everything!

In fact, as I'm always getting people to post their bills, I'll post mine:

Bill period	Number of days	Total	Daily Average	
27/06/11 - 10/07/11	14	189	14	
20/06/11 - 26/06/11	7	52	7	
14/06/11 - 19/06/11	6	82	14	
06/06/11 - 13/06/11	8	116	15	
30/05/11 - 05/06/11	7	112	16	
23/05/11 - 29/05/11	7	100	14	

So, discounting the week I was away, our daily average is about 14 units per day for the WHOLE HOUSE - working, cooking, hot water, lighting. The smallest Everhot uses 12.4 per day just to keep it warm! Definitely a luxury lifestyle choice piece of kit.

I particularly like this part:
"ECO mode enabled between 9pm and 5am. Whist[sic] in ECO mode, the cooker has a maximum load requirement of 2Kw, this facility will particularly appeal to customers who use sustainable energy systems - wind, water, photovoltaic, etc"

If they know of a solar panel that can generate 2Kw between 9pm and 5am then I retract everything I've ever said about PV, ever! And I need to buy shares quick smart!

grahamc2003

penrhyn wrote: »

Never heard of Electric storage cookers, I assumed electric aga.

Everhot is one I found on Google, a little expensive, but whoever said going green was cheap.

EVERHOT 100 £5,875.00 inc VAT at 20%
EVERHOT 100+ £6,730.00 inc VAT at 20%EVERHOT 100i £7,320.00 inc VAT at 20%

I don't think anyone installing an AGA expects lower bills. A certainty for massively higher bills if you ask me, whether solar panels or not! I have an oil AGA and reckon it would now cost me at least £2kpa in oil to run it, should I decide to fire it up again.

An electric aga would simply switch on and off when it felt like it - i don't see how it helps with matching the power to the solar output at all, and I expect they'd advise E7. I have a friend who had a new Stanley gas fired range fitted a few years ago - the advantage over an aga was that it heated up in 'only' a couple of hours, so didn't have to be on all the time. She regretted it when she got her gas bill - these things really gobble energy however they are powered.

You need between 250 and 300kwh per week for an electric aga, depending on the model. If the alternative for cooking and heating is gas, then, again, even the solar power which actually gets used by the AGA is only worth the gas price, so 4p/kwh, and when the thermostat actually turns the elements on, it's more likely than not that some or all of the electricity will come from the grid at 12p/kwh. Displacing gas with solar panel electricity seems to be a classic error imv, and will, in ths case of an aga style storage cooker/heater, almost certainly increase bills substantially.

Agas are becomming the domain of the rich only, Sting (him of greeness personified) loves his, and I'm sure is unconcerned about using 300kwh per week to keep his kitchen warm.

John_Pierpoint

digitaltoast wrote: »

The scheme itself is designed to transfer money from poor to rich and provide work for Chinese factories, the use of electricity is just the tangible asset for the scheme, in the way that water filters were used to make MLM schemes legal a few years back.

What is an MLM scheme ?

penrhyn

Multi Level Marketing, or Pyramid selling perhaps?

thenudeone

Dual element immersion heater here:
http://www.qvsdirect.com/27-Dual-Element-Dual-Stat-Immersion-Heater-pr-18327.html#utm_source=google-product&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=weekly-feed

It may be possible to use this to soak up unused solar PV if the element ratings are suitable.
I will update once I get the reply from their technical people.

Also, I can't find the "power reduction unit" mentioned here:
http://blog.ooffoo.com/blogs/2011/05/19/how-to-store-your-solar-generated-electricity-for-use-in-the-evening/
any ideas?

penrhyn

A suitably rated step down transformer would do the trick, say 230 primary and a 110 volt secondary would mean a 3Kw immersion would take 1.5 Kw ish. Or a dirty big thyristor.
Whats out their commercially available though I don't know.

John_Pierpoint

We have a parallel debate about immersion heaters going here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/45755088#Comment_45755088

zeupater

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

We have a parallel debate about immersion heaters going here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/45755088#Comment_45755088

X=1
DO WHILE X<10
X=X+1
IF X=10
X=X-9
ENDIF
ENDDO

Some may read this more than once .... some may never read this .... some may understand my logical humour ? ...
Z

mark55man

zeupater wrote: »

X=1
DO WHILE X<10
X=X+1
IF X=10
X=X-9
ENDIF
ENDDO

Some may read this more than once .... some may never read this .... some may understand my logical humour ? ...
Z

bit inefficient there old boy - unless you are trying to obfuscate your meaning: if x= 10 then x=x-9 i sthe same as x=1

alternately take out everything between DO and ENDDO !!

John_Pierpoint

It might depend on the programming language you are using - I seem to remember that "do while" and "do until" worked differently in different languages.