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

BenjaG

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Environmentally, there are many benefits. It makes people much more energy aware, it helps move peak demand to be more evenly spread, there are no 10% transmission losses. In terms of the CO2 payback time estimates range from 2 years to 4 years at the most pessimistic.

We are interested in generating solar energy at home but don't have a system yet. Therefore we use our washing machine and dishwasher in the early hours of the morning, at about 3 am when Britain's electricity generators produce surplus electricity that is wasted. Now if I would buy a solar panel and turn on my washing machine and dishwasher at noon instead, that would now reduce CO2 at all ????

digitaltoast

BenjaG wrote: »

we use our washing machine and dishwasher in the early hours of the morning, at about 3 am when Britain's electricity generators produce surplus electricity that is wasted. Now if I would buy a solar panel and turn on my washing machine and dishwasher at noon instead, that would not reduce CO2 at all ????

Stop this thinking about it thing immediately! Call yourself an environmentalist?! Next thing you'll be using a "calculator" and looking at "economics" and "facts". Like, dude, go with your feelings, man. Don't be such a nark, dude. It's FREE energy, dude. I mean, like, I don't understand, like, how it works, but just like my dole, it just, like magics out of no-where. Now excuse me, dude, I've got a tent outside St Pauls to spend 10 minutes in each day. Solidarity!

EDIT: That sarcasm wasn't aimed at you, BTW! You're doing the right thing by thinking about how these things work. I'm just been annoyed recently by an exchange I had by FoE which went along the above lines. So I'm in full bitter sarcasm mode!

penrhyn

BenjaG wrote: »

We are interested in generating solar energy at home but don't have a system yet. Therefore we use our washing machine and dishwasher in the early hours of the morning, at about 3 am when Britain's electricity generators produce surplus electricity that is wasted. Now if I would buy a solar panel and turn on my washing machine and dishwasher at noon instead, that would now reduce CO2 at all ????

It not wasted, its being used in a number of ways, e.g. pumping water up the hill at Dinorwig.

zeupater

howardl wrote: »

.... What i feel is needed is a meter constantly monitoring electric useage and pv production for a reasonable cost, i can get a sunny boy meter that is blue tooth enabled from my controller/inverter in loft but they want £450 for it, any suggestions??? ......

Hi

Welcome to the forum

£450 for a SunnyBeam looks a little steep ..... if your SMA inverter is bluetooth enabled (what model is it ?) you'll only require the monitor, call your installer and get a sharper price ... somewhere around/below £130 would be more reasonable, or if a piggyback card is required probably closer to £200 .... if they won't play the competitive game ring a local installer after December 12th .... :D

HTH
Z

digitaltoast

penrhyn wrote: »

It not wasted, its being used in a number of ways, e.g. pumping water up the hill at Dinorwig.

According to Wikipedia:

The plant runs on average at 74-75% efficiency - i.e. it uses 33% more electricity (when pumping the water back up to the Machlyn Mawr) than it actually produces.[7] It fills an important need in the system by responding to sudden surges in electricity demand because of its rapid ability to deliver power on load spikes.

I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure this thing isn't run daily. I can't find a link,

Incidentally, http://www.parliament.uk/documents/post/postpn306.pdf says that Dinorwig with its 16 km of tunnels displacing 12,000,000 tonnes of rock and using 1 million tons of concrete, 200,000 tons of cement and 4,500 tons of steel, can satisfy "approximately 1.5% of the UK’s peak winter energy needs for 5 hours when full".

I'll leave you to decide whether that's money and resources well spent. Although at a mere £425 million, it looks like excellent value for money compared to the £500 million squandered on the Scottish Parliament building or the £1bn (yes, one BILLION pound) Edinburgh tram vanity project.

penrhyn

http://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htm

There you go.

orrery

howardl wrote: »

i can get a sunny boy meter that is blue tooth enabled from my controller/inverter in loft but they want £450 for it, any suggestions???

The Sunny Beam will get the data from your Inverter when you ask it but the battery consumption is very high, so mine is set to time out after 3 minutes. Also, the Bluetooth range is poor.

Better have a clip-on meter connected in the feed from the solar back to the main fuse box. An Owl or Efergy does the job perfectly well, but they're not much good at showing low values. The minimum reading my Owl shows is 101W, but that is fine for what you want to do. You can get one for under £30.

thenudeone

BenjaG wrote: »

Now if I would buy a solar panel and turn on my washing machine and dishwasher at noon instead, that would now reduce CO2 at all ????

There are tens of millions of houses and millions of businesses using electricity. If one of those households turns a heater on or off it doesn't change the amount of fuel being burnt at any power station but if thousands of households do so it does start to make a difference.
If you are concerned about CO2 emissions than the best solution is to use a 100% renewable company to supply you, and leave the decision to them.

Cardew

howardl wrote: »

We have had solar pv fitted in june 11 ( I paid for) and have been carefully monitoring my appliance usage with a plug in meter. My so called energy efficient Hotpoint washing m/c uses 1.8kWh alot i think on peak useage ie when heating the water even though i have a solar thermal panel (fitted by me diy 18 months ago)) providing hot water or helping in winter, we now fill m/c with hot water from tap thru soap dispenser door.
What i feel is needed is a meter constantly monitoring electric useage and pv production for a reasonable cost, i can get a sunny boy meter that is blue tooth enabled from my controller/inverter in loft but they want £450 for it, any suggestions??? Note a few appliance measurments recorded Pc=160w, tv and hard drive box 380w,2 slice toaster=780w, vacuum cleaner 1300w, kettle 2.1 Kwh, fridge/freezer 100w when running..
The main cost saving/investment is the FIT payment which for four months june-september is 1257kwh or £560 approx but as i write this in november on a dull day the pv is just about 300watts per hour!!! still better than nothing though

As stated above I would be very surprised if your machine routinely uses 1.8kWh for a cycle.

These days with detergents most machines wash at very low temperature. My old cold fill machine with no pretence of being energy efficient uses 0.4kWh or 0.6kWh on all the cycles we use; although there is a 'boiling whites'(actually 90C) cycle that the handbook says uses 1.9kWh but it has never been used.

Sust-it lists all machines and all 300+(less one) use less than your cycle.

orrery

thenudeone wrote: »

There are tens of millions of houses and millions of businesses using electricity. If one of those households turns a heater on or off it doesn't change the amount of fuel being burnt at any power station ...

I don't see why not. If the load on the generating set reduces then the control system will need to reduce the steam pressure to keep the speed (and hence the mains frequency) the same. Reducing the steam pressure will cause the boiler temperature to rise and the control system will reduce the amount of fuel being pushed in to the combustion chamber. We can obviously have an esoteric argument about whether the generator will be able to see an individual turning off an appliance, or whether they can see 5, or 10 or...

Either way, reducing the load on the grid will cause the grid voltage and frequency to try to rise and that has to be controlled. If it isn't, then - where does the now surplus energy go to?