Solar Panel Guide Discussion

celerity

darkpool wrote: »

lets be honest, a power source that gives it's highest output at the time of year when electrical demand is lowest is flawed. in some countrys like spain electrical demand is greatest in the summer when people switch on air conditioning. in places like that solar makes sense.

Why don't people seem to realise that most businesses need power during the day, not during the night? I know plenty of small businesses that use over £500 of electric per month. Once the price of panels comes down a bit I fully expect solar PV systems > 4kWp to become more widespread, precisely for this kind of usage.

For domestic users that barely use any power during the day, the system still feeds back into the National Grid where it is used, not wasted, so what's the problem?

/\dam

zeupater

darkpool wrote: »

lets be honest, a power source that gives it's highest output at the time of year when electrical demand is lowest is flawed. in some countrys like spain electrical demand is greatest in the summer when people switch on air conditioning. in places like that solar makes sense.

Hi

Then it could be the case that everyone is simply installing pv to prepare for the effect of 'global warming' in the UK .....

Z:D

Elainemary

Well, well! I did have fun finding the new thread. I had to trawl through the last few pages of the old one to find you all again. Can someone PLEASE give me a quick way to find you in future?
I must say you appear to be much more polite ( so far ) on this thread. Keep up the good work!

darkpool

celerity wrote: »

Why don't people seem to realise that most businesses need power during the day, not during the night? I know plenty of small businesses that use over £500 of electric per month. Once the price of panels comes down a bit I fully expect solar PV systems > 4kWp to become more widespread, precisely for this kind of usage.

For domestic users that barely use any power during the day, the system still feeds back into the National Grid where it is used, not wasted, so what's the problem?

/\dam

but businesses also need power during the winter. in fact electricity demand is greater in winter due to people putting heaters on. you really think solar helps meet this demand?

if i lived in the outback of australia and i needed power for air conditioning i would get solar. but solar in this country doesn't make a lot of sense

Nang

digitaltoast wrote: »

As a guide, 22 watts is enough to power one low energy CFL lightbulb.
If you have 4 square metres of panel, you might just be able to light an incandescent lightbulb in the middle of a sunny December day.

Unless I misread this, its somewhat inaccurate.

A 4K system is roughly 20 square meters. incandescent light bulb requires 100W? (worse case).

As I understand it, you are saying a 4 KW system will only provide 500w max on a sunny day in winter.

For sake of argument lets say it produced .5 KW for the whole 7 hours (which is being far too generous).

.5 KW * 7 hours = 3.5 kwh.

Output of my 4KW array on the 11/12/2010, was 7.89 KWh.

Peak output output in winter is still > 2 KW.

keith_r59

celerity wrote: »

This sounds nice and catchy, but has anyone on here provided a source to show how much this is actually costing an old granny living on the breadline? People are bandying around the figure of 15% as being the direct effect of the FiT on an average fuel bill, but I'd like to see the source of that

Ofgem produce a quarterly newsletter.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Newsletter/Documents1/Feed-in%20Tariff%20%28FIT%29%20Update%20Newsletter%20Issue%204.pdf

During the first year of the scheme a total of £4,714,129.01 was paid out in FiT payments.

If you use the assumption that there are 25 million homes in the UK this works out as 19p per household but obviously this figure will increase as more systems are installed.

Nang

keith_r59 wrote: »

Ofgem produce a quarterly newsletter.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Newsletter/Documents1/Feed-in%20Tariff%20%28FIT%29%20Update%20Newsletter%20Issue%204.pdf

During the first year of the scheme a total of £4,714,129.01 was paid out in FiT payments.

If you use the assumption that there are 25 million homes in the UK this works out as 19p per household but obviously this figure will increase as more systems are installed.

Good news...

I found a 20 pence piece down the back of the sofa, so I can now afford to pay.

John_Pierpoint

keith_r59 wrote: »

Ofgem produce a quarterly newsletter.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Newsletter/Documents1/Feed-in%20Tariff%20%28FIT%29%20Update%20Newsletter%20Issue%204.pdf

During the first year of the scheme a total of £4,714,129.01 was paid out in FiT payments.

If you use the assumption that there are 25 million homes in the UK this works out as 19p per household but obviously this figure will increase as more systems are installed.

Pales into total insignificance, when compared with the Common Agricultural Policy, given to land owners: Big debate on how to share the UK pot; but it is still going up not being cut!
It is your VAT that is paying this and that is in addition to your higher food prices.

Charlotte Smith hears European farm subsidy may cost £49 billion a year in taxpayers money.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0124qt1#synopsis

lanstrom

celerity wrote: »

If it helps, I use JSunnyReports to check my output against prediction, and it has both April and May as being more productive than June, which suggests your experience is typical.
In order of lowest to highest for the warmer months, it has:
April, June, August, July, May - but... the first three months are almost the same.

My monthly stats compared to predicted levels are here if you are interested.

What did your installer tell you your Year One predicted output was? Mine is 3,356kWh and I have a 3.91kWp system. So far I'm hopeful we will hit the target, but we've only had it for two months.

/\dam

Hi Adam,

I see on your web site it says the data is pulled off your 'energy monitor'. Can I ask what model that is please ?

I would want something that I could data log with if I had a system installed

Thanks.

celerity

darkpool wrote: »

but businesses also need power during the winter. in fact electricity demand is greater in winter due to people putting heaters on. you really think solar helps meet this demand?

Businesses need power *for all sorts of reasons* - for example refrigeration, which has peak demand during the summer months.

I've never claimed solar PV is suitable for all people - in fact quite the opposite. Nevertheless, there are (conservatively) hundreds of thousands of commercial and domestic properties in the UK that could benefit. At the moment this is only true due to the FiT - in the future the hope is that it will be true without the FiT - but nobody can say for sure whether that will ever happen.

/\dam