Solar Panel Guide Discussion

theboylard

Having had solar edge retro fitted to my install, I love the granular monitoring.
You may not need it, but the functionality is great and if the price is there....

orrery

CrazyCol wrote: »

Secondly I am much closer finalising my system from 1 of 2 suppliers
...
What can you advise about the relative merits please

I love the sound of the Solar Edge system, but...

You are putting bits of complex electronics on the roof where it is difficult to maintain. The solar panels themselves are very reliable and not much of a worry, and they need to be on the roof, so there isn't much you can do about that.

I'd tend to go for simplicity (= reliability and maintainability) if there is no reason for adding complexity.

Warranty - ask the suppliers if they can add further warranty, preferably an insurance-based one that can be serviced if they have gone out of business (in the present climate, the company ceasing trading is a real risk - perhaps even very likely). A sound warranty may the most important aspect here.

Misslayed

I'm going to ignore all that. I wanted solar panels as an investment (newly retired) I chose my supplier because they are a long standing local firm who supply various home improvements, with a reputation for good value, good workmanship, honesty and integrity. I only asked for quotes from local firms. I would have had a problem siting an inverter due to the nature of my property. I generated 416kwh in the first 3 months up to 11/03/15, and 246kwh since then. Best day in December was 4.01kwh. Yesterday and the day before we made 18kwh. I sace putting appliances on for when the sun is shining. Incidentally we have an old electricity meter, which runs backwards when we are not using everything we generate (until it is replaced with digital one)

tunnel

Misslayed wrote: »

Incidentally we have an old electricity meter, which runs backwards when we are not using everything we generate (until it is replaced with digital one)

I'm assuming you have told your electricity supplier about that or they may be estimating your future bills and charging you a premium

Misslayed

I give them regular meter readings, and they return any overpayments promptly

tunnel

Misslayed wrote: »

I give them regular meter readings, and they return any overpayments promptly

I didn't ask that, I asked if you have informed them that your meter is running backwards. They will catch up to it and they will give you a very large estimated bill. You should inform them as soon as possible.

zeupater

Misslayed wrote: »

I'm going to ignore all that. I wanted solar panels as an investment (newly retired) I chose my supplier because they are a long standing local firm who supply various home improvements, with a reputation for good value, good workmanship, honesty and integrity. I only asked for quotes from local firms. I would have had a problem siting an inverter due to the nature of my property. I generated 416kwh in the first 3 months up to 11/03/15, and 246kwh since then. Best day in December was 4.01kwh. Yesterday and the day before we made 18kwh. I sace putting appliances on for when the sun is shining. Incidentally we have an old electricity meter, which runs backwards when we are not using everything we generate (until it is replaced with digital one)

Hi Misslayed

You should really follow the advice given by tunnel ASAP. When you registered for FiTs you should have signed a document to state whether the meter runs backwards when exporting, but your obligations do not end there - if you do not inform your supplier of the reversing meter then you're simply leaving yourself open to the possibility of the supplier issuing a corrective bill which, unless you are a meticulous record keeper, there will be little chance of appealing ...

Now, regarding inverter positioning, these would normally be in a loft, garage or utility room ... members of this very forum also have them in large cupboards, under the stairs, in the hall by the front door and even in the downstairs loo .. there's even members with them mounted outside if manufacturer's IP rating allows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_Code).

Without knowing what your 14 panels are, their orientation and location we'd have no idea whether the figures quoted would be considered good or bad. As a direct comparison, our ~4kWp system at almost WSW beat 4.01kWh on 10 occasions last December, with the best day being just short of 7kWh .... if you could supply details - rough location, orientation & roof angle along with total panel capacity (on your MCS certificate) then someone will provide a set of estimated monthly targets for you to measure performance against ... alternatively, plug the details into the PVGIS calculator here ... http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php

HTH
Z

orrery

zeupater wrote: »

You should really follow the advice given by tunnel ASAP.... if you do not inform your supplier of the reversing meter then you're simply leaving yourself open to the possibility of the supplier issuing a corrective bill which, unless you are a meticulous record keeper, there will be little chance of appealing ...

In reality, it doesn't matter how good your records are, it isn't possible to work out exactly how much you have underpaid, which leaves you open to whatever correction the electricity company wishes to apply - and you can guarantee that it won't be in your favour.

This sort of think is best handled in writing and I'd express 'concern' about the possibility of being under-billed.

zeupater

orrery wrote: »

In reality, it doesn't matter how good your records are, it isn't possible to work out exactly how much you have underpaid, which leaves you open to whatever correction the electricity company wishes to apply - and you can guarantee that it won't be in your favour.

This sort of think is best handled in writing and I'd express 'concern' about the possibility of being under-billed.

Agree .... the sooner it's done, the better ....

On the record keeping ... we'd probably be able to put up a decent case, but that's down to having well over a decade of detailed energy records which are sliced & diced to perform all sorts of analysis on usage related to our on-going energy saving measures ... maximum resolution over that period is usually weekly, but sometimes down to daily or even hourly when the need arises. Having said this, it'd still be a challenge to persuade a supplier that we would have a more accurate dataset ....

HTH
Z

KevinG

zeupater wrote: »

When you registered for FiTs you should have signed a document to state whether the meter runs backwards when exporting, but your obligations do not end there - if you do not inform your supplier of the reversing meter then you're simply leaving yourself open to the possibility of the supplier issuing a corrective bill which, unless you are a meticulous record keeper, there will be little chance of appealing ...

Why do your obligations not end there? Surely it is then up to the supplier to take appropriate action. There must be thousands of people with backwards-running meters and many of those won't even be aware of it; of those that are why would they think they have to inform their supplier separately from declaring it on the FiT registration? My understanding from previous posts on the subject is that they can only go back one year with their "correction."