Solar Panel Guide Discussion

whasup

keith_r59 wrote: »

I would imagine that like all waste these days strenuous efforts will be made to re-cycle them.

Your right it will certainly be recycling. But not the nice fluffy sort which saves the planet. It would be more honest to describe it as toxic waste recovery. It's no problem now because the numbers are small but in 20-25 years it will become a huge (and hugely expensive) problem.

Cardew

There is another very relevant point about EST's estimate of solar PV savings for in house consumption.

The favoured method of 'soaking up' surplus PV generated electricity is to use the immersion heater. With that it is possible(on a good day) to use a couple of kWh from the panels. That is costed by EST in their savings @ 14p/kWh or whatever inflated price they use. However if you have gas your savings for production of hot water should be calculated at the price of gas @ 3p to 4p/kWh.

As discussed in other threads it is perfectly possible, and will almost certainly happen, that people will lose money by using their immersion heater. This is because of the cost of drawing power from the mains if the PV generated power cannot fully supply the immersion heater.

e.g. 3kW immersion heater. Panels producing, say, 1.5kW over the background consumption of fridges etc. Thus 1.5kW will be drawn from the mains @ say 10p/kWh = 15p an hour. That 1.5kWh would only cost around 6p for gas. So although you will have saved 15p off your electricity bill you will have lost 9 pence.

Even if you don't have gas most house will be using off-peak electricity or oil.

zeupater

whasup wrote: »

I would imagine that like all waste these days strenuous efforts will be made to re-cycle them.

Your right it will certainly be recycling. But not the nice fluffy sort which saves the planet. It would be more honest to describe it as toxic waste recovery. It's no problem now because the numbers are small but in 20-25 years it will become a huge (and hugely expensive) problem.

Hi

Toxic ? ..... :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

What's toxic in a pv panel ? .... glass?, aluminium ?, silicon, a bit of plastic ?, some copper ?, a handfull of electronic components (diodes) ? ....... toxic, if that's the case I'd hate to see what the TVs, radios, computers, microwaves, dishwasher, washing machines, video recorders, windows, doors (and on, and on ....) which we've disposed of over the past 25 years would be classified as .....

HTH
Z

Lck_2

Can anyone tell me if I should get our installers back..... 3.29 kwp system installed 7 th October, has produced 42kwh to date
Another poster on this forum had theirs installed 2 weeks before and to October 14th had produced 281kwh
Mine seems to be doing rubbish but I can't find any info on how much I should expect at this time of year

energysavingexp

Lck wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if I should get our installers back..... 3.29 kwp system installed 7 th October, has produced 42kwh to date
Another poster on this forum had theirs installed 2 weeks before and to October 14th had produced 281kwh
Mine seems to be doing rubbish but I can't find any info on how much I should expect at this time of year

Hi my 4kwh system has generated the following this last few days

today 20th 5.72kwh
19th 8.35kwh
18th 5.52kwh
17th 4.56kwh
16th 5.28kwh
15th 11.67kwh
14th 4.60kwh
13th 7.80kwh

best day in summer i can get 30kwh in a day

hope tihs helps

lanstrom

Lck wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if I should get our installers back..... 3.29 kwp system installed 7 th October, has produced 42kwh to date
Another poster on this forum had theirs installed 2 weeks before and to October 14th had produced 281kwh
Mine seems to be doing rubbish but I can't find any info on how much I should expect at this time of year

Yer I would get them back.

I have generated 65.78 kWh in 7 days with a 3.84 system and 6 days of that still had the scaffolding up causing massive shadowing. I am in the midlands.

I made 13.31 kWh today which is my first full day without scaffolding.

.

KevinG

Lck wrote: »

Can anyone tell me if I should get our installers back..... 3.29 kwp system installed 7 th October, has produced 42kwh to date
Another poster on this forum had theirs installed 2 weeks before and to October 14th had produced 281kwh
Mine seems to be doing rubbish but I can't find any info on how much I should expect at this time of year

Sounds low but I don't know your individual circumstances. My 2kWp system, south east England, SSE facing, has generated 70kWh in that period.

Billy_Petrolle

"Who is eligible?


Eon currently installs across England and Wales, but plans to launch in Scotland later this year. Your roof should roughly face south-west or south-east and be more than 23 square metres."


If E.On are telling MSE this then they’re telling porkies, conning people like me into applying and being turned down on the most spurious of grounds. Nice line in positive green publicity without actually doing any installations.


I recently applied for these panels. I waited a month then rang Solar Exchange who told me that they had done a survey (via Google Earth, not by a surveyor on site); that my house was 65 degrees off south (it’s actually 17 degrees off) and thus they were not able to offer me the panels; that this refusal had been communicated to me by email (it hadn’t) AND by surface mail (it hadn’t).



So this idea of MSE that a roof needs to “roughly south west/ south east is wrong because E.On say they’re not considering such rooves as mine.


I’m taking this pretty shabby misrepresentation / incompetence back to E.On.

Lotus-eater

Cardew wrote: »

There is another very relevant point about EST's estimate of solar PV savings for in house consumption.

The favoured method of 'soaking up' surplus PV generated electricity is to use the immersion heater. With that it is possible(on a good day) to use a couple of kWh from the panels. That is costed by EST in their savings @ 14p/kWh or whatever inflated price they use. However if you have gas your savings for production of hot water should be calculated at the price of gas @ 3p to 4p/kWh.

As discussed in other threads it is perfectly possible, and will almost certainly happen, that people will lose money by using their immersion heater. This is because of the cost of drawing power from the mains if the PV generated power cannot fully supply the immersion heater.

e.g. 3kW immersion heater. Panels producing, say, 1.5kW over the background consumption of fridges etc. Thus 1.5kW will be drawn from the mains @ say 10p/kWh = 15p an hour. That 1.5kWh would only cost around 6p for gas. So although you will have saved 15p off your electricity bill you will have lost 9 pence.

Even if you don't have gas most house will be using off-peak electricity or oil.

Yes, this is a very very good point and some of the solar salesmen which have come round, have mentioned using the immersion to use up the units produced.
I was wondering myself, if I'd have to be turning it off and on when the sun went in and out, didn't seem very practical to me.

But I hadn't considered that the panels wouldn't produce enough power to run the IH. Thanks

whasup

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Toxic ? ..... :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

What's toxic in a pv panel ? .... glass?, aluminium ?, silicon, a bit of plastic ?, some copper ?, a handfull of electronic components (diodes) ? ....... toxic, if that's the case I'd hate to see what the TVs, radios, computers, microwaves, dishwasher, washing machines, video recorders, windows, doors (and on, and on ....) which we've disposed of over the past 25 years would be classified as .....

HTH
Z

Well, yes. But did you choose not to list the nasty stuff or were you not aware of them? Like lead and cadmium. You might say they're only in small quantities but latest estimates are for nearly a million tonnes of end-of-life PV panels by 2050 which, if not strictly contolled, will result in 1.5 billion Euros of average external costs due to soil and air pollution. That's a quote from a recent (April 2011) European Commission report by the Industrial Ecology Bio Intelligence Unit.

I've not got an issue with PV panels. With more popular use the technology will develop and it could eventually make a positive contribution. But it does irritate me when organisations like the EST - and the sheep-like pro lobby generally - don't tell the whole truth.