Solar pv & SMA Inverter? ... you'll find this interesting then !

zeupater

Hi All

Well, if you've opened this thread you'll probably know a little about pv and probably even have a system, so you'll definately like this 'heads-up' and want to follow developments of the following .....

http://www.sma.de/en/products/monitoring-systems/sunny-home-manager.html

( Direct link to pdf - http://files.sma.de/dl/2485/HOMEMANAGER-AEN112810.pdf )


... not available until 2012, but I for one will keep my eye on it. Check the technical data, the main accessory will be interesting to many considering the subject of a number of recent discussions, just depends on the switching capacity .....

All they need is a lack of greed .... launch this at a reasonable price and I reckon it'll fly

HTH
Z

albyota

Thanks for that Ze', I will certainly be buying one and speccing them.

14.6 units today, another £6.33 (total £480 since May)

Cardew

It doesn't make extravagant claims for performance - increase 'in house' consumption from 30% to up to 45%(the dreaded 'up to') - obviously not considering the battery system.

If we take the EST average of £70 pa, if I understand it correctly that would mean an additional saving on the average bill of up to £40 pa. That is a lot of technology to save £40.

What I am not clear about is who/what sends the remote signal to switch on the appliance. i.e. Say I have a dryer full of damp clothes that I want to come on when the PV panels' output is at maximum, does the device switch it on automatically or prompt me to switch it on remotely?

There is also a difference in US and UK appliances. The appliances in the USA can be switched to 'on' by rotary switches and start when power is applied. In UK my washing machine, dishwasher and dryer cannot be left 'on' awaiting power to be applied. They are started by pressing a switch. note: setting them to start in, say 6 hours time is no help in this situation.

Most immersion heaters are 'hard wired'.

Goodness the above sounds pessimistic!!!!

Equaliser123

Looks a cracking looking product although I share the concerns of Cardew. In particular, neither our washing machine or dishwasher would be able to be switched on and start purely by flicking the mains switch.

Good find though and will be interesting to see what it sells for.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

It doesn't make extravagant claims for performance - increase 'in house' consumption from 30% to up to 45%(the dreaded 'up to') - obviously not considering the battery system.

If we take the EST average of £70 pa, if I understand it correctly that would mean an additional saving on the average bill of up to £40 pa. That is a lot of technology to save £40.

What I am not clear about is who/what sends the remote signal to switch on the appliance. i.e. Say I have a dryer full of damp clothes that I want to come on when the PV panels' output is at maximum, does the device switch it on automatically or prompt me to switch it on remotely?

There is also a difference in US and UK appliances. The appliances in the USA can be switched to 'on' by rotary switches and start when power is applied. In UK my washing machine, dishwasher and dryer cannot be left 'on' awaiting power to be applied. They are started by pressing a switch. note: setting them to start in, say 6 hours time is no help in this situation.

Most immersion heaters are 'hard wired'.

Goodness the above sounds pessimistic!!!!

Hi

Agree, that's why the success of the solution is extremely 'price sensitive'.

In my own case there is now only a marginal usage of tier2 tariff electricity, less than 750W/day, and I already have plans to save more than this, therefore any savings for a system such as this would need to be costed at the tier1 rate which is around 70% more expensive. However, this low usage makes any possible return on investment extremely difficult, that's why the product viability depends on price .......

When a user manual becomes available on-line I'll have a look at the capabilities .....

Z

chapeau

Equaliser123 wrote: »

In particular, neither our washing machine or dishwasher would be able to be switched on and start purely by flicking the mains switch.

What if you started the cycle and then switched off at the bluetooth socket device. When the power was restored via the automated 'system' then the cycle would just continue where left off.

But it's quite kludgey. I would imagine that all the parts are already in place to do this already if you had programming skills. The inverter has bluetooth connectivity to a laptop, you could theoretically access the state of the inverter via an API, and programatically control sockets. Haven't looked at it in detail, but the inverter already broadcasts what's going on and that is the key piece of data.