Solar panel for heating

Giraff

Thinking of ways to save money and as our house is south facing thought solar might belp.

A solar panel to charge a battery then use the battery to power an electric radiator.

Would this work?

Cardew

No!

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energysavingexp

Giraff wrote: »

Thinking of ways to save money and as our house is south facing thought solar might belp.

A solar panel to charge a battery then use the battery to power an electric radiator.

Would this work?

forget solar pv for heating what u want is solar thermal
this would heat your hot water in summer and you would only need to top up the heat in winter depends on size of panels an tank
i have 2 x 20 tube panels and a 300ltr tank and even today right now its 20c so still producing hot water in this cold weather :j

rogerblack

In principle it works, however, not economically.
If solar panels were several times cheaper, and batteries existed that were both cheap per kWh, and had long life, then maybe.

At the moment, even if you have free electricity, all batteries cost more to purchase and maintain than the electricity you can store in them daily.

UncleZen

energysavingexp - a solar HW panle(s) only heat water, they dont help much with heating your house, which is what the OP wanted.

I really like the idea of SHW, but in the end all it is is a really expensive water heater. Prices have dropped, but need to drop further to ignite my interest further.

Cardew

UncleZen wrote: »

I really like the idea of SHW, but in the end all it is is a really expensive water heater. Prices have dropped, but need to drop further to ignite my interest further.

Exactly!

In money saving terms they are a joke.

Government commissioned independant tests of a load of systems. On average the hot water produced would save 1,000kWh a year; nearly all of that in the summer months.

That means a saving of about £40 a year if you have gas, if you have electricity using Economy 7 about £50 a year.

Don't forget you use daytime electricity to run the pump and electronics.

Brummie71

Giraff wrote: »

Thinking of ways to save money and as our house is south facing thought solar might belp.

A solar panel to charge a battery then use the battery to power an electric radiator.

Would this work?

Cardew's short answer is right. Thought I'd flesh it out a little.

Firstly, if you think about the power used to maintain electric radiators, it is actually quite substantial in kW, so you would need a pretty large solar array to generate the heat required.

More importantly, the times when you need the heat most - those long, dark, cold winter evenings - is when the solar panels don't generate power at all. You do get some output during the winter days, but only about a fifth of what you get during the summer months.

Therefore, to sustain your electric heating, you would need to import electricity, which is pricey for heating purposes, given the consumption.

So, as Cardew said.

No.

Pincher

You can use the solar electricity to electrolyse rain water, compress the hydrogen into liquid form, and store it in a cylinder or tank.
When you need electricity, run the hydrogen through a fuel cell.

Alternatively, you invent an alchemical cauldron that takes solar electricity or heat, and produce liquid methane, store it.
You can produce electricity from methane using a Bloom Box.

The thing I never understood is, why does planting trees for wood burning count towards carbon credits, since you are just releasing the carbon when you burn it? I suppose you are not digging up coal which releases more carbon when you burn it. By this logic, by fixing atmospheric carbon dioxide and converting them into methane, you should get carbon credit.

I'm guessing £50,000 for the set up, excludng the solar panels?
Pay back? Breakeven? Never?

Cardew

Just to flesh out a little more.

The starter motor of a big car might use 1.5kW. An electrical heater can be up to 3kW.

How long can you turn over a car engine(that won't start) before a fully charged battery goes flat - 30 seconds? 60seconds? So use a battery to run an electrical heater and it will last ?????

energysavingexp

Cardew wrote: »

Exactly!

In money saving terms they are a joke.

Government commissioned independant tests of a load of systems. On average the hot water produced would save 1,000kWh a year; nearly all of that in the summer months.

That means a saving of about £40 a year if you have gas, if you have electricity using Economy 7 about £50 a year.

Don't forget you use daytime electricity to run the pump and electronics.

say what u like but i know how much my system cost.
in total it cost less than £1000 and now its been up and running for 3 years with no problem at all as for the day time electric cost to run the pump it is powered from solar pv so no running cost.
as for the savings i dont use any gas at all from start of march up to end oct and i just use enough gas to boost the temps up in winter. and i can tell you the savings are a lot more than £40 a year
you can quote all the facts you like
the figures are (On average) this all depends on the size type of system panel type size water tank size water usage controler settings and many other things to take into account
but i save a lot more than £40 per year

UncleZen

Pincher wrote: »

The thing I never understood is, why does planting trees for wood burning count towards carbon credits, since you are just releasing the carbon when you burn it? I suppose you are not digging up coal which releases more carbon when you burn it. By this logic, by fixing atmospheric carbon dioxide and converting them into methane, you should get carbon credit.

becasue the trees consume carbon durng their life time, so are carbon neutral after burning