Does anyone here have an ideological objection to Solar?

Energetic_2

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Do you include my query in that? Seriously, I'm desperate for a new phone and really need to have one ordered before 4pm Tuesday.

Not AFAIK, The Owl Intuition PV is the best phone/web based monitor i have seen. Fiddly to setup though and may need poking around in your mains cons unit so should be done by someone competant or at lease confident.

It's got apps for android and idevice and will be upgradable with energy management systems when they finish them.

John_Pierpoint

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

Do you include my query in that? Seriously, I'm desperate for a new phone and really need to have one ordered before 4pm Tuesday.

No I am agreeing with you - this thread went so far off topic that the original poster wanted to give up on it:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4326665

Good luck with your attempts to pull everything together with a phone.

davebrik

Energetic wrote: »

Hi Money Savers,

I am a renewable energy installer. I want to stress that i am not here to try to get work directly or promote my company. I'm a bit frustrated that the national media has become so anti renewables so I am here to answer questions, promote renewable technologies generally and hopefully dispel myths that renewables are 'so 2011'...

Lots of people, including many people who had PV installed last year believe solar has been killed off by the current feed in tariff. I am here to tell you that this is NOT THE CASE. Returns are still in the 10 - 15% region as installation prices have dropped significantly. We've recently requoted a customer from early summer last year and the returns are better now than they were then.

I am happy to answer any questions about any renewable technologies or power management systems that can be used in conjunction with them. If i do not know the answer i will say so...

I don't see any reason why media is anti renewables. Maybe it's only temporarily phenomenon. Installation and also parts prices have dropped. With the technology improvements I think we'll see further reduce in the prices and increase in efficiency.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

all i know about solar panels is that you can use them to produce energy for the home.

next year we are building something like a boarding kennel block and runs for our chickens. with a kitchen/food prep area at one end.

I was thinking we could put a solar panel on the roof etc and generate enough energy to run the lights, poss 10 - 15 floresent tubes?

so what size solar panel would i need? how much are they? and apart from the solar panel what else would i need to actually get it all working. and what would be a rough cost to get it all up and running?

I am so bamboozled with it all,

it will be stand alone, so not connected to the house or any other electric supply ( if we can help it)

I know i should know alot more about them, as they have been around for a while, and there are so many threads on here, but they totally lose me:cool::cool::D

Martyn1981

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

all i know about solar panels is that you can use them to produce energy for the home.

next year we are building something like a boarding kennel block and runs for our chickens. with a kitchen/food prep area at one end.

I was thinking we could put a solar panel on the roof etc and generate enough energy to run the lights, poss 10 - 15 floresent tubes?

so what size solar panel would i need? how much are they? and apart from the solar panel what else would i need to actually get it all working. and what would be a rough cost to get it all up and running?

Hiya, as you can probably tell from my posts I'm a fan of PV, but everything I've ever read, particularly from off-griders, is that you don't use batteries unless you absolutely have to.

You would need panels, a charge controller and batteries. To prevent premature battery death, you would only want a depth of discharge (DoD) of about 20%, so your batts now need to be 5 times your daily need. Then to cover bad weather and winter periods, you'll probably need 3 to 5 days back up. So it starts to get messy.

You could just use 2 meaty car batts and a sack truck, 1 at the shed, and one on charge at the house, but even that may cost more than running an armoured cable from the house to a small consumer unit at the shed. That way you could always add more facilities (you mentioned food prep) later on - assuming you put in a large enough cable, or if trenched, you add a length of rope to pull more through at a later date.

Don't be put off the PV idea, could you install on the house, then charge a battery when the sun's out. Or if you connect the shed to the house via a suitable sized cable, then you could build the shed with a 'perfect' PV orientated roof, and put panels on that.

Lots of ideas, and I'm sure Energetic will have more specifics for you. Sorry to be negative about batts - how far from the house will the new build be?

Mart.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

got to nip out so just a quicky...

why i was thinking of a stand alone thing is that the house and land is divided by a public footpath, and there are some ar$$$ey users, which are a pain in the butt. we could go down the armoured cable route.

Energetic_2

Mart has pretty much nailed it, even for 15 tubes you'd be looking at a sizable battery bank. To size it correctly I’d need to know the wattage of the lights you're intending, the hours of use etc. It would probably be cheaper to run a new cable across.

If the footpath is that sensitive you could mole under it, just a pit either side on your own property would be needed, you should have a ‘moleing contractor’ somewhere near you or you may be able to hire one yourself.

If you can get the AC to the site relatively cheaply it’s probably worth doing. Being grid connected means you qualify for the better tariff than the stand alone system so it should pay back quicker, batteries are expensive in large quantities.

For a rough guide, 500W of lighting, ( roughly 15x 36W tubes)
for 10 hours daily use, 50% discharge rate for a deep cycle battery bank
and 3 days autonomy youd be looking at a cost of roughly 2/3 of a 4kW grid connected PV system, just for the batteries!

Without a look around I can’t really be more specific than that, sorry.

doughnutmachine

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Solar farms produce more leccy than domestic - nope, shared technology and little to no efficeincies of scale.

Solar farms are cheaper, economies of scale - nope, after including life-long running costs, there will be little to no difference.

do you really think it costs the same to install solar panels over a couple of dozen houses as opposed to one supermarket/ office roof?

i'd imagine it would be quicker for an electrician to install a mass of panels on one office roof than spend weeks driving about the country putting the same amount of panels on house roofs...

i'd also imagine you would get more power from panels on an office roof as opposed to the same amount of panels across a few dozen houses....

Martyn1981

doughnutmachine wrote: »

do you really think it costs the same to install solar panels over a couple of dozen houses as opposed to one supermarket/ office roof?

No I don't. A commercial install such as you describe would be much cheaper, perhaps £1,000/kWp as opposed to say £1,400/kWp for domestic (my guesses). And for a year now I've been arguing that such installs are the most viable, being cheaper, having little to no running costs (like domestic) and benefitting from a very high consumption rate, so saving money against the retail cost of leccy.

I've actually gone, further and suggested that such installs may now be viable without subsidies, especially if they are a 7 day a week operation.

But ..... solar farms .... they are a different animal all together. Whilst they will benefit from the lower install cost, they will suffer annual running costs, such as land, insurance, security etc, that don't apply to roof mounted commercial / domestic installs, and grid connection fees.

Also the farm will make it's money selling leccy at wholesale rates, not savings at retail rates.

doughnutmachine wrote: »

i'd also imagine you would get more power from panels on an office roof as opposed to the same amount of panels across a few dozen houses....

Why? The panels will be the same, and inverter efficiencies are pretty much the same, circa 96%. One possible difference is that the commercial roof may allow better orientation of the panels, but it still can't be better than south. Also fitting panels to brackets, would allow more airflow and better cooling than a standard domestic roof install, but then you'd have to factor in the costs of the mounts.

Mart.

doughnutmachine

Martyn1981 wrote: »

I've actually gone, further and suggested that such installs may now be viable without subsidies, especially if they are a 7 day a week operation.

Why? The panels will be the same, and inverter efficiencies are pretty much the same, circa 96%. One possible difference is that the commercial roof may allow better orientation of the panels, but it still can't be better than south. Also fitting panels to brackets, would allow more airflow and better cooling than a standard domestic roof install, but then you'd have to factor in the costs of the mounts.

Mart.

yeah, i agree solar power cant be that far from non subsidised viability.

i seem to see a lot of domestic systems with less than perfect set ups: ie shade from neighbouring trees/ buildings, roof slope not at optimum angle, and not facing south (as you mention). it would just seem better to have solar panels in locations where these problems can be overcome.