Using more generated power

MountainMan101

I know there are some old threads on this, but a lot of those started before latest technology, so I thought a new one might have some new ideas.

I've just moved house and am back to square one with a blank canvas, a house with no real heating system and acres of roof space. I'm having solar PV and air-source HP installed this week. I've gone for a solar thermal compatible cylinder for future upgrade, but at the moment I'm going to use an Immersun to heat the immersion and 3 towel radiator elements.

How usable is something like battery storage for spare power. Ideally something that can take the DC from before the inverter and then feed it in to the inverter as a boost or at night. The same principle as the hybrid engines or the KERS on the F1 cars.

Once something else that can make use of the electricity as a variable quantity comes along I can switch to solar thermal for the water.

nigelpm

Unless someone knows different these ideas are just not economic right now i.e. your spend on the kit outweighs (and by some margin) the gain from extra usage of electricity.

It's very much a watch and wait moment.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

I just Googled "solar pv energy storage" and was presented with a number of companies offering this. No mention of prices, of course. As nigelpm said, they're not economic at the moment.

mac2008

I have to agree with the others. The off the shelf systems are getting cheaper but don't make sense as a retrofit yet. If you're really keen, the systems which are an all in one inverter, charge controller and battery should be installed in place of your usual inverter.


Or if your house is a total renovation job, you could add some low voltage DC lighting and gadget circuits and check out a company called Moxia.


But yes, best bet would probably be to wait until your inverter needs replaced in 10-15 years and see what is available then.

rogerblack

There is - as of yet - no commonly available battery system that can store - over its lifetime its worth in electricity.
That is - a 100 pounds worth battery cannot store 100 pounds worth of electricity from the grid in total before it dies.
(over several hundred cycles).
Even with free electricity it doesn't make sense.

Launchman

You might want to look at using your current hot water cylinder as your energy store by using a product such as SOLIC 200 from cclcomponents. This unit appears to take any unused PV and diverts it to your immersion heater giving you free hot water (a bit like Economy 7). Additionally it looks as if you can still claim both your FIT and Grid allowances too (as its a deemed figure and not an actual figure).

theboylard

For balance, you should also consider other pv diverters.
Starting at the top end you have:
Immersun
Iboost
SolarImmersion

And not forgetting homebuild options from various places including openenergymonitor.org.

The Solic200 fits in between the SolarImmersion and the iboost, cost wise.
I have the SolarImmersion and I'm very happy with what it does - we've not had our boiler on since the end of May, with gas use only for cooking.
Our gas Bill to July 11th was 7.50, with actual gas usage being about 4m3, or £1.60 odd, the rest being the standing charge!