Solar IBoost+ experience

Hexane

Crowmann wrote: »

assured me that when they tested and approved the unit it was designed to not be able to catch fire - didn't stop the case from melting and the house smelt of electrical burning for perhaps three weeks

It's reassuring that the competing (although I think pricier) myenergi eddi device is a significantly heavy one piece metal case. (I think it also acts as a large heatsink so that a fan is not required, thus quieter.) But I guess the LCD display with the happy smiley face could still melt and dribble itself all over everything beneath it, if the insides got hot enough.

My unit is also in the airing cupboard. :undecided

Crowmann

The 'new' Iboost has started to need to be rebooted to reset the cooling function which advises you the check the vents.

This despite the unit being pretty cool and in a cool (or certainly much cooler than the airing cupboard) place. When reset all is fine for the rest of the day.

Hmm Iboost number 3?

Reed_Richards

I am moving towards getting something like an iboost - except that it probably won't be an actual iboost because I have been put-off by some of these bad reports. Any thoughts on competing products? It would need to work with a battery which means it mustn't make snap judgements about when electricity is being exported.

pinnks

I have two immerSUNs and the monitoring add-on and am pleased with them. The firm went under a couple of years ago but were taken on by SISEM Ltd who I think have started selling the product again after a break. immerSUN.co.uk will let you do your research.

If I was starting from scratch today I would look closely at the Eddi from myenergi.com for a few reasons. First the brains behind this firm are those that invented the immerSUN and second it is compatible with and talks to the Zappi which is an EV diverter. So more futureproofed. I think it also has the monitoring function a la myimmerSUN.

JKenH

Crowmann wrote: »

The 'new' Iboost has started to need to be rebooted to reset the cooling function which advises you the check the vents.

This despite the unit being pretty cool and in a cool (or certainly much cooler than the airing cupboard) place. When reset all is fine for the rest of the day.

Hmm Iboost number 3?

I found with my IBoost that when the check vents message came up I could just use the vacuum cleaner nozzle to suck any dust out the vents and it was then ok.

Crowmann

Spotlessly clean - its a software glitch rather than a physical issue otherwise rebooting would make no odds and it would very quickly go back to its 'cooling check vents' stuff.

Typically I am not here to see the message on the Iboost buddy. So effectively the unit turns itself off until reset and thats making it pretty rubbish. The one in the airing cupboard only did the above once in a blue moon and after a short while came back into service.

SushiCatNZ

We've had an iBoost for over a year now and it has failed and been either completely replaced or repaired 4 times! The most common fault is a fan failure, and just last night has broken AGAIN. I am so frustrated by this device.

Sure, it's great when it works (though very noisy and we had to have it moved), but since we are now renting out the place where the solar array is, it is a massive liability for myself and our tenants. I really wish I had never gone solar at all given the amount of trouble I've had with this thing.:mad:

NB. It was installed by professional installers who are a division of one of the big power companies in New Zealand (Mercury Energy).

Screwdriva

On another thread, I was told that the iBoost is a waste of money and that I would struggle to recover the cost of the product, let alone any net savings, in a 10 year period. Is this a finding owners have had?

JKenH

Since our I Boost was installed 18 months ago it has diverted 1972 kWh of solar to the immersion heaters. We don’t get as much benefit out of it in winter as we do in summer and in the last 12 months we have also installed 2 ASHPs which we run virtually continuously during the day and they take a lot of the solar PV. As we have E7 it means it is more efficient to heat the house during the day by solar and the water overnight on E7. In the last 28 days we have saved just over 10kwh. In the summer we have seen the IBoost send much as 16 kWh in one day into the hot water tanks. We have also just had a Zappi charger installed so there will be less available solar Pv in the future.

The payback period on an Iboost is shorter than on solar panels if you are dependent on immersion heaters for your hot water and could be as little as 1-2 years if you use a lot of hot water. If you have gas water heating (we don’t) then it would be much longer.

Hexane

Screwdriva wrote: »

On another thread, I was told that the iBoost is a waste of money and that I would struggle to recover the cost of the product, let alone any net savings, in a 10 year period. Is this a finding owners have had?

Not an iBoost owner but my solar diverter (same concept) diverted just under 1000kwh of power to my immersion heater in its first year of operation. This is not a saving of 1000kwh because there is no way of knowing how much of that heat would actually have been needed (e.g. if it is heating at 10am when I am out of the house and I might not return until 7pm). Because I heat my hot water with gas, paying about 5p per kwh for gas means 1000kwh might have cost me £50. Actually more than that because of inefficiencies, but maybe that cancels out the aspect of not knowing how much of it actually would have been needed. So an iBoost might earn back its own cost for me in 4 years, I think my device cost more so maybe 6 years. Before any actual "saving" at all.

However your situation is different, you are on (or are planning to be on) a metered export tariff. So unlike me, where I am on a deemed export tariff so everything diverted is genuinely "free" power, everything you diverted via an iBoost would be export payments that you would be losing. How much do you get paid for export? If it's 2.5p per kwh then an iBoost might have paid back its own cost in less than 10 years (if your energy use and pricing is similar to mine), if it's 5p per kwh then 20 years or never? And then we have to start thinking about inflation on the price you would've paid for the device...