Iboost

shibli

paul991 said:

have  you  monitoring on what you have  consumed  , generated , fed  back to grid and batteries, ?
I've a similar solar  immersion switch where you can control when and at what level  power is  fed to the immersion. my tank was insulated  with foam but i also put a red jacket on it which the insulation contractors gave  me

Yes I am glued to the app which monitors the whole set up around generation, consumption, imports etc, I initially may have had a high expectation and now realised I have to manage the consumption. I can see its diverting the whole solar power to the cyclinder (which is a new install) after the battery is charged. 

shibli

[Deleted User] said:

I have a MyEnergi EDDI solar diverter connected to my hot water tank. 

An East/West 4kWp array may well produce 20kWh in a day but the amount of solar electricity available for diversion depends on your house load (both in terms of instant power and kWh in a day) and the charging priorities set up by your installer (this is often related to the wiring configuration). For example, my home is set up for home loads first; battery recharging second; HW re-heating third and EV charging 4th. 

My battery will output at 5kW. It follows that if my panels are outputting at 3kW and my wife puts on the oven at the same time that the dishwasher is on, the battery will have to supplement the solar production. Once these high power devices are switched off then solar output will go first to the battery and then to HW cylinder re-heating. 

PV solar, even with a battery, isn’t ‘fit and forget’. As the nights draw in, management of your battery supply becomes key if you want to avoid Grid electricity use. From about September through to March, your iBoost will become an expensive paperweight - sorry. I have a much larger array than you do and it only outputs just over 100kWh in December. Most of my battery recharging in the Winter comes from the Grid.

If I am based in the SE does that matter in terms of sun/daylight? My order of energy use follows this : Consumption >  battery > Iboost > export to grid, which I have had hardly any, I think whats been said I probably dont need as much hot water during these months anyway. 

peter3hg

I have an iBoost with a 180 litre tank. I find most days it takes about 4.5 kWh before it clicks off with the tank hot. It might switch back on a couple of times later in the day but I've rarely seen it get over 5 kWh a day.
My immersion thermostat is set to the max temperature, but I believe that is only 60c anyway.
I bought the house with the solar array already fitted. It is only a 2.5kWh set up and adding batteries to it wouldn't give a reasonable return on investment, so I went with the iBoost instead as I worked out I would see a return in less than 3 years and it is cheap enough I'm happy to pay it just to be more self-sufficient.

shibli

The main issue appears to be the battery v iboost conflict, in my case it's the battery then iboost. I am finding the battery is recharging on the morning before the iboost kicks in. I guess I need to find out what I need to balance the two but some are reporting 5kw is sufficient which makes sense.

ispookie666

@shibli congratulations on getting the systems installed.  
You can go into the iBoost setting and change the threshold at which your iBoost starts diverting power (Press the A and B button for 3 sec to open the settings menu).  The default value is set at 100W,  I have had this set at 400W (currently reverted to 100W as my inverter has gone kaput).  
If I do not use hot water during the day time iBoost only diverts a few KW, but if I use hot water during the day time the diverting increases.  It looks like you have a single immersion element at the top of the cylinder.  

Just be careful when you increase the immersion thermostat to >65 C, its very easy to get scalds.  

shibli

ispookie666 said:

@shibli congratulations on getting the systems installed.  
You can go into the iBoost setting and change the threshold at which your iBoost starts diverting power (Press the A and B button for 3 sec to open the settings menu).  The default value is set at 100W,  I have had this set at 400W (currently reverted to 100W as my inverter has gone kaput).  
If I do not use hot water during the day time iBoost only diverts a few KW, but if I use hot water during the day time the diverting increases.  It looks like you have a single immersion element at the top of the cylinder.  

Just be careful when you increase the immersion thermostat to >65 C, its very easy to get scalds.  

Thank you ! Can you explain further on what the increase of 100w to 400w will do/help please ?

ispookie666

I found that, 100w was too narrow window, resulting in iBoost diverting power to heat water incorrectly. 

 The power for iBoost/immersion was coming from either Solar/Inverter - as the inverter assumed the house load had gone up. 

The iBoost would frequently max out at 3kW. 

 This whole thing was a Big Positive freed back loop  setting 

Reed_Richards

shibli said:

Reed_Richards said:

Your iboost will send power to the hot water cylinder immersion heater until its thermostat reaches its set temperature. What temperature is the immersion heater thermostat set to?  Your boiler will operate on a different unrelated thermostat.   

It was set at 65c, the max, I have turned it down to 60c

There are two possible scenarios:

• You have a blending valve on the output from your hot water cylinder - in which case you might as well make the cylinder as hot as it can take
• Or the water from your hot taps comes out at the cylinder temperature in which case even 60 C can scald you quite quickly.

shibli

Reed_Richards said:

shibli said:

Reed_Richards said:

Your iboost will send power to the hot water cylinder immersion heater until its thermostat reaches its set temperature. What temperature is the immersion heater thermostat set to?  Your boiler will operate on a different unrelated thermostat.   

It was set at 65c, the max, I have turned it down to 60c

There are two possible scenarios:

• You have a blending valve on the output from your hot water cylinder - in which case you might as well make the cylinder as hot as it can take
• Or the water from your hot taps comes out at the cylinder temperature in which case even 60 C can scald you quite quickly.

The more I think about the hot water would scald easily when my boiler was supplying the cylinder. Perhaps  now with the iboost the actual hot water is more acceptable to touch without burning my self. 

Reed_Richards

It's valid to think of your hot water cylinder as a heat battery.  Therefore it makes sense to store as much energy as possible when the sun shines in case the following day is cloudy.  So I think a blending valve on the output from your hot water cylinder is a good idea because you can adjust that to make your hot water a safe temperature whilst keeping the cylinder hotter.