Ground-mounted solar panels and assorted questions

GustyGardenGalaxy

There's an area of my property about 20 feet from my house which is large enough to place some ground-mounted solar panels.

Naturally a small trench would need to be dug to accommodate the cabling, also battery purchase and installation, remove my old oil-fired boiler and replace with electric (if this is a suitable option) and anything else that I haven't thought of.

How do I find a good, reputable solar panels installer who would do all of the required calculations? The installer would need to determine solar panel size, how many are needed, type of electric heating system, etc. Is there a central database for such installers or is this kind of thing often handled by electricians these days?

As I have a conventional oil-fired boiler and old water-filled radiators I'd be looking to keep the latter with any new electric boiler.

Reed_Richards

You are not possibly going to generate enough power from solar panels in winter to heat your house.  Not if you need an oil boiler at the moment.  

matelodave

Have a look at the area at this time of year to see how much shading you are likely to get.

The sun is getting higher but in December and January the sun is even lower and shadows are even longer than they are at the moment so you may not get anything worthwhile out of ground mounted panels until the sun is a lot higher in the sky if they get shaded by houses, trees or other stuff.

ispookie666

Do you currently have solar panels? 
There are planning considerations for ground mounted specifically related to how much surface area and distance from nearest boundary.  
Winter is really poor for solar generation and might be better to keep the oil boiler, install solar panels, maybe batteries, solar diverter and Air2 ASHP.  You could do all this in one planning application.  
A few of the solar installers around my neck of the woods do A2ASHP aswell.  

GustyGardenGalaxy

Thanks for all of the replies, they have given me something to mull over.

Martyn1981

GustyGardenGalaxy said:

Thanks for all of the replies, they have given me something to mull over.

Hiya, you need planning permission for PV larger than 9m2, or more than 3m on any side. But, you can add PV to roofs, including sheds. I'm planning a small ground array of about 4 panels, so a little over 4m long, but they will form the steep front face of a ladder store / winter store for garden funiture.

But if you want to make a big impact on your heating, then you'll most likely need a 'proper' ground array, with PP. As others have said, it may help with your heating (but not displace it all), especially if you mount them at a steep angle 50d+, combined with an ASHP or just an A2A unit or two (I do that to reduce GCH use).

markin

If you really mean an electric boiler and not a wet ashp it will likely bankrupt you, And for a ashp you will likely need to upgrade at least a couple of rads and you need at least 15mm pipes

JKenH

matelodave said:

Have a look at the area at this time of year to see how much shading you are likely to get.

The sun is getting higher but in December and January the sun is even lower and shadows are even longer than they are at the moment so you may not get anything worthwhile out of ground mounted panels until the sun is a lot higher in the sky if they get shaded by houses, trees or other stuff.

I would second this. I have a single portable 330w panel mounted on a pallet with wheels/casters which I use to charge a portable power station. It was a bit of an experiment/fun to see how much output varied by adjusting the  elevation and angle of the panel. 

For the last 4 months or so it has been stored as, other than on the front drive, I struggle to find anywhere to put the panel that gets any more than the odd hour of sun. Adjacent buildings and trees cast long shadows this time of year. Once we get Ito March it will be a different story but I am still going to need to move it around. You can’t beat a roof mount system for getting the best from solar in a domestic situation.

If you are doing DIY ground mount then you can make considerable savings (no scaffold and installation although you do pay VAT and won’t get MCS accreditation) and you can fine tune the system to optimise its performance. 

Edit 330kW corrected to 330w, thanks @orbit500

HertsLad

JKenH said:

matelodave said:

Have a look at the area at this time of year to see how much shading you are likely to get.

The sun is getting higher but in December and January the sun is even lower and shadows are even longer than they are at the moment so you may not get anything worthwhile out of ground mounted panels until the sun is a lot higher in the sky if they get shaded by houses, trees or other stuff.

...You can’t beat a roof mount system for getting the best from solar in a domestic situation.

If you are doing DIY ground mount then you can make considerable savings (no scaffold and installation although you do pay VAT and won’t get MCS accreditation) and you can fine tune the system to optimise its performance. 

I'm using a ground mount system and can't see any way the system would produce anywhere near as much energy if I mounted my 6 panels on my house roof, facing SE. For a start, the later the panels can pick up sunshine, the shorter the period over darkness to see you through to the next morning with a battery bank. So 2 of my panels face west.  I recently belatedly moved some of my panels from a summer to winter position. The improved performance was significant.

orbit500

JKematelodave said:

I would second this. I have a single portable 330kw panel mounted on a pallet with wheels/casters which I use to charge a portable power station.

Lordy, that’s a big panel. 40 metres on a side by my calculator.

JKenH

orbit500 said:

JKematelodave said:

I would second this. I have a single portable 330kw panel mounted on a pallet with wheels/casters which I use to charge a portable power station.

Lordy, that’s a big panel. 40 metres on a side by my calculator.

🤣 I’ll correct it thanks.