Heating and Cooling for the Next House - Solar - PV - Heat Pumps - AC

bhjm

thanks for the feedback - I don`t know much about PV that`s why I am asking.

quote 1:

panels Tiger Neo N-type 54HL4 410-430 Watt

inverter S5-EH1P(3-6)K-L 6.000kW

Battery PylonTech 9.6 kWh Total Battery Storage

quote 2: (different installer)
panels PV Longi Solar 405W Hi-Mo 5M
inverter FOX ESS H1-5.0-E 5kW Hybrid Inverter with EPS  + Fox ESS S1500 SSeries SP S/MPPT DC Inverter for the garage
battery FOX ESS Energy Cube CM4300

regarding projected house consumption, I really don`t know, is there a calculator for this?

Heatpump - for the moment I think I will put this on hold, as over the last few warm days, the house was by far not as hot as the old house(what barely had any insulation)

what brands would you recommend?

bhjm

In Case we have installer in this group/thread - but also to all others, how would you spread out the panels ?

Martyn1981

LOL, my heart dropped at first, as Velux' can really muck things up. But on checking and re-checking, I think you are good for 13 panels - 3 rows of 5 panels portrait, but the middle row will be panel - space (velux) - panel - panel - space (velux).

Will need to choose the panels carefully, as most have grown since the early days of 1m by 1.6m, to about 1.1m by 1.7m and larger. However, I think you may be OK for 1.1m by 1.7m, but remember to include the panel gaps of ~20mm, as they can add up.

Good news is (I think), that you won't need to worry about leaving ~200mm on the edges for windlift, since that won't apply in your case, on either end. So I think 5 panels will roughly take up a width of about 5.6m. You may want to consider slightly narrower panels, if that's a problem.

Vertically, looks like you have a total of 5.85m, so allowing 300mm gap top and bottom, you can just squeeze in 3 panels of 1.7m plus 20mm gaps. The gap below the velux is big enough at 2.15m, even allowing for 300mm gap at bottom, but you may be able to squeeze that down to 200mm. There's also room below the velux, as you can place the panels right up to them. The mounting brackets and frame rails will be fitted lower, so looks like you got really lucky on the placement of the velux's.

Counting tiles above the Velux's, seems there is slightly more space (than below), so if you can install below, you will hopefully be 'golden' above.

You could consider a mix of vertical and horizontal panels. But unless you luck out, and they match perfectly, it won't look quite as good as having a singular orientation for all.

One concern, would be how the panels line up with Velux's to allow the pair on the right (second row) to flow through. Looking at your measurements, I think the Velux's are 900mm wide(?), so working from the right, you have ~3.5m to place 3 panels, to allow all 3 rows to line up. Again, at ~1.1m/panel that looks doable, assuming panels can be fitted close to the RHS edge.

So, I'd suggest Googling panels and seeing what the typical dimensions are, and liasing with the installer to double and triple check all this, as I think you have the room for panel options up to 1.1m by 1.7m, but not really any to spare for panels with larger dimensions.

[Just to note, I've tried to work this out carefully, but in reality I'm speculating and making a lot of guesses, and assuming your measurements are really accurate.]

bhjm

thanks a lot for your reply and your thoughts  

please let me know if you want to know anything else about it

yp70479

I notice from the picture that the house on the right has a roof line which is higher than yours. Will this roof throw any shade onto your panels ( I can't visualize if this will occur from your descriptions). If it does, it may be worth considering optimizers or microinverters as shading on part of a string of panels can pull down the maximum amount all panels in the string can generate. Your installer should be able to use software to predict if this will be a problem 

bhjm

good observation. the roof on the right is to east - so shade in the very morning only (if) I will try to make  photo tomorrow morning.

bhjm

would it be a problem to combine 400/415/430w panels with lets say 500watt panels to optimise the utilisation of the roof?

Martyn1981

bhjm said:

would it be a problem to combine 400/415/430w panels with lets say 500watt panels to optimise the utilisation of the roof?

Yes. You really need the panels to match, but you can get around that by using a Solaredge install, so the panels operate individually. Or, if all the panels on each string match each other, and the inverter can take a number of strings each on it's own MPPT. Otherwise the lower powered panel(s) will drag the others down to their level.

BUT what about the aesthetics, will the panels be different sizes, and how will this 'patch' together? Could be it works out well, but plan it carefully, especially if the orientation of the panels varies too.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

bhjm said:

would it be a problem to combine 400/415/430w panels with lets say 500watt panels to optimise the utilisation of the roof?

Yes. You really need the panels to match, but you can get around that by using a Solaredge install, so the panels operate individually.

An Enphase system (or similar, with per-panel microinverters) would give even more freedom to mix-and-match.

ispookie666

Enphase is a great system, not the cheapest. The current lot tops out at 290VA, you might want to wait for the IQ8+ to come out which will go up to 380. The wholesale rate in US is $200 per unit!