passivliving

stevcraw

 have a 12 year old SolarPV system which is a 3.6KW home system setup by a company called "PVSolar" who apparently went bust last month.
The monitoring system is supplied by PassivLiving and that has died today.    the tablet   has failed thereby rendering the whole system useless. There are no more stock of the Hubs or tablets  so i have to find an alternative.

So i need a system that tells me what my Solar panels are doing and controls my heating and water. The current system was able to switch on electrical devices (like the immersion) when excess power was generated, this is a function i would like to still have)

Krakkkers

iboost or similar. How is your system useless? it still generates doesn't it?

[Deleted User]

It is little comfort but 12 years is a pretty good life for an electrical device. MyEnergi offers its EDDI system and the monitoring App is pretty good.That  said, I doubt that you would get a reasonable return on investment by heating a few kWh of hot water each day. 

matt_drummer

If you have a gas boiler used for heating your water or a heat pump it is cheaper to heat your hot water with them and get paid for the exported electricity.

Plus you save the capital cost of a solar diverter.

My hot water tank needs around 6 kWh a day of energy in the summer.

My heat pump does this for around 1 kWh of electricity and my gas boiler used to use around 5 kWh of gas.

The gas cost around 35p and my electricity costs around 20p in lost export payment.

If I used a solar diverter it would cost around £1 a day to heat the tank in lost export payment.

Solar diverters are only of limited use if you don't get paid for your exported electricity.

Even then, the gain compared to the capital cost is marginal.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

stevcraw said:

 have a 12 year old SolarPV system which is a 3.6KW home system setup by a company called "PVSolar" who apparently went bust last month.
The monitoring system is supplied by PassivLiving and that has died today.

With a 12-year-old 3.6kWp system, I assume you're getting FIT payments including deemed export?

I agree with the comment above that 12 years is a pretty good life for a consumer electronic system.

stevcraw said:

So i need a system that tells me what my Solar panels are doing and controls my heating and water. The current system was able to switch on electrical devices (like the immersion) when excess power was generated, this is a function i would like to still have)

I can understand that you might like to have a system, but do you need it?

Your solar panels will run quite happily by themselves (mine did for 11 years, until I replaced my inverter with a web-connected one).

If you need replacement controls for your heating system, there are various mass-market options including Nest and Hive.

As mentioned above, MyEnergi have products that will work with your solar PV system and divert power to heat your hot water. Also as mentioned above, depending on how you would otherwise heat it, it might be more rewarding to export it and claim the export payments.

lohr500

matt_drummer said:

My hot water tank needs around 6 kWh a day of energy in the summer.

My heat pump does this for around 1 kWh of electricity and my gas boiler used to use around 5 kWh of gas.

Not to hijack the original post, but I am curious on the above numbers.

If the tank needs 6kWh of energy to heat it in the summer, then does that imply your heat pump has a 6:1 conversion efficiency and your gas boiler outputs more energy than you put in? Or have I misunderstood?

matt_drummer

lohr500 said:

matt_drummer said:

My hot water tank needs around 6 kWh a day of energy in the summer.

My heat pump does this for around 1 kWh of electricity and my gas boiler used to use around 5 kWh of gas.

Not to hijack the original post, but I am curious on the above numbers.

If the tank needs 6kWh of energy to heat it in the summer, then does that imply your heat pump has a 6:1 conversion efficiency and your gas boiler outputs more energy than you put in? Or have I misunderstood?

No, you are correct.

I used to use around 6 kWh of gas a day in the summer.

I hit the wrong key, sorry.

So it's probably around 5.5 kWh of heat required.

My heat pump is using less than 1 kWh of electricity a day on average and is around 600% efficient in the summer at heating the water.

The heat pump is generally heating in the middle of the afternoon and is in direct sunlight, the air is pretty warm so it is not working very hard.

My heat pump is around 600% efficient at heating our water in the warm weather.




Thank you for highlighting my typing error.


However, the point is still valid, heating with gas, oil or a heat pump is much more efficient than an immersion heater even if it is powered by the sun.

Solar diverters are a waste of time if you get paid for your exported electricity and you have more efficient and cheaper ways of heating your water.
.

FreeBear

stevcraw said: have a 12 year old SolarPV system which is a 3.6KW home system setup by a company called "PVSolar" who apparently went bust last month.
The monitoring system is supplied by PassivLiving and that has died today.    the tablet   has failed thereby rendering the whole system useless. There are no more stock of the Hubs or tablets  so i have to find an alternative.

If the hub is still functioning, all you need is a tablet (or smart phone ?) and install the app - Have a chat with PassivLiving to see what specs are needed for the tablet/phone, and which version of the app is required.

nologo

My IHD shows when I'am exporting or the octopus mini  will do the same (current usage shows negative consumption).   nologo

stevcraw

In reply to free bear the hub still works and the passivling app only shows heating controls on my iPhone  (not water ) if I want to check solar I have to go on computer 
solar was installed 2012 still using aurora power one inverter 🤞
The passivliving desktop display would show everything solar heating and water which is broke and no spares,  maybe time to cut my losses and get a new hives system  and leave hub on for solar on computer 
steve