Spare Solar - SOLiC 200 or Solar iboost - Thoughts?

ggmf · 25 February at 3:32PM

After 1 or 2 issues with our solar installation that I hope are finally resolved (time will tell), I'm conscious that we will have spare solar generation (in coming months) that I'd sooner not feed back to the grid.

This morning my 'man' chores were sequenced, load and run washing machine, when finished follow with check, final load and run of the dish washer. All good so far and all powered by solar generation. our battery was fully charged by 14:00, so the old immersion heater (that has not been used for quite some time) was manually switched on, to drain 10% from the battery. So thoughts are turning to automating the use of the spare solar to heat the water tank.

Would anybody have any thoughts, effectiveness and reliability regarding SOLiC 200 v Solar iboost?

Many thanks

Hetty17 · 25 February at 4:35PM

I had a Solar iBoost installed about 7 years ago; I rarely need to heat the water tank by any other means between mid-March and October (4kW system). It's an old iBoost, with no reporting features other than the display on the device itself - eg, I can't use an app to see if it's active. It's main problem is occasionally, for no apparent reason, it will lose contact with the sensor on the cable by the consumer unit.
A friend recently had an Eddi installed: I'm very impressed by the reporting that system offers. Real-time and historical data on usage, import, generation, export.
I have no idea how the diverter is managed in conjunction with battery storage, though.

ispookie666 · 26 February at 7:21AM

Iboost user - recently had the newer version of iboost. It does have an annoying fan noise, whilst the power us being diverted. The original did not have a fan but had some reliability problems due to being installed in the airing cupboards.

Meatballs · 26 February at 10:45AM

If you are getting SEG payments for export, and you are on gas central heating, or can run the immersion at a cheap rate overnight you need to consider the payback time.

It's all gone a bit up in the air, but previously you could have SEG at 5p and then octopus go at 5p or gas at under 5p to heat the hot water meaning you wouldn't ever get a return on the product+install costs.

The Eddi being the most expensive diverter out there, and probably with additional costs if someone sells you a harvi and hub doesn't seem very attractive at all.

mickyduck55 · 26 February at 2:18PM

I have the solic, works as expected and not very expensive

thevilla · 26 February at 2:32PM

If you're thinking of an EV and then a Zappi charger take a look at the myenergi solar diverter. Getting kit which is designed to be interoperable may save heart ache later.

ggmf · 26 February at 9:43PM

Thank you all for your replies, living on a hill with a number of steps up to the house and no garage, removing the front garden would be an expensive task, so no EV currently planned (unless our lottery numbers come up).

I have read through on the Solic and iboost+, they seem quite basic devices with little or no reporting capability, unless with the iboost+ you add the buddy for an extra £'s, is that right?

mickyduck55 · 26 February at 10:36PM

No reporting at all from the Solic.. but never been an issue for me.. Im only really interested in what I generate, what I use and what I have to buy, that data comes from my inverters and their associated software.

Reed_Richards · 27 February at 8:42AM

I bought a Timeguard Wi-Fi Controlled13 A Fused Switched Spur for a little under £60. This requires me to work out when to turn on the immersion heater, or more usually I set a timer and turn that off if it is cloudy. The power supplied is either the full 3 kW or zero. But I can control it from anywhere with a WiFi signal or internet connection. I have a battery and the worst case scenario is that I drain that, topped up with a little import form the mains. I could not justify the extra £140+ that the more sophisticated systems would cost.

QrizB · 27 February at 9:10AM

Reed_Richards said:

I bought a Timeguard Wi-Fi Controlled13 A Fused Switched Spur for a little under £60 ... I could not justify the extra £140+ that the more sophisticated systems would cost.

I use a ZigBee switch, for much the same reason; the savings are too small to justify the expense of any of the all-singing integrated solutions.

These last few days essentially all my hot water has been solar, heated by this method.

JKenH · 27 February at 9:54AM

For a short while I was without my IBoost and found it very difficult to align my water heating with clear blue skies. An awful lot of the time (even on nice sunny days we often have fair weather cloud scudding over) being able to find an hours slot when you can just leave your immersion heater to draw 3kw without any import is pretty tricky. You could easily find yourself with 10 minutes of peak rate electricity on your bill on what you thought was a sunny day.

Below is what my generation looked like on Friday yet the IBoost enabled me to save 4kWh. As my inverters only update at around 5 minute intervals in reality there are a lot more peaks and troughs. There is a few seconds delay between a cloud going over and the IBoost responding but it is a lot better at adjusting input than I ever could be just watching the sky.

Image: https://us-noi.v-cdn.net/6031891/uploads/editor/bx/cv09cooh58sp.jpeg

I have as of today ‘saved’ 4977kwh over 3.5 years using my IBoost. The alternative would have been to heat my water on Economy7 and later Octopus Go/Go Faster. From next month I am expecting it will be costing me 8.25p/kWh to heat it on Go Faster.

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Spare Solar - SOLiC 200 or Solar iboost - Thoughts?

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