The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Renewables => Topic started by: Big Light on December 31, 2012, 08:54:27 am
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Hi :wave: ,
we got 4kw of Panels installed at the end of October (to catch the end of the 16p tarriff), we are in central Scotland and have the following results for the last 2 months
Nov - 112 units
Dec - 70 units
We have panels on 2 strings 11 on a generally south facing roof and 5 on a SW facing roof
we have obviously benefitted from the free electricity and will get a little back from FITS / Export tarriff.
We were interested in what everyone else was producing and if they kept records monthly / yearly? to see if we were comparable or not ( it has been a miserable couple of months and hoping to pick up in the spring / summer)
If posting please put general location in country, orientation of panels (S , SW etc) , size of system and if not monthly production then the period it was produced over IE 6 month summer / autumn, June - Sept etc - (ideally last 12 months would be good)
Hopefully this will be quite incitefull for those that have panels and those considering them and i guess if people have low or high readings then maybe learning points also.
Have a good New Year when it comes
thanks
BL
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I just jot my readings down quarterly for the FIT payment
A fairly accurate estimate can be found from this site
http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php (http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php)
my 3.9kw system will do around 3200 kwh in its first year (Feb to Feb) which is a tad below the estimate but it has been a bad year.
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Interresting website i was exact for the first month and a little up for the second.
What general location in the Uk are you Henchard?
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Interresting website i was exact for the first month and a little up for the second.
What general location in the Uk are you Henchard?
Carmarthenshire. That site predicts 3310 kwh for a year whilst my actual is likely to be around 3200; but as I say a bad year weather wise and I have a tiny bit of panel shading in the winter months.
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We're in S Oxon. I have a 3.5kW peak output array facing WSW so far from ideal, but still produces approx 3000 kWh per year. I have some half hourly data for it somewhere. Because of the WSW orientation it never generates above 2.85kW, though on a good summer day I generate up to 23kWh. Over the last week it's ranged from <1kWh to 5 kWh daily.
Very happy with my investment.
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2011 -3665 kwh and 2012 3472kwh from 3.96kw array in carmarthenshire
Regen
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192 for feb quite happy with that
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only 212 for march but panels under snow for a number of days
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We're on the east coast of Scotland with a 4kW array.
For January-March we generated 479, down from 644 in the same period in 2012. :-\
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Thanks Dan we are 458.3 for the same period which was a bit down on what we expected but similar to yours.
Interesting to see we are not the only ones.
What are you peaking at per day in the summer?
The best day so far has been just over 16kWh for a day at the end of Feb
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We're in the south-east and generated 389kWh in Q1 against 583 last year on a split 4kW array facing south and east. And 3349kWh for 2012
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A 24.9 yesterday bring on the Summer! ;D
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jealous ... didn't get smallholding till after payback had been cut!!!! Still a non south faceing slope in Wales not best place for solar I guess :raining: :roflanim:
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We got ours after the cut but cost less to buy initially. So i guess it kinda balances out. The link above in this thread for solar power predictor will give you a reasonable idea what you would get
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What are you peaking at per day in the summer?
The best day so far has been just over 16kWh for a day at the end of Feb
Don't know, I'll need to check the next decent day - tomorrow hopefully. :sunshine: :D
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What readings did yopu guys get on Saturday the 20 April 2013 ???
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sat was 16.6 and sunday 12.5
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Thanks .
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410 for april ;D
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447 for us even with the sand storms. :D
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433 for us off of a 3.75kw system near scunthorpe, well happy with that
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May - 437 :(
June - 488 :)
July - 548 ;D
How did every one else get on?
BL
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604 in June, forgot to take a reading 1st August though. :dunce:
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We had 67 for the first 4 days;0)
We actually ran a hose over the panels a few weeks back to get rid of the dust - not sure if it made any difference but it looks cleaner so more energy should be getting in
Still dreaming of the magic 600 !
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We had a cracking June here, today's reading shows 632 since 1st July so July looks like it was more in line with your numbers.
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May 460 v 421 last year
June 424 v 401
July 544 v 434
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Interesting the regional variations even within months
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August 386.5 good start but slow finish ( except today 20.3)
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441 for August here.
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285 for September
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328 for September. :sunshine:
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I think thats the end of the good months :sunshine: now :raining: moving to :gloomy:
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154 for October
Thats our first full year in and 3332 units for the year :)
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From July to September we generated 1350 Kwh. We have a 4kw array on two strings. One facing south the other facing south west. Cant remember how much we generated last year but certainly not as much as this year.
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175 for October here, been a good year. :thumbsup:
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I'm glad you guys are keeping a tally of the production .
Have any of you discovered any degradation of the production capability of the panels .. say two great clear sky 18 oC sunny days a year apart giving noticeable differences ?
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Our's doesn't store daily production figures and I only check each month, so couldn't say I'm afraid.
The manufacturers do publish production fall-off figures, but I suspect they are as reliable as the motor industry's MPG figures.
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Our's is only a year old, we try to take daily figures - the only time i thought we had a little dip we ran the water hose over the panels as there had been some building going on nearby and i think it had produced alot of dust - it seemed to bring the figures up. We got a guarantee with the panels of either a 5 or 10 percent max drop over the 20 years
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I always rinse off my panels once a month as it's very dry and dusty here and it normally improves by 10 -20% instantly. Makes a huge difference when it's all the power you have
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Well guys and gals having talked things over with my lass she is of the opinion that we will most likely soon be putting in as large an array as allowed wrt getting the feed in tariff.
What has changed since I joined the site is that the various companies doing PV panels have now started saying ... we now fit on East , South or West facing roof planes.
Before I made enquiries today the last time I checked it was still only fit to south facing roof planes .
Do any of you have split arrays ?
IE
One array either side of the roof apex ? If so any comments of any sort would be most welcome
Secondly do any of you have just a single array on a west facing roof plane ?
I've asked these questions because our roof planes are facing almost true East & West . Each roof being approx. ( 6 x 20 ) 120 sq. mtrs in area .
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We have a split 11 panels south and 5 west (as there was only room for 11 south) the west panel gives us a trickle later on in the day till dusk- especially in the summer) . they are on 2 separate strings so there is no issues created by one being shaded
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We also have ours split, and separately wired. I have no idea what the effect on output is but it obviously generates less for longer.
Mubadala in Abu Dhabi started a major comparative survey of PV panel efficiency about 5 years ago but I don't believe they ever published the results. I do know that from the start there were very major differences between panels in terms of actual output and effective angle of operation. All their panels were washed daily because dust in the Gulf is a huge headache
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Well guys and gals we've taken the plunge .. getting a survey done for 4kw all on one a west facing roof .
Price appears to be very very good will tell more as it happens .
I also asked about humidity control in the bungalow as we have a fully tanked wet room with two extractor fans but we still find it too humid inside .
Evidently there is a fairly local to me ( In the Welsh Valleys ) company called NU-AIRE .. Who do a very good price on locally made Mechanical Ventilation & Heat Recovery (MVHR)systems. ( www. nuaire.co.uk)
This pulls in cclean external air ,takes the heat out of the exhausted moist air & transfers it to the clean incoming air .
I've done a bit of searching before I go to this company just to get a flavour of things. It sounds like this is what we are looking for and it will be a fraction of the £ 6,700 price I've been offered elsewhere for a similar system from a Bristol based company.
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Good luck
154 for November - good month we got exactly that in October - bizarre :thinking:
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We've got our installation booked for this week - 4kW array, with a SolarEdge inverter with individual optimisers for the panels. This allows monitoring for each panel and should tell us if one of the panels starts to go off spec.
Of course, today it started to snow, and tomorrow & Thursday are going to be 'exciting' with 60mph winds and more snow - just the time to have a couple of blokes clambering about on the roof!
Hopefully it will all be installed by the end of the week, in time for next week's sun.
Sue
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The good thing about PV panels is that they work better on day light rather than hot sun .
I was a bit concerned that we might have been moved on to a higher rate tariff by our supplier of we had PV panels and were using less of their electricity .
couldn't find out about it on EON's web site so we made a phone call to them ..
Yipeeee
No change in the rate charged for night time useage or extras in the day time.
We've been out and purchased several three year guaranteed mechanical time clocks for £4 each so we can put the dish washer , washing machine , dryer , fridge and freezers on staggered interval day time events ,running only one appliance at a time so we can make the most of the system .
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"The good thing about PV panels is that they work better on day light rather than hot sun ."
PV panels produce most when the sun is shining but they will produce more when the sun is shining and there is a cooling breeze than if it is hot and muggy. Daylight in December will not produce very much at all.
"We've been out and purchased several three year guaranteed mechanical time clocks for £4 each so we can put the dish washer , washing machine , dryer , fridge and freezers on staggered interval day time events ,running only one appliance at a time so we can make the most of the system ."
At those prices please make sure that they are rated for appliances like washers and dryers which use a lot of leccy. You are unlkely to save much by staggering them using time closcks due to the vagaries of the welsh weather. better to fit an immersun or similar device which will divert all your spare leccy over and above that used by the house into your water tank then use that hot water in dish washer and ashing machine.
Regen
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Thanks regen ,
For the letting me know about the best generation conditions , I tried to find information about typical volumes of production related to the time of the year , but so far have not found much out that is less than 9 yrs. old...
Thankfully the solar PV generation technology has come on in massive bounds since then .
Happen I will get the full rundown for the panels they are currently fitting when the guys come and see us on Friday to do the survey and start talking money .
It has been a valuable timely intervention / post on your part .... thanks .
The time clocks are 13 amp resistive or induction loading so no problems there .
We don't have a hot water tank have an all singing all dancing balanced combi oil boiler instead .. the max hot water we hold in the system is about 20 litres for the taps and about 300 inthe rads of which their heater assembly & tank holds about 15 litres.
The dishwasher gets put one once a day just after lunch time so we have all clean stuff for making the evening meal for three of us. It's more for me than the actual dish washing event .. I have a vicious campylobacter problem still with me from 40 years ago so everything gets a sterilizing hot wash and heat dried instead of using things like dishcloths and tea towels. It is a Bosch cold fill as are most, for the thermal efficiency engineers reckon that only heating the water you actually use is far cheaper than keeping zillions of litres in a tank & making the piping system hot.
The washing machine is an AAA rated cold fill only washing machine usually on a 40 oC wash & is out in the garage in it's own little enclosure so no hot water is used from the house supply.
The dryer is also one of the higher efficiency ones that uses far less juice than the old one did.
Now our daughter is older and not creating so much washing we are looking at the modern version of the fan assisted " Flatley " low current clothes rack dryer system / device .( Our recently deceased old Aunt had one for over 50 years & swore by it ).
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Hi Clodhopper,
Last 12 months or so production figs for 3.92 ground mount in carms south facing.
dec 12- 96kwh, Jan 13-88kwh, Feb 13- 180kwh, Mar 13- 304kwh, apr13-416kwh, May 13- 488kwh, Jun13-502kwh, Jul13- 563kwh, aug13- 424kwh, sept13-307kwh,oct13 -177kwh, nov13-139kwh
I actually manage to use about 1500kwh of the 3500kwh produced annually the rest would go into the grid if I did not send it to the store.
"It is a Bosch cold fill as are most, for the thermal efficiency engineers reckon that only heating the water you actually use is far cheaper than keeping zillions of litres in a tank & making the piping system hot"
True if you are using oil,gas or electricty to heat the water. By having oil and wood feeding into a thermal store and also dumping nearly all the excess leccy (about 2000kwh pa) into the store va an immersun for which I get paid about 2p per unit anyway under the 50% deemed rule as well as the FIT and putting the dishwasher and washing mc onto hot fill I get to choose when they are switched on - typically anytime of the year when the sun is shining because i can then guarantee that I will be producing significantly more than i am using.
We have not used any oil for nearly 3 years and our leccy use from the meter is down to less than 2500 units PA. Wood cost is about £120pa to kepp the house at a minimim of 18 degs C.
Have a look at the navitron PV forum - loads of info on systems and pricing. Some have got 4kw systems for less than £6000.
Good Luck
Regen
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Clodhopper if you read through this thread you will see Dan and my monthly figures also
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Yes BL ..... thanks & also thanks to Regen and the rest of you guys and gals for putting the data up for my perusal
I've pored over the posts many times to try and let things run through my head so I can sort the fly muck from the pepper.
It's pity that at the time I couldn't have afforded a bio mass & a 1500 litre heat sink as a linked in system when the place was renovated four years ago but that in itself is a bit immaterial , as we don't have the space in the bungalow for either .
Trying to get such add on's in an out building would run to upsetting the spoilt witch next door who bitches & screeches at any & everything many times a day , planning could be very fraught. You should have heard her yelp & yorp in her bungalow when I put our caravan on my property ..you'd have thought she was paying the mortgage and council tax. :roflanim:
Her live in partner gets a right ear bashing almost daily ....poor bugger.
She can't do anything about the solar panels being installed as they are allowed under the Welsh government's green policy initiative and I am under no obligation to say anything to her .
So when they are fitted I expect that she'll go in to permanent squawk mode at warp speed plus VAT .... when that happens I bet he doesn't stay around much longer.
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We had the survey done last Friday . got a good price for £ 5, 200 for a 4 kWp set up held for four months unless there are drastic price increases .
On reading the small print, I noticed that it said , " Whilst there is not normally any need for planning control or building control interference I should do my own checking or ask them to help ( for a fee? )
So I'm sending two recorded letter off tomorrow when the P.O's. open .
Have any of you in Carmarthenshire that have had the PV generation panels set up installed met with any problems in this area ????
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Hi Clodhopper,
Last 12 months or so production figs for 3.92 ground mount in carms south facing.
dec 12- 96kwh, Jan 13-88kwh, Feb 13- 180kwh, Mar 13- 304kwh, apr13-416kwh, May 13- 488kwh, Jun13-502kwh, Jul13- 563kwh, aug13- 424kwh, sept13-307kwh,oct13 -177kwh, nov13-139kwh
I actually manage to use about 1500kwh of the 3500kwh produced annually the rest would go into the grid if I did not send it to the store.
"It is a Bosch cold fill as are most, for the thermal efficiency engineers reckon that only heating the water you actually use is far cheaper than keeping zillions of litres in a tank & making the piping system hot"
True if you are using oil,gas or electricty to heat the water. By having oil and wood feeding into a thermal store and also dumping nearly all the excess leccy (about 2000kwh pa) into the store va an immersun for which I get paid about 2p per unit anyway under the 50% deemed rule as well as the FIT and putting the dishwasher and washing mc onto hot fill I get to choose when they are switched on - typically anytime of the year when the sun is shining because i can then guarantee that I will be producing significantly more than i am using.
We have not used any oil for nearly 3 years and our leccy use from the meter is down to less than 2500 units PA. Wood cost is about £120pa to kepp the house at a minimim of 18 degs C.
Have a look at the navitron PV forum - loads of info on systems and pricing. Some have got 4kw systems for less than £6000.
Good Luck
Regen
Interesting. Do you have some way of turning on the immersion only when the panels are generating? This seems like a really good idea. We have a store too, currently heated by a wood stove and gas combi as back up. But it would make sense to put a good charge into it when the panels were generating more than we are using.
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We had the survey done las Friday . got a good price for £ 5, 200 for a 4 kWp set up held for four months unless there are drastic price increases .
On reading the small print, I noticed that it said , " Whilst there is not normally any need for planning control or building control interference I should do my own checking or ask them to help ( for a fee? )
So I'm sending two recorded letter off tomorrow when the P.O's. open .
Have any of you in Carmarthenshire that have had the PV generation panels set up installed met with any problems in this area ??? ?
No issues re planning for mine.
see
http://wales.gov.uk/docs/desh/publications/101027currentgyoeen.pdf (http://wales.gov.uk/docs/desh/publications/101027currentgyoeen.pdf)
One of the main points for you to consider is how are the panels to be fixed? Many installers have just been drilling through tiles and slates and using rubber grommets to waterproof. This is not adequate and the roof hooks and frame need to be properly fixed and dressed with lead in the case of slate.
Here is ours being installed
http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/work-on-the-smallholding/the-pv-solar-panels-are-fitted-to-generate-electricity/ (http://lizburton.co.uk/wordpress/work-on-the-smallholding/the-pv-solar-panels-are-fitted-to-generate-electricity/)
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Thanks for the input Henchard it is very useful ,
Our roof is the concrete Marley tiles and they will be slid up for the anchors to fixed to the roof joists not the tile battens then slid back in place.
I hadn't located that Welsh Government doc , but found it as I thought would IE. No matter what it says , you still have to inform the planners and BCO even though in theory you are allowed to install without them .
Is that jobs for the boys and girls or a serious attempt to stop people innocently falling foul of changes in the legislation and for record keeping purposes so they can brag how green Wales is to get bigger EC grants ???
I reckon it's the former , for any change to the legislation could be indicated on the Welsh government websites etc. in a matter of minutes.. A simple three weeks or three months period of grace before implementation would solve any cross over problems and save a hell of a lot of money for us the tax payers .
The information for the graphs etc, could easily be sent in by the installing companies or the power suppliers /generation companies after the installation is commissioned.
( probably is in any case, as they just seem to love pointless duplication ).
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"Interesting. Do you have some way of turning on the immersion only when the panels are generating? This seems like a really good idea. We have a store too, currently heated by a wood stove and gas combi as back up. But it would make sense to put a good charge into it when the panels were generating more than we are using."
Hi Stereo,
Use a device called the immersun which dectects how much is being generated and howmuch is being used from the grid by the house and then diverts all the balance (upto the wattage of a std immersion heater) into the tank. The amount continually changes as generation and usage chnge. If the amount generated is more than the house plus divert then the balance will go to grid.
In last year I generated about 3500kwh and used about 1500kwh in the house with about 2000kwh being divereted directly into the thermal store. Whilst this 2000kwh only represents about 15% of my annual heating/hotwater requirement it does mean that I don't have to lite the fire so often in spring and autumn and never in the summer for hot water.- although I have oil turning that on is a definite no no!
Regen
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No requirement to inform Planning or Building control for PV installation upto 4kw if sited ona pitched roof and meets the guidelines re distance from edge and height above tiles. My have to if in conservation area or building is listed.
Regen
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What kind of electricity meter do you have? We have the old style spinning disc meter and on a sunny day it will run backwards reducing the units recorded as used!
We have informed the electricity supplier on numerous occasions but no change of meter and we have had the panels for 18 months.
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Yes I had one of those for 18 months before they got round to changing it. Provided you did not fill in a form after installation which specifically asked the question- "Does your meter run backwards" then you should be allright. Some say that the electricity co. can reclaim back for upto 1 year but I don't know how they could legally prove back usage.
However if your meter goes back further than the previous reading then they will probably twig whats happening so it makes sense to at least ensure the reading is always higher than the previous one.
Not a lot of point in fitting an immersun under these circumstances.
Regen
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"Interesting. Do you have some way of turning on the immersion only when the panels are generating? This seems like a really good idea. We have a store too, currently heated by a wood stove and gas combi as back up. But it would make sense to put a good charge into it when the panels were generating more than we are using."
Hi Stereo,
Use a device called the immersun which dectects how much is being generated and howmuch is being used from the grid by the house and then diverts all the balance (upto the wattage of a std immersion heater) into the tank. The amount continually changes as generation and usage chnge. If the amount generated is more than the house plus divert then the balance will go to grid.
In last year I generated about 3500kwh and used about 1500kwh in the house with about 2000kwh being divereted directly into the thermal store. Whilst this 2000kwh only represents about 15% of my annual heating/hotwater requirement it does mean that I don't have to lite the fire so often in spring and autumn and never in the summer for hot water.- although I have oil turning that on is a definite no no!
Regen
Thanks. That's really helpfull. I hate burning gas to heat the tank in the summer just so we can have domestic hot through the heat exchanger. I plan to get a solar thermal panel plumbed in to solve that but PV would work as you say.
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Hi Stereo,
I think that cost wise the immersun (or similar device) will be cheaper even if you already have a spare coil in the thermal store but it will not supply quite as many kwh. A unit costs around £300 and can be fitted by a competent electrician in about an hour provided wiring is straightforward between immersion heater and coonsumerunit and immersun can be placed fairly close to invertor/consumer unit and mains infeed cable.
Each to his own but I find it only takes a couple of minutes to lite the woodburner and a 12 kg charge of wood guarantees a 300 liter tank of water at 65 degrees which will last a couple of days even if the sun does not shine.
The power from the immersun is completely free as it only harvests that which would go to the grid and you are paid the 50% (about 2p per unit) under the deemed rule regardless.
Regen
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Yeah, we usually run half a pallet through the Esse every other day in the summer unless we are having a lot of showers / baths. I'll light it up early when the kids are having baths. I keep wondering if the tank we have is not big enough. It's a Gledhill Torrent Solar, I think 200 litres or so. I can get it really hot with wood but by the time 2 of the boys have had a bath, the gas boiler is kicking in. The house is a detached barn conversion, 3 beds, 2 receptions. I'm thinking it's not really big enough for the job?
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Yeah, we usually run half a pallet through the Esse every other day in the summer unless we are having a lot of showers / baths. I'll light it up early when the kids are having baths. I keep wondering if the tank we have is not big enough. It's a Gledhill Torrent Solar, I think 200 litres or so. I can get it really hot with wood but by the time 2 of the boys have had a bath, the gas boiler is kicking in. The house is a detached barn conversion, 3 beds, 2 receptions. I'm thinking it's not really big enough for the job?
You could fit a small de-stratification pump to the tank, it mixes the water in the tank so that the whole volume is hot, not just the top layer.
A suitable pump is about £20, chuck in a £5 thermostat, a one way valve and a bit of pipe work and you will have a whole tank of hot water.
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"You could fit a small de-stratification pump to the tank, it mixes the water in the tank so that the whole volume is hot, not just the top layer.
A suitable pump is about £20, chuck in a £5 thermostat, a one way valve and a bit of pipe work and you will have a whole tank of hot water"
If there are 4 people in the house and the tank is indeed only 200litres then it is probably on the small side.
On our Gledhill there are 2 immersion heaters and I have connected the PV into the bottom port which ensures that the whole tank is heated. If it is a single port and is situated half way up the tank then a mixer pump would help to maximise PV hot water.
If using the wbs to heat the water then I expect it will heat the tank from the bottom up so a pump would not help. However the main problem with the thermal store (and the magnitude increases as the tank size reduces) is that hot water is produced by pumping cold water into a large coil inside the store which will take the heat out of the store fairly evenly but once the store gets down to about 35 degrees the water produced is not hot enough. Note the thermal store works in the opposite way to a conventional HW cylinder.
As its a Gledhill torrent Solar I expect the transfer coil for thermal solar is near the bottom of the tank and once utilized will always heat the tank from the bottom.
It is possible that the store stat is set too high thus allowing the gas to start up too soon. Being tight our oil boiler will only come on when the store gets down to 40 degrees and then only if the main controller is switched on.
regen
Regen
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Thanks for the thoughts. I have an idea that the feed from the esse wood boiler goes in halfway up the tank. Maybe not ideal. I think our stat is set at about 40 as you don't want cold water coming back into the stove as it will clag it up. How noisy is a stratifying pump? The tank is one of the boys bedrooms in a cupboard.
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They are smaller and quieter than a central heating pump, I will see if I can find the link.
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Just an important point to note. Regulations require stored hot water to be maintained above 60 degrees. The reason is to kill Legionella with is present in all water and is not killed by Chlorination. Storing at a lower temperature allows it to multiply. The optimum breeding temperature is body temperature, so around 40 degrees. The highest risk groups are children under 10 and males over 50. So I would urge everyone to ensure their hot water storage systems are compliant with regulations, because Legionella kills a lot of people every year.
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This is a sealed system though. The hot water is not used other than in the heating. Domestic hot is produced by running mains cold through a heat exchanger inside the tank so it would be insulated from any chance of contamination. It works differently to a standard hot water tank.
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44 for December
The only glowing orb was the moon !
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Thanks Big Orb..
We'll' soon be joining you .
We've got( 31 DEC ) the no planning requirement letter from the county planners .. We need a zero return so to speak so that we can keep it with the house deeds /details incase it is needed in many years time when the house gets sold and the new prospective owners ask for written confirmation that planning was/ was not needed . As we've been caught out on that angle previously for a no planning requirement for a disabled persons accessible heated conservatory.
It held up the sale of the bungalow for five weeks whilst the local planners replied to my letters .
All we need now is for the BCO to show his face when they return to work next Monday so we can have written confirmation that he has assessed the bungalow as not needing any work to have the array installed and hopefully we will be in business very soon after that.
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Good luck with that, installations really quick once you get a date, that said the first couple of months of the year you won't get much return but hopefully you will have it in before the spring summer months to get max return
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Has anyone got any generation figures for this " Balmy weather period " ??
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We came on line in December (11th) - and generated 37.03 KWh to the end of the month.
So far in Jan we've made 19.498 KWh - (yesterday was very good at 5.48.)
We're in Moray (North East Scotland), about 230m up, roof faces S-SW, have a 4KWp installation, with SolarEdge inverter and Immersun - so that all the excess energy is going into our hot water...
Sue
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Well we've got the letters saying no permission needed to install from the county planners and also had the building control officer come and have a look granting us the go ahead which we received yesterday morning ( All FOC )
Thus armed we went to AMGEN renewables , signed the contract& paid a deposit to initiate things further .
A guy is coming early next week ( unrelated the installation company ...by law ) to carry out the thermal efficiency survey ( bit of a waste of time and money ) . The building must be class D or better at A B or C thermal efficiency .
I reckon we will be C or B for that's what I designed the bungalow total refurbishnemt to be .
We have 10 inches of 3 yr old roof void insulation , full cavity wall insulation , 90% of the double glazing has been renewed in the last five years with the argon filled reflective self cleaning glass and a correctly vented capped off chimney etc. etc.
We have a class AA boiler, fridge freezer ,dryer , cold fill washer and dish washer and all our lights are now low voltage incandescent or LED.
At the Amgen office i asked how much would we expect to generate in the current days weather which was dull dark rains wept all day from day light and pitch dark by 16.15 .
Peter the owner did a brill bit of selling , he brought up his own homes second by second generating figures .. Yesterday he'd generated five KwHr up to 16. 20 hrs.
One thing he did talk to us about after I asked a few penetrating questions is that he has several generating sites on property he has either sold , on his own home or on friend homes.. they get the free power , he gets the feeding tariffs for the next 20 or so years . He still owns the PV set up .
He's tied it up legally as a legal thing to be able to do and it's all fully insured .
So If you move from one property with PV panels to another that has or does not have PV , with a bit of sensible self selling you should be able to still benefit from the original properties installation rather than giving it away & the feed in tariff income in the property sale price.
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Hi Clodhopper,
"At the Amgen office i asked how much would we expect to generate in the current days weather which was dull dark rains wept all day from day light and pitch dark by 16.15 .
Peter the owner did a brill bit of selling , he brought up his own homes second by second generating figures .. Yesterday he'd generated five KwHr up to 16. 20 hrs."
On a dull day in January in Carms a 4kw system will generate about 1kwh maybe 2 but certainly not 5kwh
My figures for 2014 3.92kw system in full "sunlight" ie no shading. starting with 01/01/14 - 0,4,2,1,1,0,1,1,4,1,9,1
total 25kwh
Regen
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Whoops .. your right it should have read one point five kw/ hr.
I'm a medically & stroke induced dyslexic .. it's only now several days later after reading your comment that I see the mistake .
Thanks for being my proof reader .
Tomorrow the energy efficiency guy ( unrelated to the AMGEN set up )is due to do the necessary survey for the bungalow , we had a mad quarter of hour locating the roof void and cavity wall insulation warrantee papers of five years ago this morning .
I'm so pleased that we always keep house paperwork like that . It helps to sell the home in the future if needed.
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48.5 for January
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That's not too bad considering the foul weather and poor light conditions.
So far we have produced ...wait for it :innocent:...... 5.26 Kw /hr. over the three days of having it up and running :roflanim: :roflanim:
Today took in just under 3Kw/hr. depite several sleet showers and plenty of rain ,
We did indeed occasionally see that funny big yellow egg yolk thing in the sky as well .
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Bang on 50 for January.
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81.94 here - quite a few sunny days - not bad for NE Scotland!
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81.94 here - quite a few sunny days - not bad for NE Scotland!
Good for you! Is that from 4kW? The sun certainly shone on you! :sunshine:
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You been shining torches on it :sunshine: lol
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Yes, we had 4kWp installed in mid December - on a day when the wind was howling and there was a white out - felt a bit sorry for the lads on the roof who carried on to finish the job!
We've had an Immersun fitted too - even at this time of year we can see the electricity heating up the water in the tank - hopefully it'll save a bit on the oil.
Sue
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I'm curious - I had a quote a couple of years ago when the start up feedback rate was very high (40 pence or so I think ) I couldn't face spending £14K! If I had gone ahead would I still be getting that or did the rate cut affect those who had installed at the high rate as well as new installations?
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If you applied and were installed up and running by the cut off date you still got the high rate doganjo
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Now about 46p I think, as it's index linked.
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What's the going rate fro new installations? I keep getting calls and I just don't believe their figures.
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We had ours installed in mid Dec 2013 - we get 14.9p per unit generated and 4.64p per unit exported. It's not usual for a domestic installation to have an export meter to actually measure the exported amount. It is assumed that we export 50% of the units we generate.
The tariffs are still index linked, and we get paid for 20 years.
The price of the installation has come down considerably - it should be possible to get a 4kWp array installed for about 6.5K
Sue
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What's the going rate fro new installations? I keep getting calls and I just don't believe their figures.
Our pprice for the most uptodate all singing all dancing high efficiency panels and Samil power inverter was £5.6K inc VAT reimbursed though at the current FIT .
I guess that in comparison our lower set up and lower FIt will not be so far out wrt the finals financial reckoning on someone who had the more expensive systems of four or five years ago at the end of the day & paid for them with a loan .
If you had the cash to spare your on a winner well and truly apparently .
" Navitron " is a micro generation site that seems full of useful info it your thinking of " getting your feet wet " and don't know if you need wellies , boots or bare feet so to speak .
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87 for February 2014 compared to 192 February 2013 shows what a miserable month its been so far
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It's been sunny up here - we've produced 194.38 kWh in February.
Sue
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Ammanford South Wales ( Near the west end of the M4
119.91 units from 02 Feb 14.00 ish to 28 Feb at darkness off a westerly facing aspect which has surprised me ..
:idea: Perhaps we have some reflected light from our whining " You can't have PV solar without our permission , I'm going to complain " neighbours light covered walls & permanently closed light coloured window binds .
Now I find that nearly as amusing as their outside flood lights coming on every time I take the dog out for a pee at night ..
It's saved me a fortune in electricity and by me not having to buy bulbs and floodlights myself :roflanim:.
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151 units for February! it must have been sunny whilst it rained!
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147 here for Feb.
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131 units in Feb near Luton
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I like this sunny weather ..just had a peek as it early morning and dark we've clocked up another 100.21 units in the first 11 days of March .
Bring it on Mr Sun ..... keep your hat off please.
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We've just had 6kw panels put on our east west barn roof - 12 panels each side. We have a 4kw inverter (up from the 3.67kw) and in the last 3 days we have generated 48kw (apparently!) and it hasn't even been particularly sunny!
We are very much looking forward to seeing how the panels impact on our electric bill as well as what we mght receive on the FIT scheme - however we are with British Gas and our installer has basically said the BG are notorious in prevaricating and delaying things. We are just hoping that they don't try and make us lose the current FIT as opposed to saying we have to have the new (lower) tariff.
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Your installer should give you a document which will allow you to ring British Gas and register your system on the date of installation. Always follow this up with a confirming letter and the date of registation will be the date you are paid from regardless of how long BG prevaricate. You do not have to have your system with your existing supplier.
If you have 6kw of panels then you will get the 4 to 10 kw band tariff for fits which is lower than the less than 4kw band and i would question why they have only installed a 4kw inverter as the panels may produce more than that at times. - when the sun shines in april or may check your output at midday and if the inverter flatlines at 4kw for several hours then you could question the installer. Did the installer get G59 permission from your DNO to install a 4kw inverter or have they set it to the 3.68 (16 amps) permissable under a G83.
48kwh over 3 days in late march is quite doable from 6kw panels.
Regen
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Regen - thanks for your comments.
We got the MCS installation certificate and all the other paperwork we needed for the registration process with BG - they (ZLC Energy) were very helpful in all the sorting stuff out. When I submitted the appropriate forms to BG I got an automated reply informing us that they (BG) could take up to 28 days to process the forms. I do understand that the date of eligibility should be the date of installation - but BG have some 'small print' where they basically say if anything is wrong on the form then they won't process it until all is correct and that might affect the eligibility date.
As for our panels - we went for the 6kw panels with a 4kw inverter (up from the 3.68 capped one) because when we applied to our DNO (Western Power) they would not allow a 6kw inverter onto our network without upgrading and we weren't going to pay for the upgrade. WP said they would allow a 4kw input. We knew about the lower tariff rate, but on the sums it still made sense to go with the 6kw array.
We are at the stage of watching the inverter panel like a hawk :o)
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Sounds as if you are well on top of the job!
WPD are getting quite strict these days- I tried for an extra 1.5kw above my existing 3.68kw and they wanted about 10 grand to do the update which would kill the project. Have you fitted an imersun or similar device to send all excess to your hot water tank if fitted?
Regen
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Sounds as if you are well on top of the job!
WPD are getting quite strict these days- I tried for an extra 1.5kw above my existing 3.68kw and they wanted about 10 grand to do the update which would kill the project. Have you fitted an imersun or similar device to send all excess to your hot water tank if fitted?
Regen
We haven't gone for an imersun mainly because we are already overrun with hot water on sunny days because we have thermal solar panels on the house roof. However we do want to look onto some method of harnessing the power more efficiently for our benefit - OH is sparks so he is putting his thinkin gcap on. At the moment it is relying on us just turning on the washing machine/pumping water up to the polytunnel tanks at the top of the field from our underground rainwater collecting tank at the bottom of the field.
We are having a bit of an issue with the PV array at the moment though - it seems to be tripping our barn electric supply so we are trying to work out what is causing it.
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Immersun can also be used to feed a storage heater but again the problem is that you produce most when you need it least.
By using a thermal store I can utilise the excess from the immersun (about 2000kwh) on all but a few days each year as it simply supplements the wood burner and /or oil boiler and helps to reduce the number of days I have to use them. However as a retro fit, particularly as you have thermal panels it is unlikely to be cost effective. Battery storage is probably the way forward but at the moment it is not viable either.
Regen
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308 for March here. Did you break 500 Factotum? :D
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286 for March here :excited:
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Did you break 500 Factotum?
I wish...
We did 368, not bad as our target production for March is 286.
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261
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slightly over due readings as I've been in hospital for 8 days
Readings taken today @ 12.00 hrs from SA18 3 BZ on West facing aspect .
Current 468.91
Previous 119.91
Produced 348.62 so I guessimate that we had about 322 for March
I think I'll use this thread to keep the previous readings and current ones to give me the production as I'm for ever losing bits of paper records .
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current 796.17
previous 468.91
April 327.26
We have put in our first total FIT figures ( Friday ) , since the installation was commissioned and accepted .
Let's hope the fine sunny/ dry weather will continue with most of the rain still only coming in the hours of dusk to early dawn .
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374 for April
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357 for april
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399.944 here - we beat our target for the month which was 364.
Sue
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626 for April - our 1st full month :)
We have a 6kw array with a 4kw inverter - our network provider (Western Power) would not allow a 6kw inverter, but did allow us 4kw instead of the 3.72 (?) capped inverter
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626 for April - our 1st full month :)
626???!!!!!! Flippin eck! Where are you? Antigua?
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626 for April - our 1st full month :)
626???!!!!!! Flippin eck! Where are you? Antigua?
Tee hee - West Cornwall :excited: I'm looking forward to seeing the readings when it is actually sunny!
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626 for April - our 1st full month :)
626???!!!!!! Flippin eck! Where are you? Antigua?
Tee hee - West Cornwall :excited: I'm looking forward to seeing the readings when it is actually sunny!
Are you lucky and have a full south facing array ?
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I assume you are getting a third more because you have a third greater surface collection area ie 6kw instead of 4kw and although you have a 4kw inverter its probably rarely at full capacity
So is there any issues with fit payments or any dangers issues with6 kw into 4kw what happens with the extra?
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I assume you are getting a third more because you have a third greater surface collection area ie 6kw instead of 4kw and although you have a 4kw inverter its probably rarely at full capacity
So is there any issues with fit payments or any dangers issues with6 kw into 4kw what happens with the extra?
The theory is that with the 6kw array into a 4kw inverter the inverter will be giving out a higher average - it will get to 4kw quicker and then stay there longer because of the bigger array. Not exactly sure what happens to the surplus.
We do get a slighter smaller FIT tariff (13.5p vs 14.9p), but the theory is that the higher yield outweighs the lower tariff. It was necessary to go for 6kw array instead of say a 5kw to offset the reduction.
Our array is split equally East West, at about 10 degrees. We didn't have any room on our southfacing house roof as we already have solar thermal panels on there - but would have needed planning permission for a ground array of 4, or 6, kw and we didn't want to have to go through that planning h*ll (we had a certin amount of 'fun and games' when we dealt with the planners for our house build. Our solar panel installers said put them on the barn roof (which is east west) which is what we did.
It will be interesting to see what effect the low pitch has on the winter numbers.
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Figure for May Production: 701kw
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We made 455.5 in May - not as much as hoped, but we had a few very dull and murky days.
Sue
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444 for May
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371 in not so sunny Surrey
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500 here in west Devon
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438 for June
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439 ( must live near big light - ;D )
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Just got the special 5 mtr ( c/w integrated signal booster ) cable for the LED lit webcam in Tuesday mornings post .. Hopefully I'll soon have the readings on the laptop in real time as full colour big sized numbers .
I haven't bothered at with the June readings ..been far too busy and had back pains most days like there is no tomorrow , so no climbing the steps to read the meter or locate the webcam in the boxed in meter cupboard at least for the next few days ...
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Greener Life - you must be just having a bad summer - we are in central scotland :gloomy: :sunshine: :gloomy: :sunshine: :gloomy: :gloomy:
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468 in east Scotland. :sunshine:
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Don't often check mine but it did around 510 in June from a south facing 3.9kw system here in Carmarthenshire.
Weather has been truly astonishing with Californian type sunshine for virtually the whole month.
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Greener Life - you must be just having a bad summer - we are in central scotland :gloomy: :sunshine: :gloomy: :sunshine: :gloomy: :gloomy:
I think I need to clean my panels! :roflanim:
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985 for June :excited:
Also got our 1st cheque from British Gas (our FIT outfit) - makes a change to actually GET money from them!
Our inverter is a Samil Power one and it comes with a web-enabled interface so I can bring up all the running data from the comfort of the sofa :thumbsup: You can get the daily, monthly and yearly totals - plus the instant real time data whenever you want. The user interface is a bit clunky but it works. :sunshine:
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I really liked the link to the average PV output website. This is very helpful. Is there a similar website for potential wind generation?
Thanks,
Lynn
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July 545 ;D :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :gloomy:
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571 for July. :thumbsup:
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823 for July :thumbsup: :sunshine: :sunshine:
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399 for august
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306 (still not cleaned the panels)
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442 in August. An improvement on last year's 441. :D
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710 for August
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:
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Woo-hoo 32 for September!!!
Ok, they were just installed a few days ago! So that'll be a FIT of about £4.48....only £8095.52 to go to recoup the cost then!!! Please reassure me this is worth it ;)
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229 for September. (Still not cleaned the panels. :innocent: )
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279 for September only 6 different than last year
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With the holidays , weddings over and my back pain easing I've finally gone & got a reading a few minutes ago.
It shows a total of 3008.07 since we had it installed at the begining of Feb this year .
Last time we looked at the end of April it was as below .
current 796.17
previous 468.91
April 327.26
so .... 1 May till 1 Oct
3008.07 minus 796.17 = 2211.90 KWhr generated .
So far for 8 months the average is 376.125 KWhr ...not bad indeed as 50% is classed as being exported and attracting our lower tariff
So average for summer then 2211.90 / 5 = 442.38 KWh per month .
Now to post / publish it and see how it compares with you other guys.
One big change we had to make just before the end of June that is showing us benefits was that our 10 yr old dryer's main bearing died . The dryer owed us no favours , that's for sure , so we ended up getting a top of the range condensing dryer that acts like a fridge to dry the moist air.
It's a triple A rating Bosch , is plumbed into the waste water to take the condensate away , has that reduced our power usage or what .
Tis a far cry form the first condensing dryer i had back in 1984 you had to plumb it into the house water to get the cooling of the condensate effect , it cost a bomb to run as it was using something like 4.3 KWHr.
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280 for September, 45 down on last year. It's been drier this year I'm sure, just not so sunny. :)
Cloddopper, our total (4kW array) for the period 1st May to 1st Oct was 2269, so much the same. :thumbsup:
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:idea: But Dan , your Ooop Norf and on t'other side of the world.
We should have more sun ..... I'll get the Welsh Assembly to bring it on down :roflanim:
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According to my other half we should have more sunshine down south, but it comes in the winter! :-\
Must go and clean my panels...
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403kwh fro 3.92kw system in sa19 and 2300kwh for the 5 month period.
regen
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But Dan , your Ooop Norf and on t'other side of the world.
We should have more sun ..... I'll get the Welsh Assembly to bring it on down :roflanim:
We're in one of the sunniest places in Scotland, 1500 annual hours of sunshine on average according to the MO, compared with 1750 in the sunniest place on mainland Britain. :sunshine:
I used to live in Crianlarich in the western highlands, where you knew it was summer because the rain was warmer. This ditty definitely applied there:
It rained and rained and rained and rained,
The average was well maintained;
And when our fields were simply bogs,
It started raining cats and dogs.
After a drought of half an hour,
There came a most refreshing shower;
And then the queerest thing of all,
A gentle rain began to fall.
Next day 'twas pretty fairly dry,
Save for a deluge from the sky.
This wetted people to the skin,
But after that the rain set in.
We wondered what's the next we'd get,
As sure as fate we got more wet.
But soon we'll have a change again,
And we shall have..... A drop of rain
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I like that poem .
I lived just north of Carlisle for the best part of three years , close to Talkin Fell .
Ye gods and goddesses did it rain on the west side up there , right in off the Atlantic free of charge .
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539kw from our system for Sept - Aug was 710.
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October 179 units almost 25 up on last year october :sunshine: :sunshine:
Second full year in 3230 this year about 100 down for the year :thinking:
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187 (most of them yesterday I should imagine - I have a suntan again! :excited:
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184 here, seems to have been a good month all over. :sunshine:
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296 for October.
When the PV installers did our original guesstimates they used figures of 5400kw as the expected annual generation of the installation. We are currently just shy of 5000kw and have Nov, Dec, Jan Feb and 20 days in March to complete the year. It will be interesting to see how close we get to that figure.
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Start year reading 1 Feb 2014 0000
Previous Reading 1 Oct 2014 3008.07 = 796.17 produced
Current Reading 4 Nov 2014 3175.92 = 167.85 produced
We had four hours or so of powercut with glorious sunshine when I could not export energy to the grid . We have had many days of dark & heavy drizzle this last month .
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Does anyone have or know of an integrated PV system where it all looks like part of a profile roof? I'm in an AONB and about to rebuild an old barn. I don't think panels that stick out would be particularly loved by any of the snooty club round here who live to complain half the time.
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I think you can get integrated PV panels now - but I understand it does have a detrimental effect on the panel efficiency as the panel can get too hot. Apparently very sunny, windless days are not as good for PV generation as slightly more overcast days as the temperatures get too high - similarly having panels integrated into the roof will reduce the cooling ventilation effect of having the panels raised off the roof line.
Good luck with the neighbours!
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Does anyone have or know of an integrated PV system where it all looks like part of a profile roof? I'm in an AONB and about to rebuild an old barn. I don't think panels that stick out would be particularly loved by any of the snooty club round here who live to complain half the time.
We have recently put 9kw solar PV as part of our new build roof, by doing this we saved on the cost of roofing tiles and they are flashed into the rest of the tiles. Unless you are in a conservation area I doubt there is anything your neighbours can do about it, I think mine were a bit taken aback but the panels do not front on to road, we asked the planers and got written confirmation that permission was not needed. Be warned it has taken 3months and £4283 to get a new power supply and they have had to upgrade the transformer. That price does not include the ground works which was another £1500
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Most of the local new builds done this last couple of months around Ammanford are all fully integrated flat with the roof lines PV & heating panels . They look good & so long as they last as long as the tiles/slates are designed to last then it's all hunky dory.
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Not a good November here, it was mostly :gloomy:
63 units generated, compared to 163 last November. :'( I suppose it's the best time of year to have bad months though. :)
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93 units ??? and I thought November was warm and sunny this year! Obviously not.
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84 for us -well down
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135 kwh in sunny Carmarthenshire!
Regen
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Start year reading 1 Feb 2014 0000
Reading 1 Oct 2014 3008.07 = 796.17 produced
Reading 4 Nov 2014 3175.92 = 167.85 produced
Reading 2Dec 2014 3257.57 = 81.65 produced
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156 kwh for Nov down here in the SW.
Our panels are split equally east west facing and at an elevation degree of 10 degrees - the low level of the sun at this time of year means our generation power hasn't got above 1500 even on the sunniest days.
We are still on to beat the predicted 5400kwh for the year, we have until 16 March 2015 to complete the 12 months :sunshine:
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My production looks like this
2011 3766
2012 3349
2013 3296
2014 3501
from which I can't draw much in the way of conclusions because the pattern for each year has been pretty varied
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73 for December :sunshine:
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96 for December :sunshine:
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53 here. :raining:
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97 down here in the drizzly south west for Dec
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Start year reading 1 Feb 2014 0000
Reading 1 Oct 2014 3008.07 = 796.17 produced
Reading 4 Nov 2014 3175.92 = 167.85 produced
Reading 2Dec 2014 3257.57 = 81.65 produced
Reading 31 Jan 2015 3391.33 = 133.76 produced
So a full year at 3391.33 .. sounds useful :thumbsup: ..... :idea: But not a usefu as Sudanpan's
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57 for January - that's not very good is it?
3137 for the year - not bad when you calculate your return!
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109 :thumbsup: usually about the 50- 60 mark for jan :sunshine:
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85 here, up from 50 last year. I'm going to retire if that pattern continues throughout the year. ;D
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111, up from 109 last year
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130 for Jan - only another 37 KW to generate before we hit the projected annual production, and we still have 7 weeks to go :excited:
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If these last few days here in South Wales are anything to go by Feb could be an absolute belter for PV production .. we were still getting a viable feed at 17 .37 hrs this afternoon 09 Feb 2015
This time last year we needed deep sea diving gear just to go out in the garden it was so wet & cold .
EDIT NOTE
Today at 10.30 we took the FIT readings for EON and were surprised to see that we have generated 53.68 units since first light 1 Feb 2015 which is almost an average of 8.5 units a day
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129 for February.
Beautiful day here today - my daffs are out, and all is looking bright. :sunshine: :excited:
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171 for february :thumbsup:
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Start year reading 1 Feb 2014 0000
Reading 1 Oct 2014 3008.07 = 796.17 produced
Reading 4 Nov 2014 3175.92 = 167.85 produced
Reading 2Dec 2014 3257.57 = 81.65 produced
Reading 31 Jan 2015 3391.33 = 133.76 produced
Reading 28 Feb 2015 3547.42 = 156.09 produced
It's starting to look better
February by the way , according the the TV today is supposed to have been the sunniest February for years .
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189kwh for feb in sunny Carmarthenshire- rainfall down to110mm against 348mm last year
Regen
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229 for Feb :thumbsup:
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207 here. :sunshine:
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I've finally managed to set up the web cam in the awkward to view place where the solar generation meter is situated so it can be read whilst I'm having down time with the imminent spinal operations as there is no way I'll be able to climb up steps for a while . Not a bad picture , thanks to all on here and elsewhere who guided me through the jungle of webcams and reading programmes .
(http://i1293.photobucket.com/albums/b597/splodgit/Snapshot_20150331_2_zpsdgjb8hph.jpg) (http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/splodgit/media/Snapshot_20150331_2_zpsdgjb8hph.jpg.html)
Reading 28 Feb 2015 3547.42 = 156.09 produced
Reading 31 Mar 2015 3807.12 = 259.99 that's good news & a surprise.
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296 for March. :sunshine:
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196.7 for March.
We has a 3.75kw system installed on the 10th March so will add ur production into the mix!! Been following this thread with interest and especially like when the previous years figure is available.
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299 for March here on the east coast of Scotland (308 last year).
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432 for March.
Our annual production ended up at 5795 - the original prediction given by the installers was 5400 so quite happy with what we have achieved.
:eyelashes:
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250 for march 261 last year - although 20 clocked up for the first day in april ; 0)
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250 for march 261 last year - although 20 clocked up for the first day in april ; 0)
:idea: Seeing as the post was made before 12.00 hrs. , was that an April fool , " Gotcha " post ? :roflanim:
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No, my time posted says 8 pm which is when i posted it - might have added an extra zero if i noticed the date :0)
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Well we finally dived in and managed to get our 4Kw solar PV stem in and commissioned in time to register for the FIT before the March31st deadline (just)!
Results in for April are way beyond my expectations - 520Kwh produced! At this rate we will be well ahead of our predicted payback period. The system was forecast to produce 3440Kwh in the year,
We are in West Wales, panels on roof facing SE.
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539 for April BOOYAH biggest April by miles only had 2 higher monthly readings by a few points in the last 2 Julys - a freak month i think :excited: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: but welcome anytime
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Well we finally dived in and managed to get our 4Kw solar PV stem in and commissioned in time to register for the FIT before the March31st deadline (just)!
Results in for April are way beyond my expectations - 520Kwh produced! At this rate we will be well ahead of our predicted payback period. The system was forecast to produce 3440Kwh in the year,
We are in West Wales, panels on roof facing SE.
Looks like April is going to be good for everyon. We had 470,from our forecasted 400 for the month (3460 anual target). On our forecest May is the highest month.
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541 for us, up from 385 in 2014. :) :sunshine:
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441 for us in the "sunny" South East :thinking: . Still - better than last years 374
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747 in April :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine: :sunshine:
Last year was 626
Mind you it was very sunny this April - unlike May so far.....!
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readings delayed foro 3 days due to being in hospital with my spinal surgery & a blood clot that formed .
Reading 28 Feb 2015 3547.42 = 156.09 produced
Reading 31 Mar 2015 3807.12 = 259.99 produced
Reading 3 May 2015 4314.72 = 507.60 produced against 4 /2014 @ 327.26
Well up on April's 2014 of 327.26s.
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500 for May about 60 up on usual :excited: :excited:
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431 here in Surrey, which is also spookily 60 up on last year! (And we have passed our 5 figures mark - huzzah! :sunshine: )
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Reading 31 Mar 2015 3807.12 = 259.99 produced
Reading 3 May 2015 4314.72 = 507.60 produced
Reading 31 May 2015 4745.77 = 431.05 produced
Not sure how this compares with last years as I was unable to take a reading
I guess it is quite dismal as May seems the have been the coldest wettest may we have had here this last ten years.
Lets hope this forecast heat wave arrives and stays for even the melons in my glasshouse are starting to suffer from a very very slow growth .
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470 produced here against forecast of 438......so quite happy as the month started very slowly!!
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714 for May
701 in May 2014
Our inverter is playing silly b*ggers at the moment - it is fluctuating wildly on the Grid side voltage readings - such that it reaches its safety limit of 265v and then shuts the system down, for it then to have to go through a 3 min restart process. It has been doing this scores of times every day since 25th or so of May.
We thought it was to do with Western Power (our network provider) so I called them, telling them our inverter was telling us the grid was overrating all the time. They sent a couple of engineers who tested the grid side and recorded a steady 244V while the inverter was saying it was busily varying between 254 - 261V...
We have therefore contacted our installers for them to come and see what's what
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If the inverter is faulty it might be worthwhile getting a historic print out of all local lightening strike withing 1,00 mtrs of your property .
We thought that the board supply had been given over voltage damage but in the end after five months of careful conversations and talking to lots of interesting weather folk & electronic engineers we got a very reliable satellite mapping print of all lightening strikes and formations over the week in question.. that helped an awful lot and recouped us some £3.5 K under insured lightening stike terms of the domestic policy .
As soon as I presented the mapping to the insurers they coughed up prior to that they obfuscated in every letter , saying it was not a valid claim as no one else in the area had claimed .
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Thanks Clodhopper I'll have a look into that.
The Inverter people are coming to do an upgrade on the software on Monday - apprently that helps....!
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400 for June.
That's not very good is it? Most of that was probably yesterday!
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475 for us in June, almost identical to 2014.
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Reading 31 Mar 2015 3807.12 = 259.99 produced
Reading 3 May 2015 4314.72 = 507.60 produced
Reading 31 May 2015 4745.77 = 431.05 produced
Reading 30 Jun 2015 5336.11 = 590.34 produced
Yesterday's generating rate was amazing I checked it on the webcam to see what a sunny afternoon would look like & was very happy to see 5.9 KW between 14.15 to 15.17 hrs
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Managed to get 489.5 in July from the forecast of 437. Thee extra units will hopefully continue to reduce the payback!!!!
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480 for June 40 up on last year :excited:
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717 for June 2015 compared to 985 for 2014.......
This is all down to the inverter shutting down every 5 minutes when the sun is at its hottest because of the Grid overvoltage rating situation.
We've had our installers out a couple of times, they've taken lots of readings and been in discussion with Western Power and Samil (inverter manufacturers)
When the Grid voltage reading was hitting the 260v mark we switched on kettles etc to see what happened and yes the Grid Voltage reading would drop to 253v or so. LC said that it might be because we are at the end of our supply line and there's not a lot of electricity requirement from our locality during the day - up until Feb we did have a neighbour who ran a chocolate making company and had deep freezers etc running so the power requirement was higher - but they've left. In addition the people who have moved into their house have just installed their won PV array so potentially our problem may get worse :(
Samil suggested they changed the settings so that the upper limit (265v) was increased before the inverter shut down but ZLC said this was not acceptable so Samil have agreed to a new inverter - which we now have ready to be swapped over next week hopefully.
Gutting to lose nearly 300kw generation in a month :rant:
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Sorry to hear of the problem but a big thanks for posting it as all ofnus could have probs at any time.
My mate Stewart has recently seen the EB change the local failing transformer PDQ , as it was kicking out over 280 volts. Initially the EB said nothing was wrong.
They are hoping to get recompensed for two months loss income as their control panel kept dropping out many times a day . He's using the average generation of March & April over the last three years 2012 -2014 in support of his claim.
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:sunshine:
My husband checks all the readings and is not very good at keeping a record apart from when he sends it in. Today I got him to read the leccy metre to see how much we have used, after much nagging, and we are producing more than we use.
We have an air source heat pump which has not heated the house since April, it does the hot water, all bulbs apart from about 4 are led, and daughter has moved out so it should go down even more. So we are making money!!! Well not spending it.:sunshine:
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We are still having a torrid time with our inverter. First of all the installers changed the inverter (a Samil Power inverter) but this made no difference. Then they upped the settings parameters (currently as soon as our panels generate about 4kw the grid voltage side goes up to 265V and the inverter disconnects) - so they upped the upper level to about 270V but this has not made any difference.
So, apparently now the next stage is to get Western Power involved - but no idea what that is going to entail.
Not exactly what we envisaged when buying into the PV panel setup.
???
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It took me several weeks till i eventually got the address of the local area's certified electrical engineer for our electricity board . Once I laid out my problem as I saw it and added all manner of pertinent notes , I asked him to come and visit me face to face with one of their senior testing engineers such as a foreman so we could talk the problem through.
Two days after that comunication he and his assistant visited me . They made some very useful comments which I sent on to my insurers wrt lightening strikes within 400 mtrs of my home ( the insurers had refused to acknowledge these at the time as no one else had made a claim )
End result nearly six months later I got several thousands pounds of insurance claim to pay for my losses.
Do you have any recorded date of when you found some thing wrong with your system ?
If so see if you have any locall weather station type enthusiasts who use the Norwegian lightening strike satelite data system and see if they can get dates of strikes , within say 800 mtrs of you during the period and about 15 days either side .
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412 for July a good 130 down :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :sunshine: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :gloomy: :gloomy: :gloomy: :gloomy: :gloomy: :gloomy: :gloomy: :gloomy: :sunshine: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining: :raining:
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I must admit I'm useless at remembering to give my readings. I've just given one and it's well overdue bug I'm well impressed with my payment.
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484 for July, down from 571 in 2014. :(
:fc: for :sunshine: in August.
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Well don't feel too despondent Dan! My reading for the 'sunny' south was 393!
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Don't really have a clue what July's generation was as the changeover of the inverter etc has messed up the recordings. However, I do know that on days where we would have expected generation in the region of 30+kw we have only got 18kw because of the inverter constantly disconnecting and reconnecting. I reckon we will be down about 40% when all is said and done on what we should have generated.
Our installers have been monitoring the inverter loads and the corresponding grid voltages - basically the grid voltage ranges from the low 220's up to 270+. When our panels get to about 70% generation, without a drawdown due to demand on site, the grid voltage gets upwards of 260, tripping out at 265v.
They are going to be in further discussions with Western Power - but in the meantime their recommendation is to try and switch on as much stuff as poss when the sun is strong! I've looked into the possibility of an intelligent switch (ie immersun) to kick in when our generation gets up to 3kw and switch on some high load - however an immersion heater is not the answer as we are already drowning in hot water as we have solar thermal panels. We're thinking that maybe we should get some sort of storage heater in the garage or something - though it is irritating that we will have to fork out more money in order to stop our PV system from tripping out all the time.
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Sudanpan , have you put the problem & symptoms to the guys on the " Renewables " website ( I can't remember the actual website details ). They gave me several useful ideas to mull over when i started out onn my renewable's quest Knowing that there are so many fairly well qualified to comment guys using the site with real time knowledge might be to your advantage .
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Reading 31 Mar 2015 3807.12 = 259.99 produced
Reading 3 May 2015 4314.72 = 507.60 produced
Reading 31 May 2015 4745.77 = 431.05 produced
Reading 30 Jun 2015 5336.11 = 590.34 produced
Reading 8 Aug 2015 5878.22 = 542.11 produced .. ( late July reading ..on holiday so let's call it as 515 units for July )
The recent lousy weather certainly has had an impact my garden is about three week behind .. so are the tomatoes etc.in the glasshouse.
UK grown veg might just be a bit more expensive over the next six months or so.
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Thanks for the tip Cloddopper - have registered in the renewables forum and will see if I get any further pointers. One reply has suggested I take it up with the suppliers (Western Power) as the voltage range should be 230v + 10% (so 253v) top end which should be fine.
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That sound a bit like you are on a dirty branch line where the boards transformer is degrading..... every time there is a spike on the branch due to someone switching on or off heavy current you get the electrical echo of the spark jumping across the switch contacts .
At our small farm a simple lie detector type moving arm trace showed a steady 233 volts
With some large digital storage device and a special dual trace beam oscilloscope it showed that we were getting hit every few seconds most days between 07.00 hrs and 21 .00 hrs with spikes of over a thousand volt for a millisecond or slightly less. which kept tripping our breakers .
It turned out to be a small industrial machinist/welding unit who was working double shifts every time the struck or broke an arc we got tripped out.
The incoming mains to our pole transformer we were both running from was also dirty so the industrial units welding just amplified the mess .
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We are still having a torrid time with our inverter. First of all the installers changed the inverter (a Samil Power inverter) but this made no difference. Then they upped the settings parameters (currently as soon as our panels generate about 4kw the grid voltage side goes up to 265V and the inverter disconnects) - so they upped the upper level to about 270V but this has not made any difference.
So, apparently now the next stage is to get Western Power involved - but no idea what that is going to entail.
Not exactly what we envisaged when buying into the PV panel setup.
???
I've been talking with Stuart the guy who had the transformer problem ..it turns out he's been fitting solar systems for quite a time ..(He showed me his notice letter for £100.67 p for his last quarters FIT payment He put it in when the FIT's were a lot more generous & it's certainly paid for itself said he grinning form ear to ear.
I kind of described what i think you have been saying , his comment was , " Every system has to push electricity at a higher voltage into the mains .. this has the effect of causing the mains to rise by a volt or so . If you are on a branch line with a dozen other solar systems pushing power into the network you will see the mains voltage rise considerably . This can and does cause problems of so high a voltage that it trips solar panel rectifiers out .
Then he asked me to say to you , Do you get trip outs when it's dark ??
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Then he asked me to say to you , Do you get trip outs when it's dark ??
We only get trip outs on the inverter itself so no we don't get trip outs when it's dark as the inverter is not working in any event.
The message we get from the inverter is that it detects a Grid Over Voltage so it disconnects and then takes 30 secs to reconnects.
Western Power came last week and has put a data logger on the line in so that should be able to be compared to what the inverter record is saying to determine more specifically where the issue lies
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Is the data logger a rotating drum and ink pen on a moving arm? ( Thinkof an old fashioned lie detector on a vertical drum in a glass case)
If so that's what was put on my incoming ..... t'was a waste of time ,it did not pick up the two & three second spikes caused by the fabricating company .
It was only when they put a solid state recorder and used a dual beam oscilloscope that the dirty mains showed up .
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It is a solid state recorder - not exactly sure how they record it.
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That's good .
It can be read on a computer and be set via the reading programme to highlight all mains spikes , durations and event times , possibly also showing your generated input voltage .
let's hope it is the suppliers problem /faulty supply and not yours.
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255 for August. That is poor. :(
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397 just a couple down on last year - feared it would be worse :relief:
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409 for last month. 429 previous year so a little down but not too bad
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Again no idea - I was in the habit of keeping an eye on the generation figures via the internet data but with all the messing around the recording has not been happening. Of course I could have just taken readings from the meter but that would entail being organised......
As for the saga - it continues - we are now on our 3rd inverter. The 2nd one was still merrily tripping out due to the over-voltage issues, but then decided to quit 'seeing' the PV panels in any event so no generation happening at all! Western Power have acknowledged that there is an over-voltage issue on our branch line and have said they will be changing the transformer but did not give any timescale.
The new inverter is still tripping out. :rant:
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Good news about them accepting the over voltage issue, did you ask about compensation for loss of income and all the messing about you have had to do when in fact it is down to them?
We got a very satisfactory settlement when our supplier didn't follow the path they were supposed to .
If they haven't offered any comp I'd get in touch straight away by recorded post to the head honcho at their complaints dept, so it is officially recorded that you are having a financial issue with them and are worried about the danger of over voltages above the legal norm affecting your electrical equipment & families safety .
When Stewart ( I've mentioned him previously ) had similar probs that's the route he took .
The local transformer was replaced four days afterwards and he hasn't had any problems since .
He wouldn't tell me what his compensation was , just gave me a big cheesy grin & a thumbs up ,so I assume it was eminently satisfactory .
In the early stages I don't think the electricity supply companies fully understood & made provisions for the effect of thousands of PV systems pushing power back into the system via local transformers and the little kick up voltages each one produces when pushing juice back to them .
I haven't taken any reading for the PV production for August as I've recently up dated to windows 10 and it's not accepting my web cam nor my IP cam drivers plus HP the makers of my computer don't have any either . I can't get up into the area where the meter is at present due to still heavily recuperating from my spinal surgery.
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351 for September - well up :excited:
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Well, the man is coming tomorrow for me to sign on the dotted line. 16 panels are going on my garage.
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324 here for September, about 15% up on 2014. :sunshine:
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301 for Sept - though these aren't complete figures as our saga continues....
Compare that with 701 for 2014 and the impact of the grid voltage situation is very much in evidence.
According to Western Power they are changing the transformer on 27th Oct
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322 in Surrey - up a ridiculous 45% year on year! :sunshine:
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10,000th unit generated :idea: today :excited: :excited: :excited: - 3 year anniversary is 29/10
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My first full month since installation. 6Kw system, inverter limited to 3.8kw.
Devon, south facing.
625.71 kWh
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214 for october again a good bit up :sunshine: on the last couple of years
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428, been a surprisingly sunny month.
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Gulp! 150 here. :-[
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311 here for Oct. It was 296 in 2014, but given that the southwest has been pretty good for sun I am pretty sure we are well down on what we should have got with the OVR issues.
FINALLY got the transformer for our branch section changed on 27th Oct so fingers crossed that will have sorted out over-voltage issues but we won't really be able to tell until April/May next year when the sun gets high enough for our panels to be belting out 4k +
However the grid voltage now reads between 225 and 238 or so as opposed to 250+ so we might be ok :thumbsup:
Did get a nice cheque through the post for the last 6 months generation though :excited:
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I'm really happy that you managed to get it sorted and get some compensation.
Today we had a meter man come and read the solar meter.. evidently from now on all solar producers will be getting a bi yearly meter read.
The other good news is that I've turned an older laptop over to the Ubuntu platform and managed to get it to work my webcam that reads the solar meter. Win 10 update killed the camera's operating driver along with lots of other drivers for nearly all my computer related machinery . .
We now have a total 6697.30 units generated since we started off .....which is supposed to be reasonable for our set up.
I've also recently booked our window cleaner to use his de-mineralized window washing gear on a very long light weight shaft to give our panels a pre-winter cleaning , not bad either at 16 panels cleaned for £2 a panel . But then it is a bungalow & the easy access to them is on our smooth concrete driveway .
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Yester day we had all our panels cleaned by the window cleaner using his long reach professional window cleaning gear and denatured water.
On putting some kitchen towel onto a new sweeping brush head I was able to get a sample of the dirty water coming off the roof. Judging by the colour of it we shsould see quite an increase in efficiency from teh panels.
Has anyone else had their panels professionally brush cleaned etc. ? If so what are your conclusions ?
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59 for November. :( Down 35 on last year
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102 for Nov
It was 156 Nov 2014
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69 its been a miserable month! :raining: :raining: :raining:
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53 kw for Dec - pretty pathetic but not surprising because oh how overcast and dreich it has been.
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35 hardly surprising
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cOuld someone tell me how solar pv works and how much does it save on electricity?
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cOuld someone tell me how solar pv works and how much does it save on electricity?
I'm certainly not an expert, but basically:
Solar PV panels convert sunlight into electric, which goes through an inverter panel that is linked up to your electricity network. If you think of it as water, when your panels are generating the electric, the 'pressure' on your side of the meter box is higher than the local grid network so any excess electric you might have (after your own electric needs are met by the generated electric power) is output to the global grid. If you aren't generating excess then your electric needs are met, as usual, from your electricity supplier.
The savings are made in 2 ways - your inverter keeps a record of ALL the electricity to generate via a meter. You are then paid an FIT rate from your FIT provider (generally your electricity supplier). You get paid for a) total generation and b) an assumed amount of 50% of your total that is considered to be exported.
In addition, when your panels are generating, you obviously meet your own electricity requirements from your own panels, therefore you don't demand so much from your supplier so your bill is less.
However, the panels only generate during the day when the sun is out (doh!) and if your elec needs are low during the day (eg no-one at home during the day) then you won't benefit so much from your own generation and your elec bill won't go down as much as your majority use would be in the evening/night when the sun's not out anyway.
There are intelligent switches that can be used to switch on immersions etc when the generation is enough so that you use more of your generation and you can have a lot of fun (?) trying to work out ways to maximise this.
Are you confused yet??? :innocent:
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Forgot to read on Jan 1st but today's reading makes 63 units in December (more than November)
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Finally got round to taking the FIT meter readings today ....
I got really excited as it shows 76851.11 on the meter when viewed through the web cam I've set up . Wow quick mental pictures of retiring in comfort flashed by till I did a reality check .
I got on some steps with a torch and saw it is not 76851.11 but 06851.11 for two years since installation.
The illuminating LED's all eight of them just happened to hit the reading window enough to distort the 0 into a seven . Makes me wonder if that's why the electricity supply folk decided to come and do a physical visit to read the darn thing at the beginning of January this year .
Still it's a useful amount and better than leaving the dosh sitting in a bank account earning banks far more than they would ever offer me.
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cOuld someone tell me how solar pv works and how much does it save on electricity?
I'm certainly not an expert, but basically:
Solar PV panels convert sunlight into electric, which goes through an inverter panel that is linked up to your electricity network. If you think of it as water, when your panels are generating the electric, the 'pressure' on your side of the meter box is higher than the local grid network so any excess electric you might have (after your own electric needs are met by the generated electric power) is output to the global grid. If you aren't generating excess then your electric needs are met, as usual, from your electricity supplier.
The savings are made in 2 ways - your inverter keeps a record of ALL the electricity to generate via a meter. You are then paid an FIT rate from your FIT provider (generally your electricity supplier). You get paid for a) total generation and b) an assumed amount of 50% of your total that is considered to be exported.
In addition, when your panels are generating, you obviously meet your own electricity requirements from your own panels, therefore you don't demand so much from your supplier so your bill is less.
However, the panels only generate during the day when the sun is out (doh!) and if your elec needs are low during the day (eg no-one at home during the day) then you won't benefit so much from your own generation and your elec bill won't go down as much as your majority use would be in the evening/night when the sun's not out anyway.
There are intelligent switches that can be used to switch on immersions etc when the generation is enough so that you use more of your generation and you can have a lot of fun (?) trying to work out ways to maximise this.
Are you confused yet??? :innocent:
I understood it perfectly, very well put if I must say so! Thanks :)
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80 units for January. Down from 109 last year :raining:
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39.7 January - less than half of last year :gloomy:
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117 for January - we got 130 in Jan 2015.
Considering we only generated 52 in Dec it shows Jan's weather has been a bit better - but our ground is just sooooo wet I am looking forward to a bit more sun to dry everything out
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165 for February around the same as last year
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175 in Feb up from 129 last year :excited:
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181 for Feb - Feb 2015 was 229
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298 for March - almost exactly the same as last year.
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434 for March - last March was 432
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276 a reasonable month for this time of year
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301 in 2016 vs 300 in 2015. A good month. :thumbsup:
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I did a two month comparison ,for Feb & March last year against this year surprise, 416.08 total for FEB & MAR last year, this year 442.20 .
That's 26.12 more units for this two month period .
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Been away , got back last night, todays 3 May reading is 7697.98 units on the meter , that gives us 3 more units that last year for the month of April till the 3 May 2015 .
I think getting the panels professionally cleaned by our window cleaner , ( I can't do it anymore ) with de ionised water has helped , but it has reduced our earnings from the panels by £ 40 . :'(
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606 for April 2016 vs
747 April 2015
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489 for April. Much better than I expected. 10% up on last year in fact! :excited:
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353 for May :( . 18% down on last year
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746 for May 2016
714 for May 2015
701 in May 2014
Last May was the start of our issues with 'Over Voltage' on the Grid Network which basically meant as soon as the panels were generating more than about 2.0kw the inverter would get shut down and then restarted. Western Power finally changed the transformer in Oct 2015 so it will be interesting to compare summer 2016 to summer 2015
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578 June 2016
754 July 2016
Don't have figures for last year to compare as this is when we were having all our 'fun' with the transformer and over voltage issues.
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We've recently come back off 19 days holiday , to find the solar meter unit showing blank & the cut out solar trip switch flipped over to off.
I've reset it , fingers crossed that it was / it is a once in a blue moon event .
Current reading now 8282.28 ... up 5.38 units from the reading of 8276.90 when I reset it yesterday .
I think I'll use this post to run a few daily comparisons for a week of so ..just in case it does play up as many minds make for solutions & suggestions
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Well it's working , current reading now 8808.29 giving 531.39 units delivered , So about 220 units a month .
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current 8922.64
previous 8808.29
total 114.35
Well considering the lousy weather we've had for November it's better than I had hoped for .
Does severe cold without a covering of frosting at minus 9 oC affect them much ?
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6 Feb
current 9060.73
previous 8808.29
total 252.44
For Dec 2015 & Jan 2016 ... that's better than I thought it was going to be .
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It's been a cracking day to day .
Tomorrow looks like it's going to be similar , so I'm going to see how many units our panels have produced in the period from midnight tonight till midnight tomorrow .
Has anyone else done a real good sunny day check of the numbers this year ?
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Not bad ........ from our 16 panel set up , in day light hours yesterday gave us 21 ,62 KW hr .
Today looks like being much of the same .
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South facing 3.5kW array in SW Scotland. Off grid, so everything we make, we use.
Best day so far was 19.6kWh. :sunshine:
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18.68 KWhr today , the sun didn't fully get his hat off till about 10.30hrs , the after noon heat would have made up for things if we had had an immersun heater too , the sun trap side of he bungalow was reading 29.3 in full sun @ 20.20 hrs .
I suspect it was in the mid 30's or even higher in the sun trap at around 17.30 hrs . I just melted , even though I'd taken a cool shower a few minutes earlier . .
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Our highest daily figures have been 38.09KW and 38KW on 17th and 18th June - we do have a larger array (6KW) with a 4KW inverter.
Our generation for April, May and Jun to date has been 677, 675 and 582
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11066.76 KW generated . This is the total since installation on 31 Jan 2014 .
I missed out getting last months end figures as I was in hospital having a total knee replacement operation.
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Should I go for panels in a string or each individually linked?
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Ours are 16 panels connected in strings of four plugged into four separate channels on the inverter .
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Wahhha! ….
Alison tried to enter the FIT reading on Eon's website today ..it kept saying this reading is not acceptable .
On ringing Eon it appears the reading is way higher than projected assessments , they asked for photographic proof .
I got a photo to the helpful person within minutes …. Yeah it's now going to be paid for . The guy on the help desk has been saying that the latest readings this week in our area are massively higher, all due no doubt to the fantastic number of unbroken hours of strong continuous sunshine we've had for donkeys years .