Solar Panel Megathread

[solarlady]

Thanks for that information, its appreciated.

 

So I take it from what your saying that your 4kw system has a 4kw invertor on it then?

 

It has an inverter that is compatible with 4kW's worth of panels. It's a Mastervolt Xs5000. It is the first Mastervolt we installed as we wanted to compare them against the SMA's and to be honest we are pretty impressed with the performance however, the SMA's do have better monitoring software!

[solarlady]

If you would like to come and talk to us we are taking part in The Sheffield Stars Active Live event on Far Gate this Thursday. We will have a small stall set up opposite Mark & Spencer between 10am - 4pm.

 

Come and have a chat to us.

 

The Sheffield Active event was a great day and there is still a lot of interest in solar, either for free or people looking to buy systems!

[Cargo]

The Sheffield Active event was a great day and there is still a lot of interest in solar, either for free or people looking to buy systems!

 

Was a pleasant surprise to see you all on Fargate last week!

[solarlady]

Was a pleasant surprise to see you all on Fargate last week!

 

Was good to see you as well - glad the weather was good!

[truman]

I don't want to cast doubts over the "free fit" panels but could someone comment on this

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/23/solar-panels-dim-mortgage-prospects

 

it seems some mortgage companies are reluctant to mortgage/remortgage a property thet has a 25 year "lease" on it's roof.. also could I ask one of the installation companies what happens in the event of a property being repossesed by the building society/bank..?

Edited April 5, 2012 by truman

[Bonjon]

I should hopefully be having free solar installed soon and I am trying to devise a way to accurately monitor what i'm using and if i'm using free leccy or grid leccy.

 

The way I understand the free solar installs are as follows:

 

Solar panels connect to a meter(via an inverter first) which monitors how much electric is created, this then connects into my consumer unit and I use electric as and when. Anything that is left over then goes from my CU to the main meter and into the grid(will the main meter turn backwards??).

 

So as electric can go both ways to and from the meter I can no longer trust an energy monitor on the meter as its reading will only show the energy passing through the clasp and not the direction. So I will only be able to see if I am using or generating by turning a high pull electric device on and seeing if the figure goes up or down.

 

If I was then to pop a energy monitor on the solar meter tail this would tell me what the panels were making, with the 2 figures I could roughly work out what I was using from the grid (or giving too the grid).

 

There has to be an easier way to monitor how much electric is being generated, how much is passed to the grid, and how much i'm using from the grid??

 

Any help much appreciated.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Bonjon

[ChrisT70]

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/editors_blog/export_meters_cause_confusion_among_uk_customers5478

may help

 

you cant really put an energy meter on the panels d.c tails as such as you need to monitor the power at the 230v inverted level at 50hz going back to the grid. you can of course monitor the voltage and current (then power) on the panel tails if you wished but it wont be representative of what you are making/exporting at any time as the inverter has losses itself, however small, converting it back to ac.

 

my understanding is you will need a decent smart meter to show overall consumption and export but as per the above article, many RECs are bringing forward smart metering in the future anyway.

prob worth a chat with your installer before it goes ahead, you may need to pay more if you want anything more than the basic unit

[ChrisT70]

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/guest_blog/half_price_solar_provides_similar_rates_of_return_as_in_2011_2345

 

also interesting reading :-)

[Ghozer]

It's my understanding that they install a meter on the solar panels circuit with all the information you're wanting any way..

[Bonjon]

Thanks for the reply, so my meter wont go backwards but the electric company will just go with a flat rate of 50% of generated electric to be paid back at 3.1p kw/h. I assume that will also go to the company installing the panels?

 

The way I think I can monitor is to put monitor A on the tails from the inverter/generation meter (230v AC), this will measure what is created by the panels. I then put monitor B on the grid meter tails.

 

So monitor A will tell me the watts coming from the panels

Monitor B will tell me the Watts passing to/from the meter.

 

I will first need to find out if monitor B is passing elecric to the grid or pulling from the grid. I will most likely know this by how much the panels make, but if i'm unsure I can turn a high pull device on if the watts being used goes down its feeding the grid, vice versa its pulling from the grid.

 

I.E

 

A=500watts

B=1000watts being pulled from grid

 

A-B = -500(so i'm using 500watts from the grid)

 

Or

 

A=500watts

B=250watts being fed to grid

 

A-B = 250(so i'm using 250watts and 250 is being fed to the grid.)

 

Not sure if my monitors would work in a negative scenario though.