Solar panels - are they worth it in this country

Kashkai

Hi all,

We had originally planned to have a combination oil/wood pellet heating system in our new house and so I had a dual coil hot water tank installed.

However, after some research, it appears that the wood pellet supply situation is tenuous at the moment and the quality of the pellets themselves is poor. In addition, it also appears that the cost of the pellets is increasing. Therefore, I've decided to hold off on the wood pellet boiler at the moment.

Now, I've been looking into alternative heating methods for the domestic hot water and I want advice from anyone who has some first hand experience of getting these panels installed and if they do supply the necessary hot water (I'd accept that in winter you'd only get a boost to the oil as the sun is low in the sky).

Our roof pitch is 35 degrees - is this too shallow?

Do you need planning permission to have them installed - we have a black slate roof and I don't think the panels would be obtrusive. As the front of our house is south facing, we'd have to place them here but as we aren't overlooked, I can't see if there would be any objections.

Finallly, who would you recommend to purchase from and install them.

Advice appreciated in advance.


David

tba

They are planning to make them exempt under planning laws

[url=http://www.environ.ie/DOEI/DOEIPol.nsf/0/80a66fb80c634fd480256f4a00393a70/$FILE/Micro-Renewables Consultation Paper - Final Copy 6 Nov 2006.pdf
]Micro Energies Plan[/url]

They obviously don't heat water as efficiently in cold weather but they still work to a degree depending on the system you use. I will say that you should look into the integrated systems that have a photo voltaic panel to power the water pumps.

mjffey

David,

We are in the same position as you are. Wanted also to go for pellets, but now have decided against it. This comming weekend we are going to Bantry for a weekend course about solarpanels and windturbines at Ecologics.
Check their website at www.ecologics.ie

Hopefully we know on sunday if it it worth going that route.

construct06

post details here, sounds interesting.

i think the lack of working solutions around the country is a hindrance to the industry and to the potential buyer of such a system as you are then relying completly or their sales blurb to make ur decisions....

AJL

I have got a company to install panels in my house, eco nrg in Wexford. they are south facing 5 m2 and at about 34 degrees. What I have been told is the most important thing is that they are in the right orientation and dont get shaded by trees chimneys etc. I would think 35 degrees is fine but i;'m not an expert.
I have not got the system going yet but people say that with the grant and price of fossil fuels solar panels for DHW is a no brainer. Obviously if you have a geothermal system you would have that to heat your water so you would have to way up the costs. ( Advised that whatever alternative heating system you have use it to the max rather than ionvesting in 2 or 3 such as solar panels and geothermal)
As far as what I've heard it will heat your water to around 30 degrees in the winter and in the summer you will have plenty of hot water. i have on way of heating hot water other than an immersion as I have an air to air heat pump. So it makes sense for me to put them in. Payback I would say is about 7-8 years.

mjffey

WELL WORTH IT!!!!!

We've been to Ecologics for a two days course about solar panels and windturbines. We had to travel 6 hours to get there but it was absolutely fab!

Good explenation, the pro's and cons of all types of renewable energy. Quentin takes the time to give advise on your personal ideas.

If you are interested I would definetely go to Bantry. Courses are from 2-6PM and cost 40.00 pp per subject.

We now know that solarpanels is our way to go and maybe in a few years time a windturbine, but those costs are at the moment a bit to high for us.

Builderwoman!

Dave, hope build is going well. Firstly if you haven't got planning permission for solar on your extension you need to apply to get it if you want to put up solar panels. They are most certainly well worth the money we are getting 40 degrees and over even in this weather. It doesn't take a lot of work then on the boiler to bring the water to higher temps. Payback will be a few years but we have hot water constantly which suits us as the house is occupied 24/7. We stayed in bro in law's recently and were so shocked at having to "wait for water to heat" in the morning! Constant hot water is a luxury we have definitely gottten used to!

Can highly recommend our installer too.

Go for it and put the solar panels on now. You won't regret it.

NextSteps

Builderwoman! wrote:

Can highly recommend our installer too.

Would you mind PMing me his details? I can't seem to find anyone!

paulocon

mjffey,

Could you PM me those details also - Involved in a Self Build website and wouldn't mind taking the course...

JosephQ

I have just phoned Donegal CC regarding do I need to get planning permission for Solar panels and a wind turbine. Aplanning officer there said they did not know and would phone me back that was two weeks ago still waiting. So I phone the Dept of enviorement who told me that as along as I followed the following I do not need planning permission. Planning and Development Regulations 2007 - SI No. 83 of 2007

http://www.environ.ie/DOEI/DOEIPol.nsf/wvNavView/Planning?OpenDocument&Lang=#200

Builderwoman!

UB, sorry haven't checked in for a while and Eco Nrg Wexford (but travel nationwide) did ours too (another poster mentioned them too). Damien is excellent for maximising your benefit by ensuring they are positioned correctly...in fact he had plenty of opportunity to take us for more money as we wanted them front and back and after anyalysis he told us that the payback time would be too long for us to put them on the rear of the house and others had told us that we should put them both places! So give him a call.

Today, April 11th we are 50 degrees off our panels! Well worth it..the washing machine is going here all morning and the sunshine has heated the water for it cos we have a hot water machine! Makes sense. Would advise anyone to go for solar.

JosephQ, think that you are right about planning no pp needed now but it was when we put them up in 2005! (We were even told we might not get pp for them as they are on front of house to max. solar gain..and the council said they could be unsightly!!!...they look like large velux...so much for councils encouraging "green" building back in 2005!!)

muffler

We have had several threads now on solar panels and I will probably make this a sticky and any more that come along can be thrown in with it. So if anyone thinks their thread or posts have gone missing they can be located at the top of the front page.

This wont happen for another couple of days yet as we want to group certain topics together which will be more beneficial for people looking for opinions etc. They can be accessed in one thread rather than doing a search - which by the way does not appear to operate most of the time.

eckc

Hi Prosperous Dave

I have solar panels on my roof for DHW and I can say in all honesty, it was the best investment i've made in my home. I also installed a larger hot water tank. Since about the middle of March, ALL my hot water has been free. And even in the winter, it doesn't have to be a sunny day. as long as it's not overcast, the solar panels will work. some days it may only produce a little bit of hot water, but you'd be surprised. Today, the temperature of the hot water in the tank is 60 degrees and my immersion hasn't been on in weeks.

As regards wood pellets, i plan to get a WP boiler installed soon. it'll work together with the panels. I spoke to an energy auditor before i did anything, so i'm using his advice, an expert!

With regards to planning permission, you only need PP if
the panels are viewable from the road
if they are not placed flat on the roof and are viewable

mine are on the east slope of the roof. And they still do a great job.

I would definitely recommend getting an audit done though. they'll be able to tell you where to put the panels and the size of the boiler you need, even if its not going to be WP. I can tell you the company I used for the audit and who installed the panels if you want.

metalscrubber

And which Energy Auditor are you using? PM me if you dont want to broadcast !!

Cheers,

Metal

Tivoli

eckc wrote:

Hi Prosperous Dave

I have solar panels on my roof for DHW and I can say in all honesty, it was the best investment i've made in my home. I also installed a larger hot water tank. Since about the middle of March, ALL my hot water has been free. And even in the winter, it doesn't have to be a sunny day. as long as it's not overcast, the solar panels will work. some days it may only produce a little bit of hot water, but you'd be surprised. Today, the temperature of the hot water in the tank is 60 degrees and my immersion hasn't been on in weeks.

you sound like a sales man
Its hardly free when it costs over 4k to install, and your using electricity for pumps and sensors (okay only watts), but i presume the antifreeze will need to be replaced every few years, pumps are not going to last forever, and can the panel withstand a basket ball impact?

Mellor

eckc wrote:

As regards wood pellets, i plan to get a WP boiler installed soon. it'll work together with the panels. I spoke to an energy auditor before i did anything, so i'm using his advice, an expert!

An energy auditor isn't always an expert in low energy design. I'm not putting anyone down, and some auditors are very knowledgable and I regard their opinions as expert.
But not every auditor is to this standard.
To be an auditor you need to know how to assess a building,
But an expert would have a knowledge of design as well as assessment. and the training to reach this level can be quite long, either through college or years of expeirence.
People can often be advised by so called experts in various fields and end up facing problem down the line.
I don't know the auditor you spoke to and he or she may well be an expert, but other readers could take your comments up the wrong way.

eckc wrote:

With regards to planning permission, you only need PP if
the panels are viewable from the road
if they are not placed flat on the roof and are viewable

As far as I know, this is no longer the case. Solar panels are exempt from PP

eckc wrote:

mine are on the east slope of the roof. And they still do a great job.

I imagine they do better in the morning, showers etc.
The best result will be from a due south facing roof.

Mellor

Tivoli wrote:

you sound like a sales man
Its hardly free when it costs over 4k to install, and your using electricity for pumps and sensors (okay only watts), but i presume the antifreeze will need to be replaced every few years, pumps are not going to last forever, and can the panel withstand a basket ball impact?

Obviously there are very small charges on items such as pumps etc,
but isn't that being a bit picky.
How do most of the country get their hot water for a shower in the middle of summer, emmersion or electric shower.
Compare to the electricity used here to the amount used in a pump, its a huge difference and its practically free.
Installation costs depends on size, and savings will increase as energy prices do too. Also the grants available also reduce cost to the user.
I dont think anything needs to be changed over time, and there are standards thet they need to achieve, ie withstand inch wide hailstones. They also come with a guarantee.

Tivoli

Mellor wrote:

Obviously there are very small charges on items such as pumps etc,
but isn't that being a bit picky.
How do most of the country get their hot water for a shower in the middle of summer, emmersion or electric shower.
Compare to the electricity used here to the amount used in a pump, its a huge difference and its practically free.
Installation costs depends on size, and savings will increase as energy prices do too. Also the grants available also reduce cost to the user.
I dont think anything needs to be changed over time, and there are standards thet they need to achieve, ie withstand inch wide hailstones. They also come with a guarantee.

thanks mellor

i read they can cost from €4000-€6000 and the grant is only €600

but yeah if they are reliable and solidly built, i might re-consider getting them in, laying foundations next week, so have a bit more time to read up on them

forgot to mention in the last post, i presume they only heat water for a few hours a day (pretty sure the panel can't soak up heat from the full 180o its facing) so the tank would need to hold enough water to wash up that evening, and have showers the next morning

NextSteps

Tivoli wrote:

the tank would need to hold enough water to wash up that evening, and have showers the next morning

From what I understand you use a bigger tank (ours is going to be 300l - as tall as I am and twice the size of the old one) and it's factory-insulated so that it holds the heat much better than a tank with a lagging jacket would. Plus if the water in the tank gets to, say, 60 or 70 degrees, that's a lot of very hot water.

Mellor

Tivoli wrote:

thanks mellor

i read they can cost from €4000-€6000 and the grant is only €600

but yeah if they are reliable and solidly built, i might re-consider getting them in, laying foundations next week, so have a bit more time to read up on them

forgot to mention in the last post, i presume they only heat water for a few hours a day (pretty sure the panel can't soak up heat from the full 180o its facing) so the tank would need to hold enough water to wash up that evening, and have showers the next morning

It depends on the time of year, the sun travels throung different daily arcs in the summer and winter,
the summer is less of an arc and is high angled,
the winter is a greater arc and is low angled,
Depending on where you have it placed, it will provide heat at different times of the day. South facing is still the best in terms of total heat gained, but east will provide hot water the earliest (morning showers). And obviously the wst will provide the water the latest (washing up)

Tivoli

your mans free hot water post reminded me of pc worlds "save €253 by buying this celeron laptop" when your really wasting €600 on a crap pc

mjffey

Tivoli,

Is it me our do you sound a bit negative? I advise you to follow a days course at ecologics in Bantry (www.ecologics.ie) Maybe this will make you more positive. Or why not visit the energy show in Dublin on 25-26 april, or the selfbuild show in Galway on 25-27 May.

About the costs: It, of course, depends on the system you are going for. You can make it as expensive as you want.

Mellor

If your only interest is saving money in the short term then don't get solar panels installed. Theres alot of things you could cut out of a house to save a few euro.

Solar panels are a long term investment. They are more expensive to install than an immersion, but they provide practically free hot water. This will pay its self back over a number of years.


They also add value to your house, due to the lower energy cost, and therefore a lower energy rating. The cost they add to your house is instant. And is possibily the same as the installation cost. And you will have to get it rated if you want to sell/rent etc.

LFCFan

Tivoli wrote:

i read they can cost from €4000-€6000 and the grant is only €600

The grant is €300 per Sq M so if you install 5 SqM of panels which seems to be the average, you'll get €1,500 of a grant.

ardara1

mjffey wrote:

Tivoli,

why not visit the energy show in Dublin on 25-26 april, or the selfbuild show in Galway on 25-27 May.

MJ - do you honestly believe that these guys that are SELLING the prducts actually put forward honest figures on performance - into buildings of which they have ABSOLUTLEY NO idea of how the other components are performing and what their (mostly small) contribution has to make up?

The only stories I'm hearing from ALL these people at the shows is that if you purchase their piece of kit - you've gone green. Consumerism.

If you want to go green see the power of one street site from SEI - 25% carbon/energy cut from behavioural changes - not from BITS shipped in from China with a life span of 15 years.

2 stroke

To answer the original question. Yes. Remember this country has longer periods of daylight in summer than the likes of spain or the south of france. Earlier sunrise means our shower water is heating before theirs, especialy if you target the morning sun.
I am currently rebuilding my trial home made unit with twice the original length of copper pipe as my metal plate was going above 100c.
My costs; scrap metal plate, recovered timber, pump €15, 12 volt solar panel €100, microbore pipe €50, black paint €5, qualpex and fittings €20.
1.5 m2 for €200. I plan to have 3 of these running for winter. the same pump and solar panel should run all 3. Long term plan is a solar boundary wall running rads in winter, hot tub in summer.
The oil companies are laughing all the way to the bank because our insulation is keeping out the natural energy from the sun.
Bring the heat back in.

LFCFan

this is how hot my panels were yesterday. Not exactly a scorcher or a day so it will give you an example of how much heat these panels are able to absorb. We haven't had to heat our water with the central heating for over a month now and we've had constant hot water every day, even in cloudy weather.

sydthebeat

lfcfan...

can you tell us what system you have, tubes or flat plate, how much sq m, what size and makeup of tanks etc...

thank you...

LFCFan

sydthebeat wrote: »

lfcfan...

can you tell us what system you have, tubes or flat plate, how much sq m, what size and makeup of tanks etc...

thank you...

It's 6.1sqM of Flat panels and a 300L tank. I was surprised when we were still getting so much hot water even in cloudy weather. The only time we'd see a big reduction in heat at the moment is when it rains.

bbam

LFCFan wrote: »

It's 6.1sqM of Flat panels and a 300L tank. I was surprised when we were still getting so much hot water even in cloudy weather. The only time we'd see a big reduction in heat at the moment is when it rains.

Music to my ears... We're putting in 5sq meters flat plate and 300L tank, Sonnoncraft are the manufacturer...
Bring on the cheap hot water !!!

BoozyBabe

I heard a comment over the weekend. A guy was trying to decide if he should install solar or not & was told the following:-

His solar solution would cost €4k & had an approx lifespan of 10 years.

That's €400 a year!!
I'd have thought you'd have got a lot of hot water heated by the immersion for that money!!!

What's your thoughts on this as I'm very keen on installing solar myself, but this has me doubting it.

sydthebeat

BoozyBabe wrote: »

I heard a comment over the weekend. A guy was trying to decide if he should install solar or not & was told the following:-

His solar solution would cost €4k & had an approx lifespan of 10 years.

That's €400 a year!!
I'd have thought you'd have got a lot of hot water heated by the immersion for that money!!!

What's your thoughts on this as I'm very keen on installing solar myself, but this has me doubting it.

Firstly, the solar system would cost 4k, but this includes some plumbing that would be required anyway.. therefore the equivalent costs of the cylinder, plumbing, stats etc all would have to be taken off the quoted price to find the true difference.... therefore the difference would be closer to €2000.... over 10 years is €200

Secondly, with proper maintenance the solar system should last a lot longer than 10 years.... even if the panels need replacing, the plumbing and cylinder will not....

Thirdly, €200 a year would NOT go far if you are heating water from an immersion... try it.... a typical immersion is 3-4KWH... especially as esb prices will rise....

Forthly, you get a grant back for the solar panels... ESB prices will only rise....

davidoco

BoozyBabe wrote: »

I heard a comment over the weekend. A guy was trying to decide if he should install solar or not & was told the following:-

His solar solution would cost €4k & had an approx lifespan of 10 years.

That's €400 a year!!
I'd have thought you'd have got a lot of hot water heated by the immersion for that money!!!

What's your thoughts on this as I'm very keen on installing solar myself, but this has me doubting it.

I got a fill of oil at the weekend, just short of 1000 litres cost 877 euro and the price of oil is very likely only going one way.

If you use the SEI statement that each sq m of roof area is equilivant to 100 litres of oil http://www.sei.ie/uploadedfiles/RenewableEnergy/REIOSolarHeatingLeaflet0304.pdf then with 4 sq m of panels giving a saving of 400 litres of oil that's 400 x 0.80 = €320.


Regarding using your electricity.

Using a 3KW element for 2 hours every day.

0.16 per ESB KW unit cost
0.96 per 3KW over 2 hours
6.72 per week
349.44 per year

sydthebeat

if an immersion was your only source of hot water, it would be on a lot more than 2 hrs a day for a typical 2.4 family....

Sparky78

sydthebeat wrote: »

if an immersion was your only source of hot water, it would be on a lot more than 2 hrs a day for a typical 2.4 family....

If your solar panels were your only source of hot water you'd be left with no hot water for half the year.