Solar Panels that work all year round??

paddy147

Does anyone with experience of solar panels have anything to say about this seystem from LVP?

Hot water 365 days a year,even in snow and ice conditions??

watch the youtube video and see what you think

Is it the real deal or a gimmick?

Thanks.:)

http://www.donedeal.ie/for-sale/heating/1987685

kay 9

The only gimmick is that they said they work at night:rolleyes: They will work in hale, rain or snow though. So long as you have sufficient light of course. They should and will if sized and installed properly give you all the hot water required. They are not designed for heating though. I am SEI registered but am yet to put them in my own house:) The evacuated tubes are a little more efficient though and easier replace a tube than a whole panel if broken with a stone or football;)

Scartbeg

This is more of a heat pump than a solar thermal panel, although it does benefit from direct solar gain when the sun is shining on it.

It requires electricity to run a compressor, about 400W, and has a COP of around 4.33 according to figures on their website (similar to any other heat pump). Note that they say "minimum 390W" to run the compressor for 1690W output, so that is the best case COP.

With electricity at 16cent per kWh, that means each kWh of water heating is costing around 4 cent (best case), which is cheaper than say oil at around 8 cent/kWh. See SEAI fuel cost comparisons here

Their system uses its own proprietary tank with integrated control system so you would have to ditch your existing tank (not a problem if new build).

BTW, their assertion that it does not have any CO2 emmisons is misleading, there are of course emmisions inherent in the supply of electricity.

JohnnieK

Also make sure they are accepted by SEAI if you are thinking about grants.

heinbloed

Get the netto harvest signed and guaranteed. Netto harvest means output of thermal energy versus input of electric energy. In kWh per year and kWh per day for every month of the year.
And you see this company walking out.

Most SEI listed energy suppliers are simply to incompetent to answer such a plain question. Well, most of them know that their gimmicks don't stand up to the statements they make.

But some are well prepared. Get their statements in writing and signed and then contact an independant professional for his/her opinion. Again in writing and signed.
If the numbers match and you like the results (incl. the costs for maintenance/spare parts) sure, go for it.

You see the numbers on the bank notes you're spending on these things are real, their value guaranteed.
Learn to shop and demand value for money.

The thoughts of people/chat forums is of little use when it comes to financial and physical reality.

heinbloed

The calculation Scartbeg makes in his post is so simplified that it is useless.
The COP is useless.
The question for the consumer/specifier/buyer is will it pay.
And the stated COP won't answer this.

Ask for the anual systems efficiency.

dathi

The COP is the coefficient of power/performance. It isa measurement of electrical consumption of the device in relation to the output of heat from the device. So in this case it's 1kw used 4.33 kw heat out. But as Hein says this measurement is of no great use to the home owner, because it is a measurement taken in a lab when all the parameters are optimised, ie, the angle of the panel on the roof and the sun at 12 noon. Once you deviate from those parameters the COP starts to fall off, ie cloudy sky, rain, minus temperatures (laugh) until you reach a COP of 1:1or worse and all you are doing is using electricity to heat your water. I can stand corrected on this part but most heat pumps have an electrical element installed for when there is no heat to collect and they switch to this automatically. Hence large ESB bills. If you look on their website at the picture of the heat exchange it has a coil, a temp probe and what looks like an electric element in between the coils.

paddy147

Wonder is anyone from LVP might see this and post here to explain their system.

Im looking at my options at the moment.

heinbloed

Quote:

Wonder is anyone from LVP might see this and post here to explain their system.

Contact them, invite them to discuss the laws of physics and economics.

jamesbrond

Make sure and roughly cost what you water heating will cost over about 20 years using electricity.

Then cost the amount it costs you for the system plus running costs, plus maintenance and repair on your panels over that time.

When I did this, I was actually losing a lot of money by going for the panels.

I dont have the calculations to hand anymore, but you can figure it out.

And remember, even if you have hot water all the time, you wont be using it all the time. Work out how much hot water you actually use.

Richard1982

heinbloed wrote: »

Quote:



Contact them, invite them to discuss the laws of physics and economics.

Good Morning,

I am replying to the thread posted, simply to clarify a number of points, not to promote or push our system in any way. The LVP system is effectively a hybrid system. It is an amalgamation between a conventional solar panel and a small heat pump (as noted by some of the responses above). It is registered under the Greener Homes Scheme as a flat plat solar panel. It is however different to a conventional solar panel.

On one hand, a conventional solar panel is a fantastic concept, I am not knocking this technology, but the fact of the matter is that we do not have the sunlight hours in Ireland to make these effective enough (4.3 hours of sun per day on an annual nationwide basis according to Met Eireann) We can safely assume that we will get up to 60%, maybe 70% of our hot water per annum from a flat plate or evacuated tube.

On the other hand, a heat pump is very effective in terms of what it does, but can be grossly inefficient in terms of electrical consumption.

What our solar panel does for the heat pump is reduce the electrical consumption, what the heat pump does for the solar panel is remove the restrictions that you would have on a conventional solar panel, you now have a system that will work for you 24/7 365, with no back up from oil or gas. It will work at night if called upon to do so.

COPs, are weather dependent, will vary. It is true that when temperatures are down in the high negatives (surpassing -7), that COP will drop to 2 or so, but it will still work.

I may not be able to give you all of the answers, I am not a scientist, or an engineer. But if we can put all talk of COPs, and netto harvest figures aside for 2 minutes, what I can introduce you to is 150+ customers nationwide who are saving money on their installs, and have had systems functioning fine. I have customers, who have added €150 to their ESB bill, but saved 1100 litres of oil. These are real figures, not made up, and based on actual households. Please remember that heating your water through oil, is the equivalent of heating 6-7 radiators in a house, the price of oil is ever increasing. Here we have a system, quite unique in that it does not require oil in any capacity to heat the water.

I don't pretend that economies of scale don't come into this. Of course a family of 7 people will see a much quicker payback than a family of 3. It will also depend on how the water is currently being heated. I like to think that we are an honest company, we have advised customers against our system in the past, due to the paybacks not being justified.

The other aspect of this, is that customers have hot water available to them whenever they want it, the compressor only functions when water is used.

There is a 1 KW (1/3 the size of a conventional immersion) element as pointed out earlier that acts as a back up in every system. Everything needs to have a back up, this is simply a worst case scenario item. The lowest we have seen the system function at is -15 degrees celsius, but as we are all aware, Ireland has experienced temperatures lower than this in the previous year, if this happens, this immersion may be needed to assist the heating of the hot water.

I may not have answered everything that you want, but I would welcome further questions, we always encourage 1-1 meetings, if you would like to come and see a live demo unit.

I look forward to further threads of this nature.

heinbloed

After 1 month searching for words - just words !

Any independant research data at all ? A legal requirement for heat pumps in Europe!

What is the guaranteed anual system efficiency according to EN ?!



Every installer/architect has to have this number available for the client's individual project. It is part of the planning process. From June onwards this is a legal requirement.
So numbers please, no hollow phrases.

A solar thermal collector producing a thermal gain at night time, these are lies and should be reported to the authorities:

The LVP system is effectively a hybrid system. It is an amalgamation between a conventional solar panel and a small heat pump (as noted by some of the responses above). It is registered under the Greener Homes Scheme as a flat plat solar panel.

Why registering a HP as a flat panel? Why not registering a coal fired back boiler as a flat plate solar panel?

This registration must be faulty. Or wrongly interpreted by the seller.

Buyers be aware!

Richard1982

Firstly, I'd like to say that this is a rather aggressive response, probably a bit harsh on someone to cast aspersions from something that they do not have any of the information on.

I first came across this thread this morning, and I am trying to give you as much info as possible, to give a response. Clearly, you can see that this is my first input on boards.ie, so I am not a regular checker of this.

The product is of course independently tested, and fully certified. We also installed systems in our own homes for 18 months before we launched the product to the public to ensure that we could stand over our claims.

You say "buyers beware", which is another very harsh and unfair statement. I would ask anybody interested in the technology to contact us, we will make any reports available to a genuine buyer. We are not in the habit of posting every bit of technical information, as we feel that 99% of the population want to know that A the product works, and B, they will get payback.

"A solar thermal collector producing a thermal gain at night time, these are lies and should be reported to the authorities:" Once again Sir, in relation to this, we firstly tried to register this as a heat pump, but it is infact the authorities, SEAI who acknowledged it as a flat plate solar collector.

I will not be checking boards.ie again for the forseeable future, I simply wanted to give a response to your questions, and not duck or dodge them.

I would welcome anyone to contact me directly if they wish to discuss any of this further. You are more than welcome to come and see the unit in working order. I would once again stress that any interested buyers can talk to existing customers with the systems in place 2/3/4 years in Ireland. These are your real figures!!

Thank you once again for posting these questions, I hope that my answers have been of some help. I am not trying to "avoid" any questions, welcome you to make an appointment to come and see me.

Joey the lips

Thank you richard for your response. I think there is enough information here at the moment. Any more discussion on solar or renewables can be taken to solar where a dedicated list of viewers will be happy to reply.

I am closing this as it answers the questions enough for paddy147. If you dont agree paddy i shall open it again on your request.

Joey the lips

Thread re-opened as requested by Paddy

paddy147

Thanks for re-opening the thread.

Well after 2 very interesting meetings with Richard from LVP Renewables,myself and my girlfriend have decided to have one of their solar panel systems installed.

Richard came to the house to do a site survey and see what our requirements were and are,as a family.

He also sent out an engineer to view the house and its layout to see if there would be any potential problems with instalation into the hot press.No problems,just a small bit of pipe moving,but thats all.

Myself and my girlfriend asked many many questions and all were answered honestly and very well too.

We got to see a fully working solar instalation and the hot water it was producing.The system is great and Im very happy and sure that my gas bills will plummet downwards too with this system.And also the ability to have instant hot water day or night, sun rain or snow,is what won me over.

Ive just been accepted for the SEI grant as of this evening and the grant will be issued to my bank account within 72 hours.

So I would like to say thankyou to Richard from LVP Renewables for his honesty and also his utter professionalism and I look forward to the instalation of the system next week.:D

Pic to follow of course,I allways like to take pics.


# Paddy strictly speaking this is advertising and you are not suppose to do this. I will leave it for the moment and seek advice further up the chain

dathi

you must be getting great discounts paddy this is the second forum you are running the risk of getting band from for advertising

Joey the lips

dathi wrote: »

Dathi back seat modding is equally not allowed. Please keep on topic

Thread to be closed as agreed with mod.