PV Solar system-the craziest DIY project probable

Gumbo

rolion wrote: »

Congrats and welcome to PVs world !
Can you describe what you get installed,please !?
A 3Kw installed power,based on its location and exposure should give you a nice return daytime,aroud 2ish.

Based on my experience... we use the major appliances only day time / sunny time AND only one at the time,so that we will not go over the average 3KW power demand / consumption to cover the PVs generation.Well,almost every time...
When excess PV power generated,is diverted to hot water cylinder.

10x300w panels.
Due South facing roof.
Immersion Divertor also.

I'll have to try setting the delays on the dishwasher etc to go on while im in work

rolion

WELL...well, i thought i'm never going to see that here, on these lands..

ZERO production in a single day and now,i have a record of 0.01KW generated so far...looks promissing !
Wondering what the small users or big farms on the continennt are doing under simillar conditions !?

I guess time to go out there and enjoy the snow...










WHAT is very peculliar is that the solar tubes ...still have some warm parameter up on the roof,according to my report is at 16 Degrees top of the Collector !??

air

What hardware do you have for interfacing to your Resol controller out of interest?

Gumbo

Even with the snow, I’ve gwneratwd 1.33kwh so far today.

Depending on the meter you are using and how buried the panels are those readings could quite easily be consumption, not generation.

100W self-consumption for inverter idle sound right? (Usually in the region of 30W)
Not an issue with DC coupling though.

Alternating voltage current meters are not direction sensitive.

Inverter meters are usually tuned. I always install external ones for the truth and they're more often than not more accurate and less expensive.

What is the assumed voltage of the owl meter Rolion? I see it doesn't measure this..just current.

rolion

air wrote: »

What hardware do you have for interfacing to your Resol controller out of interest?

What system do you have ?
Mine is a Resol controller linked via VBUs to a DL2 data logger and out on the network.

rolion

Sir Liamalot wrote: »

Depending on the meter you are using and how buried the panels are those readings could quite easily be consumption, not generation.

100W self-consumption for inverter idle sound right? (Usually in the region of 30W)
Not an issue with DC coupling though.

Alternating voltage current meters are not direction sensitive.

Inverter meters are usually tuned. I always install external ones for the truth and they're more often than not more accurate and less expensive.

What is the assumed voltage of the owl meter Rolion? I see it doesn't measure this..just current.

As always,your knowledge amazes me...thanks !

Checked the inverter and it looks like the PV panels are "supplying" enough voltage but not enough A type "juice" to get the flow enough moving.
Scarry low temperatures but working fine so far.

air

rolion wrote: »

What system do you have ?
Mine is a Resol controller linked via VBUs to a DL2 data logger and out on the network.

Thanks, I think my controller is the same one which is why I asked. I'll have to investigate further.
Actually scratch that, I had a look and the logger is about £200. I might look into DIY intefacing at some point.

rolion

air wrote: »

Thanks, I think my controller is the same one which is why I asked. I'll have to investigate further.
Actually scratch that, I had a look and the logger is about £200. I might look into DIY intefacing at some point.

Not worth it...and almost impossible.
Been there years ago...i even had Resol SDK trying to customise some parameters.I went with the basic simple one...
And,cost is not an issue for a highly specialised solar tubes system...come on,i will have had as the last reason !

Have a look at this site H E R E ..plenty of info, examples and maybe something to get you running.

air

Ah, I think I'll stick with my existing monitoring system - does hot water come out of the taps in sunny weather? If so, all good

Seriously, for me expensive monitoring systems aren't really justifiable. I keep a close eye on things anyway out of interest.
I only just picked up a legacy web monitoring gateway for my PV inverters last week. I waited until I could get it for €10 instead of paying hundreds.

rolion

air wrote: »

Ah, I think I'll stick with my existing monitoring system - does hot water come out of the taps in sunny weather? If so, all good

Seriously, for me expensive monitoring systems aren't really justifiable. I keep a close eye on things anyway out of interest.

Is your well informed decision, i respect that.
Please see "monitoring" functions of a proper setup system:
Thanks.

air

So there's a €39 annual fee for their web interface also? Is this mandatory or can you just review the logs locally?

rolion

air wrote: »

So there's a €39 annual fee for their web interface also? Is this mandatory or can you just review the logs locally?

There is a free version and a paid one.
Cant show you the differences as i am logged in with the Pro but take your time and review it on that link.

rolion

A screenshot of my notifications:

Freezing System - hmmm,maybe;
Cylinder over 60 degrees - very useful for my bath(sss) in the sumer;
Cylinder Full warm - both sensors must be over 55 degrees,so that i can turnoff boiler or prepare for a full jacuzzi.


Next step..love it if i can do it is to integrate more sensors and few valves and monitor / command the DHW with complex system external factors / pre-heating / dumping .But on my madness i will need to repalce the controller as this one has no more inputs,comes with default 4 in + 2 out.

rolion

Thought a will update as system have reached a milestone... 10MWh produced and almost 3MWh exported to a greener environment.

What will I change if I could go back in time and with today's mind and technology !?
I had maybe designed/implemented the system to do :

-a backup for night usage (some sort of battery) to keep the 500Wh base load of the house ,from 10pm until 8am,next day. Did the maths and unfortunately, still not worth it with prices today and the ABB inverter will need to be changed. Years ago,that was the only option, no hybrids or similar to Irish grid.

-some sort of a dual hot cylinder setup so that once the primary 300l cylinder is hot at 80 degrees, to switch to diverter second output and heat the 150l puffer / smaller cylinder that pre-feeds the bigger one.

-more panels in the back, probable from 8 current to 12 at least. That will give me enough juice to charge the EV nicely when parked at home.

-a tracker, my dream to get a tracker but practical impossible in the today's residential estate physical constraints.


Otherwise, looking forward to 11 and 15 and 20...

unkel

Congrats on the 10MWh milestone :cool:

I'm new to this thread. Fascinating to see how much hardware prices have dropped in less than 3.5 years since the OP!

€1500 ABB inverter, I paid €250 for my Solis (similar output)
€300 per panel, I paid €100 per panel

My 4kwp system cost roughly a bit over €2k installed (DIY + paid €350 for two roofers for the guts of a day + friendly electrician hooked it up for free). Just done my first MWh, hopefully many more to come...

Coltrane

Unkel, congrats on the PV-install and hope you enjoy as much as I do!

Respect also for your rigour in always calculating ROI on potential renewable-installs. Particularly important in a field where there's quite a lot of muddy-thinking around the fabrication processes for 'green' installs: their often hugely damaging environmental footprints can be overlooked in marketing or our own urge to do the right thing.

But, I think we need somehow to factor what I'll call environmental Clean-up/Mitigation Costs ("C") in our ROI-calcs. It's increasingly clear that we and our children will each individually have to pay for C in the form of taxes, higher food and water costs, flood defences, border controls, etc. Often we already do - with a bit of help from the State - as early adopters of renewables. C's amount is of course unknowable, but it ain't zero! So annual savings/capital cost does not equal ROI. We need to factor an estimated present value of future clean-up costs C.

My own sense is that C will be massive. There are as we all know many guestimates out there such as the recently linked draft climate change action plan for Ireland which references (see Irish Times articles, I can't post a link as a new member) projected costs which dwarf the children's hospital and rural broadband.

My own implementation of this is that I buy whichever renewables I can afford, as my contribution. In my calcs C dwarfs saved annual energy costs. I try my hardest to afford renewables. I run ROI-calcs because that was my career, and as a kind of filter of which techs have best reached viability. I try to research the all-in environmental footprint as best I can (here, my HP barely passed muster - I could see that there was no way I'd save money on it compared to natural gas, but what troubled me far more was the calcing of the true environmental contribution given the inefficiency of the current grid which powers the HP when the sun goes down). And to avoid waste.

Just the thought and contribution to the debate. I'm kinda stating the obvious, but don't think I've seen the value of C debated all that much.