Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2020

Could you please pm me their contact?

thanks

Pm sent

DrPhilG wrote: »

Pm sent

Could you please PM me also as I am in the same boat, thanks

Hi I have both about 5kW of solar panels installed, a Solis hybrid inverter and 5 Pylontech batteries, and very happy with the whole system. I also have an Electric Car - a Nissan Leaf. I am in Belturbet, Co Cavan.

Interesting that you are looking at solar panels to help charge your car. Although of course you might choose to go with one of the new smart home chargers such as Zappi, about which I dont know much, I have not seen much on this Board or online about charging of EV cars from solar panels.

You will know that the 'standard' home charger, the highest current you can get from a single phase domestic supply needs about 6kW or a little more of power. You will know that in Ireland from a system with 5kW peak of solar panels, you will typically get 1.5kW, 2.5 kW, maybe 3 or 4kW each for an hour or less on a typical day - I could give you actual figures and averages from my system. In other words, whatever 'medium speed' charger with a type 2 connector that you connect up to your car, it will be typically using 50% or 60% of power from your grid during the day to charge your car, and the sun will provide the other 40 to 50% - if you are lucky and of course depending on the weather. On the other hand, until last Summer, I had forgotten that I had a 'granny charger' supplied with my Nissan Leaf, and had never actually used it. BUT, this is ideal if what you want is to slowly charge your electric car, making max use of power available from the solar panels - I forget exactly, but it only draws 2.0 or 2.5kW - but if you only need to 'top up' your batteries from say 60% to 95% (on my Leaf) that granny charger, drawing from solar, would do that in 4 or 5 hours on many typical days in Cavan.

Just food for thought!

David

Northumberland wrote: »

Hi I have both about 5kW of solar panels installed, a Solis hybrid inverter and 5 Pylontech batteries, and very happy with the whole system. I also have an Electric Car - a Nissan Leaf. I am in Belturbet, Co Cavan.

Interesting that you are looking at solar panels to help charge your car. Although of course you might choose to go with one of the new smart home chargers such as Zappi, about which I dont know much, I have not seen much on this Board or online about charging of EV cars from solar panels.

You will know that the 'standard' home charger, the highest current you can get from a single phase domestic supply needs about 6kW or a little more of power. You will know that in Ireland from a system with 5kW peak of solar panels, you will typically get 1.5kW, 2.5 kW, maybe 3 or 4kW each for an hour or less on a typical day - I could give you actual figures and averages from my system. In other words, whatever 'medium speed' charger with a type 2 connector that you connect up to your car, it will be typically using 50% or 60% of power from your grid during the day to charge your car, and the sun will provide the other 40 to 50% - if you are lucky and of course depending on the weather. On the other hand, until last Summer, I had forgotten that I had a 'granny charger' supplied with my Nissan Leaf, and had never actually used it. BUT, this is ideal if what you want is to slowly charge your electric car, making max use of power available from the solar panels - I forget exactly, but it only draws 2.0 or 2.5kW - but if you only need to 'top up' your batteries from say 60% to 95% (on my Leaf) that granny charger, drawing from solar, would do that in 4 or 5 hours on many typical days in Cavan.

Just food for thought!

David

Thanks for the info David, very much appreciated. Yea there is a lot of info to digest and weigh up and decide what is the best system to install for the my budget. With some of the grants ending this year, and energy prices on the rise, it could be the time to get one installed.

Regarding charging the EV from Solar, I actually had the Zappi in mind as I understand it can detect that Solar is available and use it instead of the grid. I hadn't even thought of using the granny cable and it using the solar that was being generated during the day

TheBigEvil wrote: »

Hi completely new to this, and have been reading through the thread to try and understand what I need to be looking at, and fair play to everyone there is a hell of a lot of info on here to take in as to what system suits.

I'm going to be changing to an EV soon, and am currently looking at Home chargers, and as a result this has put the whole Solar PV stuff into my mind about being able to charge the car, at times, from solar. I'd probably be looking to a budget of between 4-6k net of grants to see what type of system I can get.

I'll look to get 3 estimates and was wondering what companies people have used, and were happy with their installations, I'm based in Drogheda and garden is SE facing. I understand if its not right to mention company names in the thread, so would appreciate a PM from people who were happy with the company they used and if you want to share. what type of system you went with that would be awesome

I’m local to you and have recently had a PV system with Zappi installed if you want to see it working let me know

Northumberland wrote: »

ESB have ceased their smart meter roll out because of Covid and will probably not even start again until July

Thats interesting as I had my meter switched from standard 24h meter to day/night meter during Covid even though my supplier had informed me that ESB Networks were not doing any meter changes. (originally told they'll contact you in a few days, follow up call give it a week or two and final call -- flat out no due to Level 5 no meter changes happening)



Then randomly ESB van appears a week later (still in level 5 lockdown). Most meters are outside so its not like you need to interact with the ESB person (obviously if its indoors or behind a locked gate then for interaction required).



So would hope that ESB networks will still be able to do ad hoc smart meter installs for all of us that want to be paid for our export!

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

If you drop half of that battery you could probably get another 5 or 6 panels for the same price.

[Deleted User] wrote: »

How much (after grant) should one be looking at for an 18 panel array?

18 panels
Inverter
5kW Battery
Hot water diverter

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

I am getting a similar setup for €5300 after the grant but with 14 panels. So would imagine 18panels would be less than €6k

idc wrote: »

Thats interesting as I had my meter switched from standard 24h meter to day/night meter during Covid even though my supplier had informed me that ESB Networks were not doing any meter changes. (originally told they'll contact you in a few days, follow up call give it a week or two and final call -- flat out no due to Level 5 no meter changes happening)



Then randomly ESB van appears a week later (still in level 5 lockdown). Most meters are outside so its not like you need to interact with the ESB person (obviously if its indoors or behind a locked gate then for interaction required).



So would hope that ESB networks will still be able to do ad hoc smart meter installs for all of us that want to be paid for our export!

I read on the 'energyd' Ireland website "Be ready for Export Payments With a Smart Meter"....... "Just call ESB Networsk on 01 698 5005 as ask (sic) to be prioritized for your smart meter installation. Everybody will be getting a smart meter sooner or later but customers with solar panels can request to be sent to the top of the queue" It is interesting that I could not find any similar message on ESBs own website, they obviously want to keep that a secret. Anyway, I called that number, and spoke with a very helpful person who assured me that I was already registered for a priority smart meter install, and would first get a message 3 months in advance of installation, and then 2 weeks before installation from the team that would actually do the install, and all should be done before end of the year.

The irony is that I already have a smart meter installed! - but the export function is not enabled. From the smart meter instructions, it appears that it would take an installer with the right IR Zapper about 2 minutes to activate the export function, no hardware or re-wiring needed. I called ESB over a year ago to ask them to do this, before COVID, and they said oh yes, we can get that done for you, it will just cost you Euros 350, pay that and we will have it done. Naturally I did not make the payment then,

My installer wanted to hide everything away from me in cupboard under the stairs etc, but I resisted, and I have both the inverter (I actually installed a second smaller one myself - so 2 inverters) and the batteries and switch gear all accessible, located under the electricty meter box inside my (heated) front porch, which is quite big. I like to be 'hands on' and have spent a fair amount of time 'tweaking' the system so that it performs as well as I think it can, and there is an awful lot of learning to be done with a Solis hybrid inverter - so I am very happy to have everything accessible, rather than having to crawl under the stairs or climb in to an attic. I dont think the installation looks bad either, but am sure not everyone would agree with me there. Test rig on the garage roof? is the roof flat?

Good point, and the installation instructions for my inverters have minimum distances specified that must be left empty above and below the inverter.