So I don't have the maths on it, but that's what I'm doing here at the moment. We've boosted the hot water once since the solar got installed in December (that was in January and on a day we did a lot of washing up). The current electric shower draws 9kW as it runs which goes over the inverter max of 6kW. My expectation is to spend what we would have spent running the electric shower in the winter on boosting the tank, and basically just solar heating the hot water the rest of the year (plus the draw of the pump). IF you don't have a battery, your hot water storage is basically a battery.
Given the cost of changing the shower, if you weren't already getting the tiles done I'd hold off but as you are, go for it. You can also move your hot water heating costs into the night rate, where your instantaneous shower is more likely to be on a day rate.
I actually put a pump shower in the other wall of the shower next to the electric when I was fiberglassing the shower.
Gives the option of having a quick electric shower if there's no hot water in the middle of winter.
Oh that's a neat idea. The room w/ the pumped shower isn't the one w/ the electric (which we are reclaiming the space), but still, I like it
Quick question folks. Do the solar panels need to be off to give them a rinse with a soft brush and some water? Build up of bird droppings that I am trying to get rid of. I've tried a hose with a small bit of pressure but no joy.
I use garden hose with sprayer head and long soft brush for washing the car with water and small drop of washing up liquid. They come up shining.
Extra stubborn bird sh1t have to use warm water on a sponge to shift it.
No don't have to turn off.
They'll probably run better with the cooling of the water too.
I have a telescopic car brush thing that extends about 3m and you connect the garden hose at the handle and shoots water all the way up to the brush.
Sometimes when the birds are extra a-holes I spray foam them with a bit of fairy then do the brush thing. Or strait up up power wash (on low setting)
Works pretty nicely.
Anyone interested in buying my Eddi.
Having a look at my consumption etc. at the moment and the eddi is drawing from the battery as I'm using it with a hybrid inverter (same issue as zappi)
Thing is I actually have the solar thermal as well so I definitely don't need to be heating the hot water more today.
If it's priced to sell I'd be interested
LOL - 3 mins that took!
next in line
Not priced at all yet 😁
I'll have a look at what they're going for there when I get home.
Is it setup correctly? I have an Eddi with a hybrid inverter and it only runs when the inverter genuninely exports to the grid, either when the battery is full (or almost full and it slows charging rate) or in the morning when i have grid charge enabled and PV is generated more than the house needs that gets exported (ie eddi uses what would be exported!)
Ah ya I could update the threshold on it and stuff like I need to do with the zappi but since I have the thermals which are working away fine I'm just dumping hot water when it gets too hot.
Does an eddi work with a heap pump?
An Eddi, when a CT clamp is connected to the Grid connection, will heat the immersion with whatever excess it "sees".
So I suppose it can be linked to anything with an immersion type device.
However, if your heat pump is 5kW and you're hoping to run it at only 2.5kW, I'd say that is a no. I think the heat pump will be an all or nothing, but happy to be contradicted
Would you consider automating it using Home Assistant? I have an automation to turn my Eddi on only when the battery SOC is above 98%, and to turn off when the battery SOC is below 90%
Can home assistant talk to Solis and Eddi?
Stupid questions, 2 seconds on google.
It can.
JOB!
A power shower eats electricity (so much so that you can't charge an EV & have a power shower at the same time such is the amount of electricity they use).
Get Rid ASAP, and use the Eddi to heat your hot water and then just have a pump installed to pump it to the bathrooms.
Also if you have central heating, chances are you are heating a tank of water anyway when the heating is on, but are not using it unless you have a bath!!
I've it up for sale there now. If it sells grand job, if itdoesn'tt then it's still heating the water I guess.
A bit steep for me, and your literally the other side of the country from me.. the long way too!
Speaking of steep...
What would be considered the perfect roof angle for PV?
My friend is having to flatten and rebuild (Mica) so he's trying to plan ahead. He will have one clear south facing roof but his plans are still in progress so he might have some flexibility in the pitch of the roof.
38-39° is the optimum in Ireland to maximise annual output.
No probs, I'll leave it up a while and see if I get any interest.
Surely that is only for the max on midsummer's day. I would have said about 55°, which is perpendicular to the sun for this time of year, whereas the loss of angle from now to September is compensated by the longer days
Hitting the optimize option on PVGIS gives 38°. However, selecting 55° only decreases the output on the hypothetical system above from 826kWh to 801kWh, so not much.
After first full year of solar I would easily sacrifice a kW in summer to gain it in winter so between 55 and 65. You won't miss it in summer but you will be glad of it in the winter months.
Looking to configure home assistant with solis and myenergi
Anyone have any recommended variables for the above. A lot of them seem to be static values recorded at the end of the day or something?
For those with ground mounted PV systems - how are ye faring out in the high / stormy weather?
