DIY PV install

welshchris77 · 08-10-2022 08:49PM #1

We are well into our instal so I thought I would post our progress here.

We got:-

x28 all black 405w Longi panels

x2 Solis 6kw your inverters

k2 fixings

Fitted x14 panels on our Annex, south facing, in two rows (strings) of x7

Build a small outhouse at the back of the property to house the running gear, so far have mounted the inverters, switches and a breakout box for the fuses, wired some of that up.

My Dad is helping me with this as he is a retired Instrument technician.

The panels on Annex will be run off one of the one inverters (two strings) as the bottom string has some shade during winter due to a nearby lampost .

The other x14 are going on my shed, x7 east facing, x7 West facing so two strings

Our Annex is powered from the Cottage where my parents live, hopefully this will help offset our usage as it is quite high between my folks and my own family of x5.

We are still trying to source a Solis 5g 1 phase power manager so that the two inverters will work/ together correctly once set up, I know they can be got but they seem elusive at the moment, heat merchants have them but won’t sell them to non REC certified people.

Also we don’t have enough materials for the shed yet, discovered we need way more hook, flashings etc, our rafters are 600mm spacings, we live in a very windy area so ended up putting the hooks on every rafter (x60 total), we only ordered x72 thinking this would be enough for the shed also, trying to order more now.

welshchris77 · 08-10-2022 08:57PM

Few pics on our progress

madmac187 · 08-10-2022 09:05PM

I’m thinking of doing the same, not electrical in anyway but thinking of mounting the panels wiring the strings of panels and running the cables for an electrician to finish. Where did you buy the gear ?

10-10-20 · 08-10-2022 09:32PM

Looking great. South East of the country, I'm guessing. Should be great for sun.

I presume the netting is to stop the starlings from nesting?

graememk · 08-10-2022 10:27PM

Them panels won't be coming off the roof anytime soon! Well fixed on.

I don't think there is half the number of roof mounts on the slate roof we have

micar · 08-10-2022 10:40PM

How much is this costing you?

What savings do you think you'll make by doing it yourself?

slave1 · 08-10-2022 11:36PM

What sized cable will you be running back to consumer unit, 12kW is a lot

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 10:44AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119718982#Comment_119718982

A know a person who is an installer, he got me the materials but the company he deals with is so busy right now they are not dealing with the public, I believe their are other companies who do though👍

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 10:55AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719076#Comment_119719076

Thank you, yes South East.

I read that nesting pigeons and such can be a fire hazard and they do hang around between our roof and the neighbours shed in close proximity next door so I installed a bird guard, it was easier to do it as we were fitting the panels, the off the shelf option is crazy expensive so I made my own from some old galvanised mesh fencing I had left over from a rabbit run we had years ago, knew it would come in handy for something one day😁

we used galvanised wire left over from a stripped armoured cable and tied it to the hooks

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 11:02AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719274#Comment_119719274

Hopefully they will stay on yes, lol.

I read somewhere that the ideal spacing is between 800mm to 1000mm, 800mm for windy areas, we would have gone for 800mm spacings but due to the rafters being 600mm spacing we could only go to either 600mm or 1200mm, we aired on the side of caution and went with 600mm to be on the safe side😉👍

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 11:06AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719326#Comment_119719326

Around 11k, I recon we could be saving a few k anyhow, we are on a tight budget so doing our best to keep the costs down

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 11:11AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119719470#Comment_119719470

Yes 12kw is a lot, I doubt it will ever reach that though with half the panels on the shed being East/West facing.

The run to the consumer unit is not far, roughly 3/4 meters, I haven’t bought the cable yet but was thinking 10mm2 would be sufficient

madmac187 · 09-10-2022 11:14AM

11k not too bad there’s a chap I saw on Facebook very similar costing 24k with install then minus grant. I have been looking at getting gear from the North, as it’s Vat free.

celtic_oz · 09-10-2022 11:22AM

Very interesting, so as I understand Export Power Manager will allow you to keep your export to the grid at a max of 6Kw as per regulatory requirements for single phase.

Question : what happens on the odd sunny day when this is at max and you have nowhere else to put power ? Can the inverters be instructed to lower the amount taken from the panels or what way does it work ? thanks

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 11:33AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720548#Comment_119720548

Thanks, yeah getting it from the North sounds like a good option, I believe the pound is weak against the euro so could be a good time to do that 👍

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 11:45AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720580#Comment_119720580

Exactly yes, just have to find a crowd that can sell me one now, if anyone can help with that I would appreciate it.

I doubt there will be many times where we will produce too much power as between ourselves and my parents in the cottage we use quite a lot of power, my parents also have a old mobile home running of the meter with electric heaters, fridge etc, it is a waste of energy in my opinion but it belonged to my late brother and they like to use that also during the daytime.

My Dad recons the inverters ramp down if too much power is being produced but I am not sure yet on that, I did see a YouTube video of the inverters being set to a desired output, worse case scenario we can cut the power to one of the inverters via the dc switch during the height of summer if that turns out to be the case, knock it back on during the winter months.

I guess I will find out more about everything once it is all up and running, then see how it goes, learn as we go.

waterwelly · 09-10-2022 11:50AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720548#Comment_119720548

How is it VAT free?

DC999 · 09-10-2022 11:58AM

@welshchris77, fair play for 1) doing it 2) telling us how you did it. This really makes DIY much more possible when we see the step by step (which you're still working out in places here with the help of others). Sadly I'm in suburbia and will remain so but can dream of a setup like yours :)

And this will help your folks hugely as shields them from energy costs (petrol gone with EV. Can reduce gas / oil as can start to use a lot of heating from solar now for the months that aren't pure winter). Of course ye get that same benefit. And class that you and your Dad are both heavily involved working on it together.

Brilliant thread!!

celtic_oz · 09-10-2022 11:58AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720668#Comment_119720668

With 2 houses you could use 2 eddi's ( https://myenergi.com/product/eddi/ ) I guess to dump into hot water, are you using batteries ?

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 12:06PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720715#Comment_119720715

Thank you so much, I really do hope it helps others and I hope you can be a position some day where you can do something similar.

I won’t lie, fitting the hooks and setting up scaffolding was real hardship as my Dad is almost 70 and I am disabled, probably took us a month to do that part where it would normally only take a few days for others but it doesn’t bother us 😊

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 12:12PM

Yes we may add eddi diverters at a future date but we have run out of money now, pretty much used my life savings on this.

same for batteries, can’t really afford them right now but it would be nice to have them some day😊👍

DC999 · 09-10-2022 12:28PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720754#Comment_119720754

Any divertor (eddi, battery...) can wait for now - they are all 'nice to have' for you. If you have a Zappi to charge the car from Solar that's a huge battery to soak the excess. Again, that's a nice to have as can charge on a cheap night rate.

Get the panels live (or even some of them) and then you're making power.

Gerry · 09-10-2022 12:43PM

this is a great job @welshchris77 and you should be very proud of it. Inspirational stuff.

slave1 · 09-10-2022 12:47PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720533#Comment_119720533

10sq is plenty, you will easily get 11kW+ no problem, I installed my second 6kW inverter mid August and was getting 11kW and I have much poorer aspect than you. Full S and split E/W is absolute perfection in terms of setup.

slave1 · 09-10-2022 12:49PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720443#Comment_119720443

I thought I was doing a nice order of 16 455w panels earlier in the Summer, boss man said they were loading up a 40ft with 500 of the panels with 500 optimisers for a factory roof install, talk about easy money

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 12:55PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720816#Comment_119720816

Yes can add that latter😉👍

We actually all clubbed together a few months ago to get an old 2015 G1 leaf, I sold my parents old 01 Corolla to put towards it, we kept our own old Corolla for long journey’s (which are very few). The range on the leaf is not great but fine for local trips to the nearest town.

We ran a cable and outdoor socket to charge the leaf using its granny charger so that will soak up some of the power yes, it only has a 3.3kw charger so the granny suits it for now, in the future if we are in a position to upgrade the ev (with a better charging circuit) I would look into getting a zappi 😁👍

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 12:58PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720867#Comment_119720867

Thank you so much Gerry😊👍

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 01:12PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720880#Comment_119720880

Fantastic!, I am excited to get things up and running, can’t wait to start using the Electric we are producing, even if it just the South facing array for now until we get more hooks and a power manager.😊

Can I ask, are you on single phase also, and if so did you need to use a power manager for the inverters?

graememk · 09-10-2022 01:38PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119720969#Comment_119720969

The inverters can regulate themselves, if you can get a CT for them. Just set an export limit on it.

graememk · 09-10-2022 01:51PM

https://www.itstechnologies.shop/products/current-transformer-for-solis-4g-range-100a-10m

this should do it.

welshchris77 · 09-10-2022 02:03PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119721049#Comment_119721049

Thanks, yes will be adding a CT clamp to the tails from my meter, I think the issue is though when two inverters are both running on the same circuit there can be conflicts with them communication wise or similar or they just won’t work properly.

The plan is to connect both inverters to the data manager, one data logging stick is then connected to the manager for monitoring and also a CT clamp from the manager back to the tails between the electric meter and consumer unit at the cottage😁

DIY PV install

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