Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2022 - No PM requests - See Mod note post #1

Wired Solar CT clamp on the Zappi is mainly just to add that data logging facility to the MyEnergi app; its an optional extra. But as Manion says; you do also need a Grid CT clamp hardwired into the inverter, and this needs to be located between the main distro board and the meter.

Go with option 3 and have everything installed in your plant room. You just have to accept that there will be some disruption; if you get the right trades person that takes pride in the job; you would be shocked at how little dammage they can get away with; a big chunk of being a good electrician is cable routing; just make sure everything is chased into walls; dont accept conduite and your partner will never know it happened once its all repaired.

If your looking for a Huawei setup (Inverter and Battery) you likley won't get anywhere near that price. See a post I did yesterday with a breakdown of the prices. The guide price is really assuming that you are getting the cheapest inverter and battery possible.

Thanks Mannion

Sorry I've obviously not been very clear in my description of my set up. The zappi is installed on the inside of my garage wall. The electricity meter cabinet is located directly across the drive on the house wall 18 metres away. The main consumer board is in a plant room situated towards the middle of the ground floor. Rather than run a 6mm2 cable from charger across drive to the meter cabinet / main consumer board, I took the supply from the garage sub board which is fed by a 6mm2 swa from the main board.

I'll talk to the solar guys about installation options but the 1st guy who looked at it said I should locate inverter and batteries in a small attic room with the immersion tank. I wasnt thinking at the time but this location is the furthest possible distance from the main consumer board located in the plant room so it would be extremely disruptive to link the inverter to the consumer board from that location. So if the garage is not convenient I have 2 options, locate inverter and batteries on the opposite side of the house attic and route cable from inverter to consumer board by taking the cable down the external wall and in through wall to reach the plant room, or locate inverter and batteries in plant room and link panels to inverter using the same route as above. As you say I'm sure regulations and / or practical technical considerations will dictate which is the best option.

On the max generation issue, I thought I understood how this works but evidently I was mistaken. I wasnt aware that an 8 or 8.4kwp solar system might exceed max generation threshold for a domestic set up. Is it possible therefore that I could be limited to a 6kwp system? That would be a pity given that I currently use in excess of 11k kw per year. Ive certainly seen a neighbour's ground based south facing system with 20 panels but maybe they are shaded a little by house. Presumably the solar suppliers could advise on max size of system for a south facing roof.

Sorry again for any confusion caused and silly questions but its great to have access to advice here prior to signing up with a supplier as I think a lot just want a signature and deposit paid and deal with the complications on installation day when theres no time to consider alternatives.

One final question, I have a fairly tall house probably more like a 2 1/2 storey and one guy suggested that I would have to pay approx €500 extra installation costs to cover the hiring of a 'cherry picker'. Is that a reasonable request?

i have a harvi with clamp lying spare at home if you are interest in buying.. didnt end up using in the end

I understand you set up now. Is their no cavities with your house to allow the routing of cables from the main consumer unit to the attic? In all instances I'd rather be running the AC cables as opposed to DC cables. I was similar to yourself with the main consumer unit in the middle of the house, and I though I was in luck with some vent cavities that ran the length of the house, but no such luck as there was a bend and they couldn't get it done. They ended up taking the AC cable from the Inverter down the exterior wall at the back of the house, in through one room, across the ceiling and into the consumer unit. A lot of this comes down to how handy you are or if you're willing to pay for things to be done neat, burying a cable is certainly doable to avoid it being seen inside but then leaves a painting and decorating bit. On the day of my installation there was a crew of 5 lads and when you have that many on site they won't be up for much chit chat on what way to route things so you'd be best served by having the prep work down in advance.

If you do bring the inverter to the main consumer unit, it will see the load presented by your EV, as such you will have the benefit of charging your car with excess energy. A big plus.

Regarding maximum. Your inverter will have a maximum rated PV Power, as you can we the 6KW Solis inverter has a Max of 8KWp. It's absolutely fine for you to over provision your Panels relative to your Inverter and it's the Inverter output that decides if you mean the requirements for connecting to the Grid. I bring this up purely because at 8.4KWp you would be fairly well over the recommended max for a Solis inverter (though obviously other brands exist). I myself have an 8.2KWp 20 panel installation but I'll never hit that peak, you probably will. You have two options 1) get 19 Panels or 2) Go for the black panels which are rated at 410Watts. You'd half the margin by which you're over.

Regarding export to the Grid you can export up to 6KWs but if you want to export more you, there is another process. A few people here have mega installations and again you have a choice when getting a second inverter of either paying the fees to connect more to the grid or installing another device on your own network which will ensure you don't export more than what you are allowed. As with everything in Ireland the minute you come off the beaten track with things, the more your take your chances.

Regarding a Cherry Picker, I believe the legislation is that anything over 2 stories cannot be accessed off a ladder. The crew that did mine had a scaffolding tower they erected as 20 panels is a min two day job.

Regarding sales, you've mentioned a couple times talking to sales people. I generally got a sinking feeling whenever I talk to sales people or silver tongued devils as I like to call them. I'd recommend avoiding any crowd with direct marketing or people calling door to door. You'll get a very one size fits all installation.

Assuming you have a standard single phase connection you are allowed to have up to 6kwh inverter; you can put 8.4kw of panels behind that inverter no problem as you will never export more than 6.

If you go with a huawei setup (or solar edge)and you have a battery anything over 6kw of solar will be directly used to charge the battery so you could be using / exporting 6kw and also charging the battery with 2.4kw.

if you don’t have a battery; anything over 6kw will simply not be used; you will see a flat line on your solar production graph at 6kw. But having 20 panels your winter production will be better.

you can’t have a separate AC connected battery with its own inverter, as this would put you over your limit of 6kw of inverter capacity; so you need to go with a hybrid inverter and a DC battery connected direct to the hybrid inverter to stay within the regs.

talking about high roofs; etc… all sales talk trying to justify the high price they are gonna quote ya. They are gonna need scaffolding or a cherry picker to do the job safely no matter how high the roof.

Very high priced, keep looking.

@HotSwap

Thanks for clarifications. I understand it better now. I will have a battery so I think I will proceed with a min of an 8kwp system and see what prices I can get. Will be interesting if different suppliers will mention additional costs for a cherry picker. The house walls are std 2 storey height. its just that the roof is taller than some other houses around me.

Got my panels installed yesterday. They managed to get all 15 (400W) panels on the roof so delighted I could get the full 6kwp system!

Any advice on the BER cert. My house is a new build and the original BER assesor who did the BER cert less than 2 years ago is looking for €375 for an updated cert to obtain the SEAI solar grant. Other assesors dont seem keen to take it on and are asking if I have: u-values or air tightness testing etc for the current house along with other relevent documentation. I dont want to end up with a worse rating.

Any advice or any good assesors members could recommend for reasonable price in the north Dublin area?

I'll take a look when I get into work for the guys contact details I recently used and pm the details

I use him in October

Unfortunately there's no requirement to retain the data on the assessors side, and one of the ways the be compliant is to simply delete the information. You previous assessor may simply no long have the needed documentation. In theory a request should work towards the original builder but they have up to 90 days to provide the information.

That's exactly what happened to me, went from an A2 to an A3 after solar due to lack of supporting documents for the heat pump. It didn't affect the grant. Another accessor won't be able to source a signed commissioning report. The entire system is fucked tbh.

Our housing stock is one of the oldest and worst in EU, same as UK. So the BER helps the State know what overall condition the housing stock is in. Which should then influence gov policy on other subsidies, policies, where help is needed…..

So yeah it’s a pain to pay for and hassle of finding someone and BER is a crude barometer per house. But.. at least it’s something that can be rolled up at a country level and then compared against other EU states

The current approach is introducing massive inaccuracies into the ratings, making them ultimately less reliable. We're probably A1 but our rating is A3 because we cannot find some paper work from 6 years ago that needs to be signed by the actual person who did the heat pump installation. Sourcing documents from the manufacturer isn't good enough. It's a nonsense.