Domestic solar PV quotes 2018

Winterman1234 wrote: »

To update quoted €6700 for 4.2KW array, solis 3.6KW hybrid inverter (had asked for 5KW though), 2.4KW polytec battery and hotwater diverter.

Decent enough quote. Get the 5kW inverter though, it only costs about €30-€40 more than the 3.6kW one.

air wrote: »

Another option is to pick up a cheaper diverter. I got one for a buddy for <€100 from eBay (2nd hand) and he is delighted with it.
They are easily retrofitted post installation.

garo wrote: »

A cheap diverter may be the way to go.

Don't these cheap older diverters not upset the grid with square modified sine waves? I recall quentingargan posting about them here.

Arduino + IFTTT FTW?

garo wrote: »

Arduino + IFTTT FTW?

Wouldn't even need an Arduino I suspect, plenty of monitoring solutions that could be used.

Yes unkel, certainly easier and cheaper than the EV equivalent.

Go for it! You don't need to have a solar PV system to use batteries. You can get a grid attached battery inverter like the one I got, the Sofar Solar ME3000SP. I paid GBP400 for mine including shipping. Not cheap but the payback time should be very short as I can load it up every day in summer with my PV And in winter with cheap 8c night rate electricity. The inverter needs to be connected to your consumer unit (with its own RCBO) by an electrician but the rest of the setup can be done DIY. Comes with built in wifi and a phone app that shows you at anytime how much you are importing or exporting to the grid, how much your solar is producing and how much you are charging / discharging the battery. Pretty cool.

Those batteries are most likely some form of lead acid. Only have the rated capacity of lead acid is usable so get as many as you can. Mine will be 20kWh (half of that usable). So take loads of them

unkel wrote: »

I looked into doing something similar for trickle charging my car (EV) based on light sensors. All quite doable and with a higher reward than water heating, but even less practical than an immersion diverter as it would involve having to use my granny cable, not my normal dedicated and secured EVSE charger and of course having to plug the car in all the time.

Meh. I'll just force myself to be patient and wait for a FIT. And build a big fook off battery

Didn't rolion figure out a way to charge his car using the excess? I defo plan on rigging something up once I get an EV. My car will be home during the day most of the time.

garo wrote: »

Didn't rolion figure out a way to charge his car using the excess? I defo plan on rigging something up once I get an EV. My car will be home during the day most of the time.

You can buy chargers that can do that, like the Zappi. I already have a charger that was installed for free (previous scheme) and to replace it with something like the Zappi which starts at €750 + install costs would never pay for itself.

The (realistic) aim of my home attached battery is to reduce to a minimum the high rate electricity I buy from the grid all year round. I don't mind so much buying 8c electricity from the grid at night when it is at the most environmentally friendly time to use grid electricity. And to be honest, I don't really care about my PV overproduction going back to the grid for free. Call it part of my contribution to revert climate change. That plus my family car being an EV and having 40 solar thermal tubes for my hot water. Limit flights and try eat a bit less meat.

garo wrote: »

Really? I assume it would pay for itself once the E600 grant is taken into account. There was all this talk about the Eco++ mode doing this on one of the threads.

People are paying typically about €1,100 or more for a Zappi install, so still €500 after the grant (while you can get an install done for €0 after the grant)

A kWh charging your car costs 8c

So this extra €500 would need 500 / 0.08 = 6MWh sent to the car before it pays for itself. If I could charge up my EV 100% from the Zappi for 5 months of the year (pretty unrealistic), it would still take nearly 10 years to pay for itself. By which time it would be dead.

With a FIT of 5c the pay back time would be more like 25 years

And in my case, I already have an EVSE, so it makes zero financial sense to replace it with a Zappi or other intelligent charger. These things look great on paper, great idea, but maybe for people who love their ideas of being green, and don't have to worry too much about how much it is going to cost them...

I submitted my meter read today. The estimated bill is €60. The previous one was €154. Got solar about halfway through the billing period.

Absolutely. I was given a seasonal modelling chart that shows the decay thus in terms of number of kWh produced per day per kWp installed:

Aug: 3.2
Sep: 2.4
Oct: 1.4
Nov: 0.7
Dec: 0.45
Jan: 0.55

So we are talking a bit of over 2kWh per day in Jan for me.

They clearly are for an E/W setup

Imagine May producing more than July or August! The total figure seems to be a bit optimistic for E/W, 3.53MW/h for a 4kwp setup. Who gave you those figures?

I guess you can come back here on the first anniversary of your system and tell us if it did make the 3.53MWh (your system is 4kwp, right?)

I'll do the same, but I expect my 3.8kwp in sunny west Dublin (limited by my 3.6kW inverter) S/W (but mostly south) to have generated close enough to 3.6MWh, possibly even a bit more.

Here's a site with a sizing calculator. http://www.calculationsolar.com/calculate.php

Badly translated from Spanish using Google translate, but it give an idea of the efficiency of the systems (they sell)

Batfink69 wrote: »

Hi All,

Just bought a 2.7kw system; no battery or grant and hoping to self install mostly myself to keep costs down. It's a bit of a trial really as I'm fitting it on my garage roof where I do get a bit of shadow. I've paid the extra and gone for Optimisers, iBoost+ and Buddy so excess electricity can go to the Immersion heater. The 'Buddy' will tell the wife, who's at home most of the day, when we're exporting so she can go around the house turning all the lights on (oh, she does that already!).

I'll get to the point. I'm quite hands on but would like to get a look around someone else's system for various pointers and tricks so I don't look at it for the next 20 years thinking how differently I wished I'd installed it.

I'm Donegal Town based and would love to have a look at another install as locally as possible. Many thanks to all in anticipation.

Bren.

Bump...Don't mind travelling a bit to pick up some hints and tips if someone wouldn't mind me having a look around their setup?

Thanks all, Bren