Solar panels.

[dickm]

Fascinating thread folks. Thanks for all the detailed inputs. Are there any recommended sites where I can look at info on sun levels for each area? I’m Aberdeen based so I think this is a non starter as our days are so short in winter. But with the new price cap I’m investigating all avenues.

FWIW, I have had solar PV since 2011. Very expensive to install then compared to now, and newer panels are probably more efficient, but we do get a good FIT rate from being in so early. Up to a point, our longer summer days up here in Scotland's "cold shoulder" go some way to make up for the lower gains in winter. The system has now paid for itself, so inputs from now on are positive.
Daughter and husband in next village have both PV and solar thermal, with some quite sophisticated control circuitry to dump any currently unused current either into a phase change heat store, or now, into their Renault Zoe. Means local use of the car is pretty good economics. NOT so good when working on Islay, and all the charging points are dead!

 

[clogs]

I can remember now, a guy in Washington State, near Alaska was totally off grid.....
he lived there all year round.....
his was a new build with crazy amounts of insulation...
but excess elec went into heating about 5,000 gallons of water...this was held in a conc insulated tank.....
he said that there was just enough hot water left until spring..for heating......
on really bad days he had a "D" genny as a stand buy......

now a chap the other end of this island (lost touch over the years) also had a genny for those days where the batt's didnt get enough.....this was so the washing machine could be used.....
Nobody has mentioned Propane gas yet......our cost has gone up by 4 euro's per 12kg bottle..
I'm expecting pay back with our useage within 10 years but frankly I dont care....
I want to be rid of this gun to ur head way of charging for electric.....
not everyone can burn wood, but we do.....this will supply heating and domestic hot water for us.....but I dont mind wearing a fleece in the house....
I hope this thread keeps going.....
thanks for all the imput....
Sideways......looking forward to ur link......

 

[Mal-110]

Phil
Just had 12 400w panels fitted to our almost south facing roof with a 30 deg pitch. Total 4.8 kw with a 5 kw inverter and 10kw battery. Most days so far we send electricity to the grid but it’s only been a month. Winter will be much different.
I would like to point out that most of the systems fitted are not “off grid” they are grid tied. Some Tesla systems do have that facility. Going off grid is expensive and the Smart Export Guarantee is then hard to come by. We have gone for Scottish power for our SEG at 5.5p per kilowatt. Miserly considering they charge around 28p per KW. Octopus is better but we don’t want a variable tariff.
We considered a diverter for water heating ,they use excess solar to heat water using an electric immersion heater, which we already had. On examining them closely they have a timer which you set for when you want them to use solar. As we have a battery all our excess fills it first and then we just have a immersion timer which we set for 40 mins during the day. The immersion thermostat turns it off when water temperature achieved.
It’s clear now that the electricity companies don’t want to pay the SEG as we are still waiting for our agreement which apparently takes 30 days during which our excess goes to ........
Hope this is of some help

 

[Mal-110]

Just to add, the best advice we were given was to check our base load of electricity. This is around 180 watts. We then also checked our daily usage which was around 13 kw . From these figures you can work out the size of your array and battery storage. We also just fitted a £39 timer to turn on the immersion heater during the sunny parts of the day, it does not need to be accurate as the battery compensates when a cloud goes over.
SunCalc.net. Is good tool to check out the aspect of your chosen site for the panels.

 

[Droogs]

@Fitzroy Aberdeen is actually the sunniest city in Scotland with the most direct sun hours and Aberdeenshire is the 3rd hisghest region

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Talking to our local plumber who has done a lot of work on 'eco refits' many of his customers report the best return is on solar water heating, if that's an option and you don't use much electric otherwise it could be worth considering

It could well be the way to go.

 

[Inspector]

clogs. It is around 1500K from the Washington border to the tip of the Alaskan Panhandle and a bunch more until you get to the bigger chunk of the state. Saying they are near one another is like you saying you live beside Poland.

When I moved here 7 years ago one of the neighbours had a large solar array (maybe 12' x 40') on the ground along his northern property line. A couple years ago he installed another similar sized array. I don't know anymore than that about it so can't say if he is storing excess power or selling it back to the grid. The neighbour next door to him had a wind generator until a few years ago when the blades came off in a storm. He hasn't fixed it so it must not have been worthwhile.

What has put me off solar, apart from the price, is that it is rumoured that the power company will not pay for any excess power they get from you beyond what you have drawn over the year. They keep it for themselves. That doesn't motivate me much to put any arrays on the acres of land I have as it increases the length of time before it pays itself back. I'll have to talk to the guy with the 2 solar arrays to see what the real deal is.

Pete

 

[sploo]

...The neighbour next door to him had a wind generator until a few years ago when the blades came off in a storm. He hasn't fixed it so it must not have been worthwhile.

I really quite like wind turbines and would love to put one in our garden, but every time I've seen feedback on people using domestic sized units it's ultimately just not been worth it. I expect it's due to the wind power being proportional to the cube of the wind speed (twice the speed => 8 times the power), and the effective area of the turbine being the square of its diameter (twice the diameter => 4 times the power)... basically meaning that a large diameter turbine with a tall base (getting it up to an altitude with faster wind speeds) will generate massively more power than a small domestic unit.

I did see an interesting video some while back with a squirrel cage fan type system that fits onto the apex of a roof; the idea I believe being that wind running over the surface of the roof (Coandă effect maybe?) energises the long line of fans arranged like a barrel along the roof. Visually it looked OK (pretty unobtrusive) but I don't know how effective it is.

 

[redefined_cycles]

I've been thinking about this too. At least for the new brick shed I'm accumulating salvage parts for at present. But from eatimates estimates online it seemed that it's not actually as cost effective for the lifetime of the install. Hence I thiught I'd leave it well alone.

Interested in learning more so thanks for opening such a wonderful and useful thread. Hope the OP doesn't mind others chipping in and asking questions from those who've had it done. Will read the thread later in full...

 

[dickm]

I did see an interesting video some while back with a squirrel cage fan type system that fits onto the apex of a roof; the idea I believe being that wind running over the surface of the roof (Coandă effect maybe?) energises the long line of fans arranged like a barrel along the roof. Visually it looked OK (pretty unobtrusive) but I don't know how effective it is.

An ex colleague I think took out some patents on this sort of thing, but the last time I saw him, he didn't suggest it had been a howling success. We've wondered about a small domestic wind turbine, but as our garden lies between our neighbour's TV aerial and the distant transmitter, suspect we'd not be popular! When we moved up here in 2007, there were about 10 turbines in a 5 mile radius from us. Last count was well into the thirties, and we have a big offshore array just north of the Granite City. Despite objections from one D. Trump, who said it spoiled the view from his golf course.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Hope the OP doesn't mind others chipping in and asking questions from those who've had it done ...

The whole point is to get as many opinions, experiences, links and sources as possible. None of us want to go headlong into something only to regret it the following week.

 

[mikej460]

An ex colleague I think took out some patents on this sort of thing, but the last time I saw him, he didn't suggest it had been a howling success. We've wondered about a small domestic wind turbine, but as our garden lies between our neighbour's TV aerial and the distant transmitter, suspect we'd not be popular! When we moved up here in 2007, there were about 10 turbines in a 5 mile radius from us. Last count was well into the thirties, and we have a big offshore array just north of the Granite City. Despite objections from one D. Trump, who said it spoiled the view from his golf course.

The problem with urban wind turbines, especially roof mounted ones is that they don't work in squally wind. There have been many designs over the years that claim to work on roof tops and all have failed. This, as I understand it, is due to the yaw effect and constant need to change direction. The only turbines that successfully generate electricity are larger units, sited in line with direct and fairly constant wind flow. Small, domestic wind turbines have never been successful, even those on a long pole in the corner of a garden. I would rather plumb for solar PV and a top quality solar thermal system with a heat dump feature.

 

[Flynnwood]

The whole point is to get as many opinions, experiences, links and sources as possible. None of us want to go headlong into something only to regret it the following week.

Indeed, or regret it over the next five or more years.

Thanks to all for the inputs on this thread. Much appreciated.

 

[Sideways]

As promised, I've started another thread to describe my own solar installation for anyone interested.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/one-familys-solar-story.138482/
I've reserved some of the early spaces so that I can fill out the story and share some photos and numbers, but questions are welcome and I'll try to answer them as I write.

 

[Owd Jockey]

One of the best financial investments I have ever made! Installed 20 panels (5Kw) on a bungalow with 20 deg pitch and south-facing. I wanted 6Kw but Western Power (the energy generator) only allowed 5Kw, something to do with local infrastructure capacity. Back in 2013 I took retirement (with max lump sum) and voluntary redundancy money - so a quite a few bob in my pocket! Install cost £9,500. On average get about £800 pa back in FiT, free electricity during the day and I have the 'old' style electricity meter (say no more!). The panels efficiency are projected to decrease by 1% pa over the 20 year lifespan of the system, but in reality, the generation levels have remained constant, maybe down to our good summers. My only failure in 8 years has been the Generation Meter, which I replaced myself at a cost of £30. The pittance paid by even long-term fixed rate ISA's would not have equalled what I get in a single year from my Fit payments. At the moment my monthly energy payments for gas & Electricity is £41 per month, however, that will change (big time) next February when my current tariff ends.
The one thing I have heard most from people is why there is no legislation (or is there?) that all new builds have to have solar panels installed.

 

[Suffolk Brian]

I find this thread really interesting. My wife and I have just returned from a visit to friends in the East Riding, and they have just had a fairly big solar system installed. 15 panels which to me in my ignorance seemed odd. They are fitted on two elevations, 12 to catch the early sun, 3 late afternoon/evening. Panels exposed to the sun all the time. The batteries were installed while we were there, and a quick look over it made me realise every material part of the system was Chinese. Yes, the price of electricity will always head north - he was told that electricity increases typically 7% per year - but the fit rate makes me wonder who will benefit from this £15k installation. Not them, probably their kids. My wife has been telling me to look into getting a solar system, but we have available roof issues and a big copse on the west side of the house. Money well spent or not. We are also on economy seven tariff so apparently we would have to come down to a single rate meter…. Always more questions than answers. Is there a minimum size where the low number of panels makes the system unworkable?

 

[HamsterJam]

We recently moved to a house with oil fired hot water/ central heating and 3.9kW solar PV array. We also have iBoost which diverts unused solar power to the immersion heater.
In the month since we moved in, we haven't used the heating and topped up the hot water with the boiler on two days. The rest has been free.
Not expecting this to be the case in winter but the iBoost means we are consuming hardly any oil at present.
Our electricity useage has been pretty low too with the solar offsetting much of our consumption.

 

[clogs]

inspecter,
everything is big and far away in the US and Canada.....hahaha...
My point was that with the weather is the same or worse than the UK....
it's possible to help heat ur home in winter without great expence....LONG TERM.....
obviously if u live in a terrace/row house u dont have the room.....
but quite a lot on here seem to live outside the city.....
so a large insulated tank heated by the sun is poss........
if we leave our garden hose out on the ground the water will almost boil...!!!
so if u can convert that energy into a large amount of water it will help heat ur home....
AS for PV units.....I think looking at 10 years payback is short term....u gotta look at 20-30years ahead....ur grand kids will thank u for it....
besides all these wonderful inventions of almost free electicity will never happen as the greedy "B's" at the top wont let it happen.....
the best we can hope for is better /more efficient batteries and panels as time gores by and be THANKFULL for any help on cutting our bills......
IT's been said recently that unit cost of electricity is 1/2 the cost the UK citizens pay in Frogland.....why is that.....nothing is ever cheap there unless u include wine....
mind they are a Republic, think mini Russia at times....but they have more NUC.....
it's the greed at the top that is the problem.....
so if 50% of the population went solar and cut off the gas, things may change for those that cant.....
I for one would be happy just to break even and not rely on others for a power supply...
then I'm the sort that was always happy to live in the bush and be self sustainable.....

Then I'm lucky...retired, with no screaming tecno greedy kids to worry about.....
for example, when our water meter was read (in France) the guy suspiciously remarked how little water we had used this last period (every 2 months) after explaining our 2 girls had left (within 2 weeks of each other) he laughed.....obviously understanding.....
the idea is to gradually improve ur home, triple glazing etc....one at time if needs be....
but for the next few years its gonna be hard to feed the family let alone improve insulation....
anyone remember the plastic covered windows, foil behind the radiators of old.....it may happen again......
pity u cant use all the hot air that the politions produce for something useful....

Hampster Jam,
glad to hear it.....we need more posatives.....

 

[Jameshow]

Would a small scale system to cover the base load not be sensible?

Say 5000w inverter

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12311067...tixoXeJTeO&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
24kwh battery

24kWh 48V 500Ah AGM deep cycle battery bank & metal racking (24 x 2V batteries) 5060297344411 | eBay

1000w solar?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/23362767...tixoXeJTeO&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
I know nothing about these things!

 

[Just4Fun]

@Fitzroy Aberdeen is actually the sunniest city in Scotland

That is a key point. It is the amount of sun that is important, not the temperature. Bear this in mind if you are concerned about winter performance. Our solar thermal system is most productive in February & March. It may be -30C but skies are totally clear and we get lots of heat when we need it most. That may not be the case if your winters are typically overcast.