Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2020

MAULBROOK

Northumberland wrote: »

Hi Maulbrook, please pm me the installer details mentioned in your post of March 20th. Thanks, David.

PM sent

reni10

DrPhilG wrote: »

Pm sent

Could you please PM me also as I am in the same boat, thanks

DrPhilG

reni10 wrote: »

Could you please PM me also as I am in the same boat, thanks

Will do

Northumberland

Hi I have both about 5kW of solar panels installed, a Solis hybrid inverter and 5 Pylontech batteries, and very happy with the whole system. I also have an Electric Car - a Nissan Leaf. I am in Belturbet, Co Cavan.

Interesting that you are looking at solar panels to help charge your car. Although of course you might choose to go with one of the new smart home chargers such as Zappi, about which I dont know much, I have not seen much on this Board or online about charging of EV cars from solar panels.

You will know that the 'standard' home charger, the highest current you can get from a single phase domestic supply needs about 6kW or a little more of power. You will know that in Ireland from a system with 5kW peak of solar panels, you will typically get 1.5kW, 2.5 kW, maybe 3 or 4kW each for an hour or less on a typical day - I could give you actual figures and averages from my system. In other words, whatever 'medium speed' charger with a type 2 connector that you connect up to your car, it will be typically using 50% or 60% of power from your grid during the day to charge your car, and the sun will provide the other 40 to 50% - if you are lucky and of course depending on the weather. On the other hand, until last Summer, I had forgotten that I had a 'granny charger' supplied with my Nissan Leaf, and had never actually used it. BUT, this is ideal if what you want is to slowly charge your electric car, making max use of power available from the solar panels - I forget exactly, but it only draws 2.0 or 2.5kW - but if you only need to 'top up' your batteries from say 60% to 95% (on my Leaf) that granny charger, drawing from solar, would do that in 4 or 5 hours on many typical days in Cavan.

Just food for thought!

David

slave1

Bit misleading David, the Zappi2 will take any excess from 1.4kW and put into your EV without any power from the Grid so you can just leave plugged in and let the Zappi2 work it's magic when there's excess available...

TheBigEvil

Northumberland wrote: »

Hi I have both about 5kW of solar panels installed, a Solis hybrid inverter and 5 Pylontech batteries, and very happy with the whole system. I also have an Electric Car - a Nissan Leaf. I am in Belturbet, Co Cavan.

Interesting that you are looking at solar panels to help charge your car. Although of course you might choose to go with one of the new smart home chargers such as Zappi, about which I dont know much, I have not seen much on this Board or online about charging of EV cars from solar panels.

You will know that the 'standard' home charger, the highest current you can get from a single phase domestic supply needs about 6kW or a little more of power. You will know that in Ireland from a system with 5kW peak of solar panels, you will typically get 1.5kW, 2.5 kW, maybe 3 or 4kW each for an hour or less on a typical day - I could give you actual figures and averages from my system. In other words, whatever 'medium speed' charger with a type 2 connector that you connect up to your car, it will be typically using 50% or 60% of power from your grid during the day to charge your car, and the sun will provide the other 40 to 50% - if you are lucky and of course depending on the weather. On the other hand, until last Summer, I had forgotten that I had a 'granny charger' supplied with my Nissan Leaf, and had never actually used it. BUT, this is ideal if what you want is to slowly charge your electric car, making max use of power available from the solar panels - I forget exactly, but it only draws 2.0 or 2.5kW - but if you only need to 'top up' your batteries from say 60% to 95% (on my Leaf) that granny charger, drawing from solar, would do that in 4 or 5 hours on many typical days in Cavan.

Just food for thought!

David

Thanks for the info David, very much appreciated. Yea there is a lot of info to digest and weigh up and decide what is the best system to install for the my budget. With some of the grants ending this year, and energy prices on the rise, it could be the time to get one installed.

Regarding charging the EV from Solar, I actually had the Zappi in mind as I understand it can detect that Solar is available and use it instead of the grid. I hadn't even thought of using the granny cable and it using the solar that was being generated during the day

garo

Yes get the Zappi if you want to charge from solar. It takes out the guesswork and you can set how much import you want to do from the grid from 0% to 100%. The Zappi will lower the charge rate down to 1.44kW if that's all the excess available. It will also stop charging the car when you say put the oven on and there is no PV excess.
Two things to keep in mind:
1) The car needs to be home during the day!
2) If you get a battery as well, Zappi cannot tell whether it is drawing power from the battery or from solar PV directly. So occasionally your car will drain your PV battery if you are not careful. This can be managed via timers if your EV has them for charging.

daithihalton

TheBigEvil wrote: »

Hi completely new to this, and have been reading through the thread to try and understand what I need to be looking at, and fair play to everyone there is a hell of a lot of info on here to take in as to what system suits.

I'm going to be changing to an EV soon, and am currently looking at Home chargers, and as a result this has put the whole Solar PV stuff into my mind about being able to charge the car, at times, from solar. I'd probably be looking to a budget of between 4-6k net of grants to see what type of system I can get.

I'll look to get 3 estimates and was wondering what companies people have used, and were happy with their installations, I'm based in Drogheda and garden is SE facing. I understand if its not right to mention company names in the thread, so would appreciate a PM from people who were happy with the company they used and if you want to share. what type of system you went with that would be awesome

I’m local to you and have recently had a PV system with Zappi installed if you want to see it working let me know

Risteard81

Deagol wrote: »

Thanks for the information Paul.

Once again, RECI have figured out how they can be make some money for their members. This has nothing to do with safety and all to do with greed and self interest. Despicable organization and I'll be talking to my 'elected representatives' at my next meeting with them about the renewal next year of safe electric.

Worse, not only will this NOT make solar installs safer, it will drive people to DIY the systems. If doing it DIY is cheaper than getting it done via the grants system then people won't bother with the grant and just bypass the system?

And, why would anyone try and install solar with the risk that they will get landed with a substantial bill to 'fix' other items? If it was me I certainly wouldn't bother - not worth the hassle.

RECI were not responsible for this decision. They sought clarification from the NSAI TC2 (responsible for the Wiring Rules). TC2 stated that an inspection was required of the existing installation, and RECI were reporting this to RECs.

Risteard81

slave1 wrote: »

I agree it's a good starting place but are you sure about 20% "discount", also a private individual will need to pay 21% VAT versus an installer paying 13.5% VAT sticking to 2/3rds rule

Standard rate went back up to 23% a number of weeks ago.

Northumberland

From the other comments it does sound like getting a Zappi is the way to go, but think it was worth mentioning slow charging with the granny plug as a low cost or interim alternative. When looking at the economics and the near future, dont forget that the Government have promised that all electricity suppliers will have to pay micro-generators, including domestic solar microgenerators, for electricity exported to them from July this year - problem is that will require a smart meter to be fitted in your housr which can record exports, and ESB have ceased their smart meter roll out because of Covid and will probably not even start again until July, but perhaps by the end of 2021 (when there will not be much sun) payments for exports will start.

idc

Northumberland wrote: »

ESB have ceased their smart meter roll out because of Covid and will probably not even start again until July

Thats interesting as I had my meter switched from standard 24h meter to day/night meter during Covid even though my supplier had informed me that ESB Networks were not doing any meter changes. (originally told they'll contact you in a few days, follow up call give it a week or two and final call -- flat out no due to Level 5 no meter changes happening)



Then randomly ESB van appears a week later (still in level 5 lockdown). Most meters are outside so its not like you need to interact with the ESB person (obviously if its indoors or behind a locked gate then for interaction required).



So would hope that ESB networks will still be able to do ad hoc smart meter installs for all of us that want to be paid for our export!

How much (after grant) should one be looking at for an 18 panel array?

18 panels
Inverter
5kW Battery
Hot water diverter

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

DrPhilG

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

If you drop half of that battery you could probably get another 5 or 6 panels for the same price.

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

If you drop half of that battery you could probably get another 5 or 6 panels for the same price.

Ha, what would be the price though...

Boscoirl

[Deleted User] wrote: »

How much (after grant) should one be looking at for an 18 panel array?

18 panels
Inverter
5kW Battery
Hot water diverter

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

I am getting a similar setup for €5300 after the grant but with 14 panels. So would imagine 18panels would be less than €6k

Boscoirl

Boscoirl wrote: »

I am getting a similar setup for €5300 after the grant but with 14 panels. So would imagine 18panels would be less than €6k

PM with installer please?

Northumberland

idc wrote: »

Thats interesting as I had my meter switched from standard 24h meter to day/night meter during Covid even though my supplier had informed me that ESB Networks were not doing any meter changes. (originally told they'll contact you in a few days, follow up call give it a week or two and final call -- flat out no due to Level 5 no meter changes happening)



Then randomly ESB van appears a week later (still in level 5 lockdown). Most meters are outside so its not like you need to interact with the ESB person (obviously if its indoors or behind a locked gate then for interaction required).



So would hope that ESB networks will still be able to do ad hoc smart meter installs for all of us that want to be paid for our export!

I read on the 'energyd' Ireland website "Be ready for Export Payments With a Smart Meter"....... "Just call ESB Networsk on 01 698 5005 as ask (sic) to be prioritized for your smart meter installation. Everybody will be getting a smart meter sooner or later but customers with solar panels can request to be sent to the top of the queue" It is interesting that I could not find any similar message on ESBs own website, they obviously want to keep that a secret. Anyway, I called that number, and spoke with a very helpful person who assured me that I was already registered for a priority smart meter install, and would first get a message 3 months in advance of installation, and then 2 weeks before installation from the team that would actually do the install, and all should be done before end of the year.

The irony is that I already have a smart meter installed! - but the export function is not enabled. From the smart meter instructions, it appears that it would take an installer with the right IR Zapper about 2 minutes to activate the export function, no hardware or re-wiring needed. I called ESB over a year ago to ask them to do this, before COVID, and they said oh yes, we can get that done for you, it will just cost you Euros 350, pay that and we will have it done. Naturally I did not make the payment then,

Where are you installing the batteries, inverters etc?
Attic ?

I'm itching to get some solar going but have a few other (expensive)projects to get out of the way.
Might set up a "test rig"on the garage roof.

graememk

Northumberland wrote: »

I read on the 'energyd' Ireland website "Be ready for Export Payments With a Smart Meter"....... "Just call ESB Networsk on 01 698 5005 as ask (sic) to be prioritized for your smart meter installation. Everybody will be getting a smart meter sooner or later but customers with solar panels can request to be sent to the top of the queue" It is interesting that I could not find any similar message on ESBs own website, they obviously want to keep that a secret. Anyway, I called that number, and spoke with a very helpful person who assured me that I was already registered for a priority smart meter install, and would first get a message 3 months in advance of installation, and then 2 weeks before installation from the team that would actually do the install, and all should be done before end of the year.

The irony is that I already have a smart meter installed! - but the export function is not enabled. From the smart meter instructions, it appears that it would take an installer with the right IR Zapper about 2 minutes to activate the export function, no hardware or re-wiring needed. I called ESB over a year ago to ask them to do this, before COVID, and they said oh yes, we can get that done for you, it will just cost you Euros 350, pay that and we will have it done. Naturally I did not make the payment then,

Wouldn't have mattered anyway, the microgeneration scheme is closed for a long time, and it's July this year that there might be a feed in tariff

DrPhilG

BrownFinger wrote: »

Where are you installing the batteries, inverters etc?
Attic ?

I'm itching to get some solar going but have a few other (expensive)projects to get out of the way.
Might set up a "test rig"on the garage roof.

Mine are in the attic for now. But if/when I eventually increase my capacity, I'll probably move the lot out to the garage.

Northumberland

My installer wanted to hide everything away from me in cupboard under the stairs etc, but I resisted, and I have both the inverter (I actually installed a second smaller one myself - so 2 inverters) and the batteries and switch gear all accessible, located under the electricty meter box inside my (heated) front porch, which is quite big. I like to be 'hands on' and have spent a fair amount of time 'tweaking' the system so that it performs as well as I think it can, and there is an awful lot of learning to be done with a Solis hybrid inverter - so I am very happy to have everything accessible, rather than having to crawl under the stairs or climb in to an attic. I dont think the installation looks bad either, but am sure not everyone would agree with me there. Test rig on the garage roof? is the roof flat?

slave1

I would not like an inverter put into a cupboard, it generates heat and needs to cool down, that's why it has such a large heatsink

Northumberland

Good point, and the installation instructions for my inverters have minimum distances specified that must be left empty above and below the inverter.

gomamochi1

Deleted User wrote: »

How much (after grant) should one be looking at for an 18 panel array?

18 panels
Inverter
5kW Battery
Hot water diverter

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

panels are the cheapest part and geting cheaper. Get the grant and inspection through with the max panels you can do with grant and one battery, then plaster the roof after the SEAI are done with you.

Northumberland

Northumberland wrote: »

is the roof flat?

No pitched, tiled & south facing. house is SE/NW & long.
Would give me a chance to try out the mounting system without endangering the house .

slave1

Deleted User wrote: »

How much (after grant) should one be looking at for an 18 panel array?

18 panels
Inverter
5kW Battery
Hot water diverter

Looking at it my roof could take 36 panels but no way on earth could I afford that.

When you say 36 panels are you aware of the square meters you have available?
Some panels are small, some are not.
My 18 panels are each 2mX1m so I could get more panels if they were smaller but I went for the panel dimensions that would max my roof and keep within SEAI edge guidelines (or else they won't pay out the grant, you have to provide detailed photos of installation)

gomamochi1

garo wrote: »

Yes get the Zappi if you want to charge from solar. It takes out the guesswork and you can set how much import you want to do from the grid from 0% to 100%. The Zappi will lower the charge rate down to 1.44kW if that's all the excess available. It will also stop charging the car when you say put the oven on and there is no PV excess.
Two things to keep in mind:
1) The car needs to be home during the day!
2) If you get a battery as well, Zappi cannot tell whether it is drawing power from the battery or from solar PV directly. So occasionally your call will drain your PV battery if you are not careful. This can be managed via timers if your EV has them for charging.

I agree with the above adn frankly though Myenergie would have some work around with point no 2 as I regularly draw on the battery if at home as the Zappi cant differentiate between the solar/ battery feed. I though that the recent upgrade to zappi whcih allowed up to 3 ct clamps to be fitted was going toa ddress this issue. Frankly I am surprised its not mentioned more often on these forums etc. Tried contacting them to no avail and they could not really suggest a work around...

slave1

slave1 wrote: »

When you say 36 panels are you aware of the square meters you have available?
Some panels are small, some are not.
My 18 panels are each 2mX1m so I could get more panels if they were smaller but I went for the panel dimensions that would max my roof and keep within SEAI edge guidelines (or else they won't pay out the grant, you have to provide detailed photos of installation)

Based on a roof map an installer drew up, prob not the full 36 but over 30 if I wanted to use all Roof space. Not that I'm going the whole hog as would run foul of the grant limits I think?

slave1

Deleted User wrote: »

Based on a roof map an installer drew up, prob not the full 36 but over 30. Not that I'm going the whole hog

You'll be able to map this out yourself, measure the length of your roof with any measuring tape and then all you have to do is measure just one tile/slate on your roof, count how many rows and you have your roof dimensions.
I found it easier to take a photo of the roof and zoom in to count the rows.

These are the dimension you need to keep to for SEAI purposes

The distance between the plane of the wall or a pitched roof and the panel shall not exceed 15 cm; The distance between the plan of a flat roof and the panel shall not exceed 50 cm; The solar panels shall be a minimum of 50 cm from any edge of the wall or roof on which it is to be mounted;

slave1

Deleted User wrote: »

Based on a roof map an installer drew up, prob not the full 36 but over 30 if I wanted to use all Roof space. Not that I'm going the whole hog as would run foul of the grant limits I think?

I hope that roof is South facing or else you will get a lot of shading from your chimney

slave1

slave1 wrote: »

I hope that roof is South facing or else you will get a lot of shading from your chimney

South X South East

Northumberland

I dont know why you would not permanently mount on the garage roof and be done with it, you could always bring DC leads in to the inverter installed in the house.

DrPhilG

Northumberland wrote: »

I dont know why you would not permanently mount on the garage roof and be done with it, you could always bring DC leads in to the inverter installed in the house.

I have half and half, house and garage. DC cables between the 2.

Northumberland

I just installed a 16 panel system on my flat garage roof in Nairobi, Kenya - almost on the equator and the ideal angle is just about zero degrees, so a flat roof is perfect, slight angle to allow rain to drain. I actually bought the Solis hybrid inverter, batteries and roof mounts here in Ireland, because there really is no grid tie available in Kenya at the moment, and I installed it myself. It works just like my system in Ireland, but 'on steroids'!

garo

gomamochi1 wrote: »

I agree with the above adn frankly though Myenergie would have some work around with point no 2 as I regularly draw on the battery if at home as the Zappi cant differentiate between the solar/ battery feed. I though that the recent upgrade to zappi whcih allowed up to 3 ct clamps to be fitted was going toa ddress this issue. Frankly I am surprised its not mentioned more often on these forums etc. Tried contacting them to no avail and they could not really suggest a work around...

I don't think there is any workaround. If you have a hybrid inverter, the Zappi won't be able to differentiate between power coming from the panels and the battery. About the best you could do is a IFTTT system that turns off the Zappi when your inverter reports battery discharge. But that requires a myenergi hub and a lot of tinkering on the inverter data side.

Deagol

garo wrote: »

I don't think there is any workaround. If you have a hybrid inverter, the Zappi won't be able to differentiate between power coming from the panels and the battery. About the best you could do is a IFTTT system that turns off the Zappi when your inverter reports battery discharge. But that requires a myenergi hub and a lot of tinkering on the inverter data side.

What I've done with my Eddi (and assume you can do same on the Zappi?) is to set export threshold to 150watts and timer to 30secs. This means that slight lags in the inverter responding to draw are ignored so the Eddi doesn't turn on and draw the battery down. Because it's forced to wait until there is stable output from the panels to the grid it doesn't use the battery up. I'm not entirely sure why but I've found the lag in the Eddi itself seems to set up a feedback loop if I can call it that, that in effect means if the battery is supplying to the Eddi, the Eddi drops over the space of a minute or so the amount it's pulling from the system which in turn means the battery quickly stops being the source of the power for it. Hope that makes sense!

garo

The reason why this doesn't work for the Zappi is that it doesn't go below 1.4kW. With the Eddi it will try to reduce the power it is consuming and check if there is export now that it could consume. With the Zappi it does the same but stops when the draw gets to 1.4kW.
The Zappi allows you to set the % that it will draw from the grid. So if I set it to 50% that means as soon as it sees an export over 700W it starts charging the car and as soon as it sees an import over 700W it stops. In between that range, it will keep charging the car and drawing from the grid and the battery.

Northumberland

Northumberland wrote: »

I dont know why you would not permanently mount on the garage roof and be done with it, you could always bring DC leads in to the inverter installed in the house.

approx 17sqm of south facing roof vs 100sqm of SE ,
I have the house attic linked to the garage with pipe so my options are open.
6sq supply to the garage.

Deagol

garo wrote: »

The reason why this doesn't work for the Zappi is that it doesn't go below 1.4kW. With the Eddi it will try to reduce the power it is consuming and check if there is export now that it could consume. With the Zappi it does the same but stops when the draw gets to 1.4kW.
The Zappi allows you to set the % that it will draw from the grid. So if I set it to 50% that means as soon as it sees an export over 700W it starts charging the car and as soon as it sees an import over 700W it stops. In between that range, it will keep charging the car and drawing from the grid and the battery.

Ah, thats a nuisance. This tech is still very random the way we can't get all the units to talk to each other! If the only inverter could communicate with the Eddi / zappi / hub!

Deagol

BrownFinger wrote: »

approx 17sqm of south facing roof vs 100sqm of SE ,
I have the house attic linked to the garage with pipe so my options are open.
6sq supply to the garage.

6sq is same as I have - plenty for solar, I have 6.1kw going from the ground mount / roof mount to garage inverter and that's tied back to the main supply via the 6sq.

Tarant

Northumberland wrote: »

(I actually installed a second smaller one myself - so 2 inverters) and the batteries and switch gear all accessible, located under the electricty meter box inside my (heated) front porch,

How did you connect your second inverter? Straight into the consumer unit? Or connected with your solis hybrid inverter, charging your battery

gomamochi1

Deagol wrote: »

What I've done with my Eddi (and assume you can do same on the Zappi?) is to set export threshold to 150watts and timer to 30secs. This means that slight lags in the inverter responding to draw are ignored so the Eddi doesn't turn on and draw the battery down. Because it's forced to wait until there is stable output from the panels to the grid it doesn't use the battery up. I'm not entirely sure why but I've found the lag in the Eddi itself seems to set up a feedback loop if I can call it that, that in effect means if the battery is supplying to the Eddi, the Eddi drops over the space of a minute or so the amount it's pulling from the system which in turn means the battery quickly stops being the source of the power for it. Hope that makes sense!

Will try that with your settings as have an eddi also which may have been a bit premature of me as I
Have solar thermal also the past 5 years to good impact on our hit water production. Two panels east and west facing each. The eddi is probably a waste of space...

Northumberland

The second smaller inverter, single MPPT connected to just 3 large panels facing SW, is connected directly in to the consumer unit. I did this following clear advice from the Ginlong Solis technical expert based in Liverpool, who said that my 'main' large Solis Hybrid inverter would "see" when their was surplus current being generated by the small inverter (by way of the CT from the big inverter) and would use that to charge my batteries etc, instead of 'giving it away' to the grid. And that is the way it works, very well.

DrPhilG

Northumberland wrote: »

The second smaller inverter, single MPPT connected to just 3 large panels facing SW, is connected directly in to the consumer unit. I did this following clear advice from the Ginlong Solis technical expert based in Liverpool, who said that my 'main' large Solis Hybrid inverter would "see" when their was surplus current being generated by the small inverter (by way of the CT from the big inverter) and would use that to charge my batteries etc, instead of 'giving it away' to the grid. And that is the way it works, very well.

Good to know, I might be in a similar position at some stage with a second inverter.

slave1

Northumberland wrote: »

The second smaller inverter, single MPPT connected to just 3 large panels facing SW, is connected directly in to the consumer unit. I did this following clear advice from the Ginlong Solis technical expert based in Liverpool, who said that my 'main' large Solis Hybrid inverter would "see" when their was surplus current being generated by the small inverter (by way of the CT from the big inverter) and would use that to charge my batteries etc, instead of 'giving it away' to the grid. And that is the way it works, very well.

I was told this as well, the third string I’m thinking about will be at rear of garden and I was actually told I could connect it to a mini consumer unit I have in a shed, was told current Solis inverter would “see” generation via CT clamp at main consumer unit...

DrPhilG

Sounds perfect for me then, connecting to the fuse box in the garage.

slave1

I have to say, I don't understand the logic of it though....

DrPhilG

slave1 wrote: »

I have to say, I don't understand the logic of it though....

Welcome to my world.

If it works, I'm happy.

If I understand it, that's a bonus.

championc

Sounds like it's very much WHERE in the main board that CT clamp is connected.

The main thing here is that the Main Inverters CT Clamp must be able to "see" the power being generated by the secondary unit