Random Renewables Thread

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120544810#Comment_120544810

Quite a lot for a small semi D house in a Dublin suburb. Some of my pals advised me not to broadcast specifics on the interwebs. That's not who I am and what I stand for, but maybe they are right...

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120544822#Comment_120544822

With the number of houses I seen now getting roofs covered in panels I think you're safe 😉

It's good to see people installing proper PV arrays. Too often I've seen houses with 2 or 3 panels on the roof just to comply with the regs

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120541483#Comment_120541483

To be fair, I'd no battery until last Thursday, so all the excess has been going into the car

Now that I've got a 10kWh battery I'm getting a lot less into the car

But we'll see what the week ahead brings, if I can get around 5% each day that'll probably keep me ahead during the weekdays at least

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120544822#Comment_120544822

Class. Hats off!!

silver_sky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120544822#Comment_120544822

Understood and probably quite sensible. Fair play!

silver_sky

The solar gain is great and all on the panels but baking in the house, especially annoying when you work from home. I've a company coming within a week or two to install a film on the window. It'll reduce the glare, solar gain, and also provide some privacy at the front of the house. Price was just over 400 (excl VAT). The refund I'm due back from Bord Gais with the export credit and final 200 euro govt credit will cover this nicely.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120544563#Comment_120544563

Who are you kidding, you're never done 🤣

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120547053#Comment_120547053

I was thinking the same thing, he'll be off looking for another itch to scratch 😂

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120545299#Comment_120545299

I got some DIY stuff to reduce glare and it helped a good bit. The professional stuff should be a lot better

I do find that there's a lot of solar gain in the south facing rooms, I was pretty miserable when the office was there. North facing rooms are better for heat and glare

I wonder if the panels will cook down the house a bit, they must reflect a good percentage of the sunlight hitting the roof 🤔

silver_sky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120547645#Comment_120547645

I've heard that before. They'll probably cool it somewhat. I've got the SW face fully covered.

You can see my slab of glass on the right compared to what came with it (and neighbour still has) on the left.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120547613#Comment_120547613

There's very little else I can do that is decent value for money 😂

If I can get my hands on more cheap batteries, I might. But the next step is to get a couple of mini splits / cheap air to air heat pump system installed before my gas boiler is end of life. I have no intention to ever replace it with another gas boiler

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120548814#Comment_120548814

Be the guninea pig for the the sunamp batteries and let us know how it goes, you'd be mad not to go for it with 60kwh batteries that can feed it.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549377#Comment_120549377

Not sure that's a wise investment. A €20 old skool storage heater (basically saved from going into a skip) connected to one or more eddis seems like a far more financially clever solution. My mate has that done - there is nobody in the house during the day until the kids come home from school and at that stage even in winter often his storage heater is full and starting to release heat. Connected to the second output of his eddi. Working so well that he bought another eddi (still to be hooked up).

You can of course also load these up from cheap night rate and use instead of fossil fuel central heating during the day. Extremely cheap battery system and cheaper to heat your house with 8c night rate than 15c gas (my current costs) so if that's still the case, I'll likely install one too next winter in our biggest and most used room of the house

Mr Q

For anyone with an old spinning meter have you had a reading done that was lower than the previous one?

If this was for example on an install that never sent in a NC6 what would happen?

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120549506#Comment_120549506

It might be if you get the one that can do DHW and also feed the rads. Makes the eddi pointless sure but it can be filled with cheap night power in winter too.

But I agree, not a cheap cost upfront but if specced correctly can be used instead of a HP which would cost a lot more anyway.

And the 8c night will be a thing of the past come renewal time 😥

silver_sky

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550314#Comment_120550314

Those with that 8c should try get as much out of it as they can before renewal. It's bleak out there now... 😔

Happened to wake in the middle of the night to find a power cut. Flipped over to backup power and went back to bed. 😀 everything worked better than expected 😏

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550314#Comment_120550314

Maybe that's the next DIY project, go from DIY battery to heat storage

Could do something similar to @graememk did but with solid medium instead?

Something like a bunch of clay bricks with a couple of UFH mats sandwiched in between them, electric heater around the edge and all in an insulated box

Eddi (or whatever) runs electric heaters with excess solar, then the heating system zones in the UFH pipes to preheat the water before it hits the boiler

In theory it would either remove the need for the boiler to run, or reduce the load somewhat

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550314#Comment_120550314

I'm not interested in an air to water system that can heat DHW and radiators. That's all a bit 20th century to me, costs 5 figure sum up front for which I have no appetite either. And after all that expense, it can't even cool the house in summer.

Air to air is not as efficient, but it costs a fraction. I doubt an air to water would ever pay for itself even. Their lifespan isn't all that long. That one gets a subsidy and the other not is absurd. I will go (partly) DIY on it anyway. As usual, they can shove their subsidy up their arse - inspired by the Celtic supporters 😂

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550537#Comment_120550537

Air to water can cool as well, but I agree it doesn't make sense in a retrofit unless there's a lot of other work going on.

You'd need to replace the rads with fan assisted ones to get the benefit from cooling. Heat geeks did an experiment where they ran cool water through a normal radiator and it didn't really work, created a cool layer of air about 5cm off the ground and that was it

paulbok

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2023/0502/1380365-energy-cloud-enterprise/

Interesting scheme to uses an Eddi type gizmo to use surplus electricity in the grid, when available, to provide free hot water to homes in fuel poverty.

SD_DRACULA

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550537#Comment_120550537

I don't see how air to air makes sense unless you put 4-5 units in different locations around the house, at the very least one per bedroom and one in the kitchen and one in the living room.

Having one unit upstairs and one unit downstairs doesn't make any sense to me unless everyone in the house is ok with leaving every room door open, a non-runner for me at least.

I am looking into it as well since the cooling bit will be needed more and more due to our obsession with burning dinos.

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120551051#Comment_120551051

We don't use heating in the bedrooms. I have two large living areas downstairs. Both will get a mini split indoor unit. Possibly sharing the outdoor pump.

The kids bedrooms will have far infrared panels for on very cold days when they are studying. Possibly also far infrared panels in the form of mirrors in the bathrooms triggered by motion sensors. These are all very cheap

Also the two WFH spots can have a far infrared panel for direct actual radiating heat

This system will be many thousands cheaper than air to water system, even after the grant. And dare I say it, will last longer, less chance of failures and less maintenance (which can be very tricky to get as there simply aren't enough engineers in Ireland to service / fix air pump systems)

And even if my air to air systems would go down, I would still have gas fire in living room as backup and several spare far infrared panels and crypto mining rigs that can be fired up instantly. I have no intention of having the gas disconnected as I would have to pay the guts of a grand to have that done

As another backup / complement to the system, I might pick up a free or dirt cheap storage heater and connect that to the eddi

Fantana2

Disconnection fee for electric Ireland is only €73

https://www.electricireland.ie/residential/help/meters/there-is-a-reconnection-disconnection-fee-on-my-bill---what-does-this-mean

What’s the standing charge on the gas, must be close to €200, that would buy you a lot of kWh of electricity for your heating.

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120550448#Comment_120550448

A lil update on mine, in April if I got some good sun I didn't have to worry about putting on the stove to boost the heat, but the tank can easily sink 20-30kwh, or even more if there's any heat demand from the house.

Flow temp running at 46-48ish C.

Only issue is the living room, I think the rad needs cleaned out, doesn't seem to be preforming as well as it should. (And replace the window seals too 😂, that's been on the Todo list for a long time)

DC999

Good news story in terms of new ways to produce solar power. ‘SWANSEA UNIVERSITY ACADEMICS DEVELOP WORLD’S FIRST COMPLETELY ROLL-TO-ROLL PRINTABLE PEROVSKITE SOLAR CELL’ and it had a conversion factor of 10% which is fairly decent for something new.

“It unlocks the idea of manufacturing process where a solar ink is added one end and a solar cell emerges from the other. The next challenge in printed PV for us at Swansea University, is to prove to people that these work.”

Link: Swansea University academics develop world’s first completely roll-to-roll printable perovskite solar cell - Swansea University

 

I read it somewhere else but can’t find the link. They said the world can’t produce enough solar PVs to meet worldwide demand in the longer term, due to not enough of the key components available worldwide. 

slave1

The web is destroyed with the next gen battery and solar panels, I take it with a pinch of salt, all clickbait

the_amazing_raisin

Or you can go in the complete opposite direction

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2021/10/how-to-build-a-low-tech-solar-panel.html

Note: The website, in true renewables fashion, is powered by some solar panels and a battery and had been know to go offline on cloudy days 😂

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120554405#Comment_120554405

It's a university in the UK who are doing research into it. Hardly clickbait :) But I get what you mean, a lot of it is clickbait.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120555534#Comment_120555534

What I find is there's a lot of legit research being done but it gets somewhat overhyped by the media or whoever is doing the press release.

Universities unfortunately need to compete quite strongly for funding so they're not immune to trying to make their projects sound more impressive or further along than they might necessarily be

Jonathan

Going green: The price of switching your home to solar power

https://www.irishtimes.com/your-money/2023/05/05/going-green-the-price-of-switching-your-home-to-solar-power/