Solar PV Hints, Tips & Troubleshooting

Ah ok, disregard

Jasus! I thought I heard something last night. Was that your yoke? :-) hehe

When the HTPC, soundbar & TV is on for me it's about 400-500watts, but even at 60 watts idle that thing added up. 60watts x 24hr = 1.2Kwhr/day = ~20 cent /day = €6/month. Simple scheduled task in Windows to "shutdown -s" at 2am and then have the BIOS auto-start at 6pm and.... €4 in my back burner. :-)

Depends on his usage.

A 5kW battery would get me through the night during summer months with ease.

As a separate point, going solar has really highlighted to me how much power/money I was wasting during the night with things on standby.

When I first stated out with solar I was given the option of a 3.5kw battery and 14 panels. My attitude is its better to look at it than for it, ended up with 16 panels and a 7kw battery. The battery easily gets us through the night and that's because of our personal setup.

The best thing in my view of having a good size battery is the ability to charge it on night rate during the winter and have it for discharge on the bad days.

Now 2 plus years its 20 panels with a 10.5kw battery, all I can say is Fuxk you winter and power cuts I'm ready for ya. (I hope)

The credit union Jesus im not a millionaire 😃

Hi All, we have a commercial building that we'll be moving our company to soon. Just put a new roof on it with Kingspan quad core 150mm panels for good insulation. Pitched roof has about 78 square metres East facing and 78 square metres West facing. Not sure of pitch angle. We'll be working 9am-5.30pm (upstairs only at 150sqm, downstairs will be rented out) and our EV will be at the building at times during the day, not all day. Not sure of our KWH usage as current building has Air Conditioning so I presume that skews current usage upwards. Heating in new building will be high efficiency gas combi (will be buying that soon) so no hot water storage. 12 desks + pc's etc.

I have a RECI that I trust and insured trades that could work on roof. Any advice on following please?

• presume battery is not worth it for me? our working hours are the 4-6 hrs either side of noon. EV will act as the battery with Zappi charger when I am there
• should I plaster lots of the roof in PV? we have the space and our limited company can write off the vat, the money is there. Where do I stop?
• What rough/simple steps could I show RECI + roofer for install? Or is there a good link to steps involved after we buy from wholesale like MidSummer or SolarTricity. I want to show RECI + roofer that it's not too difficult...

Thanks in advance

156sqm of roof is a good bit. You will of course need to leave some margin around the edges but let us say you can use 60sqm on either side. At current efficiency ratings you get ~200W rated power per sq.m. So a theoretical max would be 24kWp. This is likely overkill for your own needs. But I don't know! Try and figure out how much power you would be consuming on average. Then note that solar produces a lot more in May/June than in Dec/Jan. Try and put enough panels on that you can cover your needs on cloudy summer day or a sunny day in late October. You will be producing more than you can use on a sunny summer day but that's ok.

Thanks Antoin. When you mention large suppliers, do you mean the project co-ordinators on a community SEAI scheme (they cover some commercial buildings) or someone like SolarTricity or Midsummer type wholesaler? What is getting me excited is the potential with electric cars on our fleet. If we had a really sunny day and lots of panels plus Zappi charger then we could pump in a lot of juice into the EV. The car can receive 11kwh max via AC charger

No the EEOS obliges suppliers (by which I mean suppliers of electricity) to support a certain amount of initiatives every year. It’s different from SEAI funding, though it is administered (but not funded) by SEAI.

You just have to find the best way to do it if I were you I would try to find someone to manage and maybe even finance the whole thing for you. Others will disagree!

in the end it’s a financial calculation — you have to make sure that this project doesn’t cause you any trouble to set up or run but that you can be assured will give you electricity cheaper than just buying from the grid.

Cant see why not an internal meter to charge the tenants and the main meter of the building will be in your control. Darrell should be able to sort something out for you. Or

Or two inverters, split the the panels into two separate producers, One for you and one for them of one roof space. Yes more cost but they can be written off tax wise maybe.

Just a thought.

Folks, what kind of money would I be looking at to get a decent array on a 2000SQFT newbuild(Bungalow)?

• underfloor heating and A2W. I have only started exploring solar. Would ideally like to mount on rear roof only(South facing) and later on a largeish country garage.

Thanks for this!

So looking at 6K for panels only or does that/should that include all the rest of the kit? Excluding batteries I assume.

I would love one of those systems that can utilize the excess power if any. I am wondering how far 10-15K might get me. I do have the option of upping the mortgage for it - which in theory should save more electricity cost then I would pay extra in the mortgage according to some videos I was watching last night!

An expenditure of 10-15k would get you very far but spending that much may not necessarily save you money in the long run. Look at the quotes thread. A 6kWp system withut a battery should cost you 7k or so. You can add a battery to it but that bumps the cost. An 8.2kWh Givenergy battery for example costs about 3500. Look at midsummer https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/buy/giv-energy Also look at other brands. Note that an installer would get trade prices and the prices on the website are before any VAT and in GBP. If you are brave you can go for a DIY battery - or get s sparks to connect it up for you. See separate thread for that. With a DIY battery you should be able to get a 20kWh battery for 2.5k or so and that should mean effectively zero bills for four months of the year.