Solar for Beginners [ask your questions here]

On the tank no changes required its the same as turning your existing immersion on but using power from the panels instead of from the grid.

I can't answer the EV question on how to set a preference as I don't have an EV charger but I am sure other posters here will know. I think though priority could be set if you are using a myenergi system with the eddi and zappi.

I can't give you the answer unfortunately. In my setup the PV system runs the house first and any excess goes to the storage batteries. If there is excess from that the eddi detects this via the CT clamp as it sees excess to the grid and feeds that back to the immersion.

Do you have a Zappi charger as that might change how you can divert the extra power so other posters can advise.

A friend was offered a 5kw hybrid inverter but on checking the inverter model Solis F5 is 3.6kw, so was asking me if I knew if that was how inverters are classed, as in 3.5kw can handle up to 5kw generation and 5kw can handle 7.5kw and so on? It's something I am unsure of if anyone can let me know if he's being offered a pup.

Ok, so if he is being sold a Solis F5 3.6kw it can handle 5kw, but would that be classed as a 5kw inverter price wise or is he being offered a 3.6kw at a 5kw discounted price if you know what I mean?

It's a 3.6kW inverter. If he is being sold it as a 5kW inverter, he is being cheated.

I get what your saying, so I can tell him he's being offered a 3.6 kw inverter not a 5kw so, even though I think there's only a couple hundred of a price difference when new from what I can see.

Are you sure about that, inverters have a minimum and a maximum voltage thus you can't exactly install as many panels as you want ? My 5Kw inverter with the panels I have I could attach 12 to each MPPT which would be 7.8 Kwp but beyond that i would exceed the max voltage.

Post #194 from @garo is what I needed to know. Maybe I wasn't clear with the question, thanks for the replies all.

Depends on the turbine. Most are AC, but some have a bridge rectifier in them to convert to DC, but voltages and what not are most likely different. You're best best is to isolate it onto it's own inverter. Wind turbines also need a "dump load" facility. They aren't like solar panels where the inverter will only draw down what it needs. Turbines generate energy and that energy has to "go somewhere". Normally it's a battery of course, but if the battery is full, then usually there's a resistive coil that it heats up.

What happens to the excess electricity generated in this case? Does it get exported to the grid or just vanish into thin air? :-)

The language here is confusing I know, but the answer is "nothing happen" as it's never created to begin with. This is different from say a wind turbine where the energy is created and you need to do something with that energy or "bad things" will happen with the motor/turbine. The Solar panels inverter will only grab what it needs up to it's limit, and there is no "lost" energy as the energy is only created up to the inverters capacity.

I say "no energy is lost" and that's confusing. The energy isn't created, but if you had a bigger inverter, then yes, you could argue the energy is "lost" in that regards.

Perhaps a video can explain it better than I can ?

(1817) Solar Clipping Explained - YouTube

can it divert any excess above the 3Kw to the battery as they are on the DC side or is this just wasted? 

You can think of the inverter rating as the max flow rate of a pipe. So if you have a 3kw inverter then that's the maximum amount that can flow through the inverter to <somewhere>. That somewhere can be the house, a battery, out to the grid ....the inverter doesn't care where it goes. It's a good question about the "DC side" that it doesn't have to "invert" (for lack of a better word), and it could put into the battery, but sadly it does need to do work on it. The solar panels operate at 100's of volts, and this needs to be changed down to 50v or so to charge the battery. So it's included in that 3Kw limit. I wouldn't get too bogged down on inverter sizes. Most people get a 5Kw of 6Kw inverter. It's like €150 for a 6Kw over a 5Kw. When you are paying €8-10K on an installation, this is small fry.

You sort of answered your own question there about the oversizing. In reality you rarely get 100% of your production capacity. So if you have 5Kwp in panels, even on a sunny day (due to angles of the sun hitting the panels, the temperature, etc) you might be getting 80% of the maximum generation capacity (or 4Kw generated), so if you had 6Kwp in panels and you were getting the same 80% performance, now your up to 4.8Kw. So you (typically) have more panel capacity than the inverter size.

Yes, in theory you could do that with the shed. Bear in mind that inverters usually have 2x "input sources" or strings, and the panels on a string normally need to be aligned the same way. So if you install panels on two of your main house roofs, then you won't have a spare empty input source for your shed roof. There are inverters which take 3x input sources, but they are rare.

You'd have to work with your installer a bit on the roof/panel layout, but provisionally, you want the bulk of your panels on the south roof. If you are early morning energy users, then yeah it makes sense to utilize the east roof, and vice versa, if you use more power in the evening, then the west roof. Going back to the previous point, you only have 2x input sources usually, so you'lll have to pick 2 roofs. There are way around that, but it's non-standard and I'll leave that up to yuor supplier to run through as it's complicated to explain.