Greg,
Please accept my apologies if you feel I am high jacking your thread, but I am keen to learn more about the solar panel system that is fitted on our new bungalow.
Can anyone tell me more about how this system works?
I am presuming that it somehow diverts the solar generated power to an immersion heater in the hot water cylinder.
O
We have certainly got a constant supply of very hot water, but how do I know what percentage is solar fed or via the gas central heating boiler ?
I have asked the builder for more info but he seems a bit clueless.

It's all a numbers game the UK FIT deals just made it so much sweeter for the early adopters.

This site is pretty good for actual generation figures if you can find installs near your location
https://pvoutput.org/outputs.jsp

First make sure your home is energy efficient already, work out what you use per day or week avg in UNITS then use a site to see what you could be generating given your roof space. Also bear in mind not all properties are close to ideal for install of a system or will suffer from shade. Take care that you might be using all the power at night so it would not make the best use of generated power. The battery units are good but still very expensive with unknown life spans.

Best thing to do is get a local indi installer to give you a review, let them do all the work. Watch out for the ones that try to do it via Google maps.

If your the sort of person who moves house every 5-10 year then it's not for you it's a long term investment the price of electricity will only ever go up

Unnecessary quote removed

We have the older Immersun unit which has a digital readout giving daily and total units diverted.
Had a quick look at the install guide for yours and there is no way to tell how much is diverted to the water.
https://www.earthwiseproducts.co.uk/wp-con...ck-fit.pdf
Do you not have any other monitoring of the system?

@mike, have a read of this ,
http://www.yougen.co.uk/blog-entry/2725/im...pressions/ ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
.

i know this is irrelevant as i live in Australia
i was in Yorkshire in 2016 and was surprised to see solar panels at all and then such small units
i thought it wouldn't be worth it
here people, including me, believe bigger is best and go for 6.5kw i think mine is
we are limited to 5kw by the electric people
so if its a cloudy day you might still get your 5kw RR 2005 4.4 petrol
Any spelling mistakes are the fault of spellchecker
Previous MG J2, CITROEN light 15 x 2 gone unfortunately
Present MERC 180e, RANGE ROVER L322, JAGUAR XJS, MERC 280SE, MG F, JAGUAR S-Type 6v 2003, jaguar s-type 8v 2004, Ford Cougar

Thanks RSW, that’s very useful info.
Stan, et al
Mike. G reg 2.5VM Vogue Portofino red 1991- 1999
V reg 2.5td P38 Rioja red 1999- 2006
53 reg td6 Vogue Oslo blue 2006- 2015
11 reg 4.4 TdV8 Vogue SE. Baltic blue 2015- date.
https://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/topic56162...tty+affair

The immersun units work by having a sensor on the Electric Supply tails just before the fuse box, this detects the flow of electricity and shunts excess electricity to the immersion coil. My unit has a display and you can see the amount it has shunted. It also tells you the immersion heater has stopped heating due to the tank being upto heat. You can then use a second take off to move the excess electricity into something else but I have never bothered.
Typically I use around 4 to 6 KWH a day into the tank in summer depending on the use of hot water.
If you haven't got a display you could set the immersion heaters coil sensor to a higher temp than the gas boilers sensor on the tank and then allow the tank to be topped up by gas if required.
I find between april and oct I dont use any gas heating water.
If you have a shower in the morning rather than evening I suggest you ensure your tank is well insulated as you will be surprised how much heat they can lose overnight.

Rog L322 4,4 TDV8
Freelander 2 sold
Honda Transalp
Sunbeam S7 deluxe (in bits)
Sunbeam S8 (restoring)

Any good quality Solar panels should last 40+ years with just basic maintenance (cleaning occasionally), yes performance my drop by ~10% or so over that time but they are very reliable if not abused.

Inverters are the Hardest worked item and can see failures between 10 and 20 years on average. They perform best by over driven... larger kW array than the inverter... say a 7kW array driving a 5kW inverter.

Solar needs to be seen as either an ethical decision or finically but if you aren’t in your forever home or a joke you are likely to live in for for 10-15 or more years, it isn’t worth it. Although spare cash doesn’t earn much if any interest and probably won’t for many years plus energy prices are set to increase year on year so the pay back period you work out now will probably reduce by ~25%. I would guess over 95% of people that take the plunge on solar find it is worth while and those that don’t either run inefficient(ly) homes and move before the fruits of the investment are seen.

Batteries are not there yet on an investment point of view, they work for off grid situations where the cost of getting power lines to a property offset their cost otherwise you really have to WANT to be power secure in the case of power cut or be really green(?) etc.

Ended up getting a deal on 4.4kw system installed for 4270e

There's an outside chance that I'll be lucky enough to be accepted and qualify for the grant, if not payback just going to take a bit longer.

Be interesting to see if I can run the pool pump and ashp without importing too much electricity