SteamyTea

Yes, maybe I should have been clearer. It is the total instal costs, not just the batteries. I would be very wary of a claimed 8000 cycles. After the halfway point, how much energy can you get out as a fraction of the energy in. Generally as batteries age, they get warmer on both the charge and discharge cycles. it is something I would like to see some decent data on.

For how long?

I used to have one on an old dryer. While it worked well, I did find that the extra drying time was a bit annoying, though I am told they are better now. When I moved down here full time, 20 years ago, I bought a washing line. Cost £2 with pegs (from Poundland). Best bargain ever.

In reality, they need to be able to deliver at around 10p/kWh, then they can compete with natural gas. Assuming a battery can do a 20% to 80% charge/discharge 3000 times, then: 1 kWh become 0.6 kWh If the price is £500/kWh that becomes £500/0.6 kWh or £830/kWh. 830 [£] / 3000 [cycles] = £0.28/kWh. So realistically you need to install at <£166/kWh. Now if natural gas is not available, then the price difference is not so bad, but then it does rely on not paying to import energy, so at best they need to be £250/kWh. I am not sure how close were are to that at the moment. According to this: https://heatable.co.uk/solar/advice/battery-storage-costs The price in 2024 is between £265 and £415/kWh.

Been trying to do that for my place. I agree that fitting the maximum amount of panels is the best option because of their cheapness is best. Storing thermal energy is also cheap, even a storage heater in a room will help. Water is best. The only problem with 'tariff switching' is that it is not a long term solution, so hard to make investment decisions around it. This is part of the reason that the FiT was introduced, it took the risk out of the equation. And who foresaw the price rises and volutilty we have had over the last few years. The cheapest energy is the kWh you don't need, working to reduce that is generally the biggest saving.

My shower pump works similar. Only works safely/reliably with gravity/vented systems though. Not read the rest of this topic I detail, but I assume you have an invented cylinder. If so, is your hot water flow adequate for your needs and is it possible there is a dynamic flow/pressure imbalance between the hot and cold e.g. PRV on the hot set lower than the cold.

So it is a case of choosing the right materials, treating them and fitting correctly. What a surprise.

Here are the monthly charts, based on my location, which is a bit better than most people.

It is 16 Amps per phase. Local voltage may vary so: P = A x V Taking the extreme allowed voltages of 230 V + 10% and 230 V - 6% you get Pmax = 253 x 16 = 4.048 kW Pmin = 201.2 x 16 = 3.4592 kW

Generally they will. The UK has irradiation of ~950 kWh.m-2.y-1. More down south and east (better sun altitude and less cloud) and less up north and west (less than optimal angles and more cloudy). So for every kWp of PV installed, expect around 1 MWh.y-1 of energy. This does depend on the system efficiency, installation angles, shading etc.

Right, here is a better chart of what really happens. It shows the mean power, based on 18 years of hourly data, plotted for a whole year (I shall do some monthly charts once I have finished my supper). It also shows the minimum power, if that power is greater than 0 watts, and maximum power. The Standard Deviation, in watts, is the middle 68% of the mean power. This allows you to accurately estimate the usable power. You will quickly notice that there is a huge difference between maximum power and mean power.

Right, apart from my normal nag about units, don't use mean averages. The important point to keep in mind is that PV is variable. It can swing between 10% and 100% maximum rated output in a few seconds. What this implies, in practice, is that you cannot use the output to run household appliances in real time. This is why storage is used. The cheapest type of storage is thermal. The most useful form being hot water. This is just a case using a standard cylinder, with an immersion heater in it, but controlled by a PV diverter. All the diverter does is sense when there is excess PV, which would be exported to the grid, and diverts that to the immersion heater. This is usually done at the 1 Wh level (usually one flash from the LED on your meter), though some diverters use a minimum current e.g. 5 amps as the switch (usually older systems). Diverting to resistance heating can be done in a similar fashion. Battery can be charged in a similar fashion, but they are more expensive to install. The economic case is probably not realistic when looked at in isolation, but may be positive when variable import tariffs are taken into account. As you have some usage data, and PVGIS can show you hourly expectations from a PV array in any orientation, you may want to spend a few hours doing some modelling and work out the cheapest system that gives you the most useful saving, this may involve you looking at your usage patterns and seeing if they can be changed e.g. your 8AM peak (is that electric showers, storing PV charged DHW can reduce that). Batteries can also reduce that, just a case of working out where the biggest savings, over a year, are to be made. One of the problems with PV installation is historical. When the FiT system started, the emphasis was in maximum yield per year, as this maximised payments, things are very different now. You may find that an optimally angled system i.e. south facing 35° pitch produced more than you can use for the 4 summer months, and almost nothing in the 4 winter months. It really is a case of modelling it and not totally relying on storage, which may have to be topped up from the grid. Start by visiting PVGIS and getting some data, I always use a 1kWp system as a default then scale up once I have found the most useful orientation.

Keeping an eye on my readings showed that my consumption had risen significantly, was the fridge packing up. New fridge (cheap ones seem to last a decade) and back down to around 4 kWh/day from 8 or 9 kWh/day.

Belt sander, planer, or both. Paint, stain, oil, burn, just about anything will take. If I remember, I can take some pictures next week if our tables and a large counter we have at work.

Wildanet are a local company with a good reputation. https://wildanet.com/about-wildanet Not sure how much they are involved in new connections.

Scaffold planks, if glued on the joint, can look quite good. They are quite cheap to buy.

Moisture will get though anything, don't worry about it.

When we used to fit PV back in 2012, we had to install on dozens of old slate roofs (they are pretty common down here). Nearly all got damaged and most had to be reinforced. As I was the 'engineer' for the company, I suggested to the sales team that they either said no, or doubled the price. Thankfully the company went bust, so they only ruined about 30 houses.

I suspect it is easier to deal with one company that manages a few thousand houses, than a few thousand customers that have 1 house each. The glycol saving is probably a real saving if it is changed on a regular basis, as it should be.

Had a quick skim though, seems like a reasonable idea. Not idea how it will affect overall SCoP.

Is that Scottish-Japanese company still going. Akai

Good on you. As you have vaulted ceilings, is there going to be above building reg insulation. I understand why you want pocket doors, will make you life easier. They do tend to be noisy, but I would think that there are quieter ones, just a case of putting in rubber wheels, rather than nylon ones.

I would think it would dry out naturally. If there was 100g of water per m2, which is quite a lot, then it will take 226 kJ/kg of energy to vaporise it. That is 0.063 kWh. So not much in the scheme of things really. (As with all things science, it is not as simple as that, but a good enough first approximation)

Hard to believe, considering he is from Pisstool.