SteamyTea

That could be used for a wind turbine, or a solar farm. Or even as a carbon sink, if you like growing trees.

That is because the land down here is pretty dire, grade 3 and below. What I do find odd, is that we grow flowers on a lot of it. Give people some gardens and they may grow their own.

I am a lot more optimistic about it all. There will be huge changes, and a lot of suffering (ranges from a few higher taxes, though less choice on lifestyle, to premature death), but we can, if we choose, and we will have no choice, to easily live on this one planet. Food production is now enough to feed 9 billion people, just got to sort out equitable distribution of it. We know how to, where to, and how much renewable generation we need, so that is just a case of doing it, not quick, but faster than most would have believed just 5 years ago. Personal transport is sorting itself out. I really don't think things are as bad as some people claim. If we 'give' each person 1000 m2 for housing and the associated infrastructure, then that would be 70,000 km2, the UK, as it stands at the moment, has 248,532 km2, so that is 28% of the land area. Just to put that into perspective, it is 17% more than we have already developed.

Kind of. They can, by taking advantage of the light distribution over a year, produce more by keeping the actual power from the modules, rather that the maximum at a certain radiation levels, say 1000 W/m², which is a rare event. It really depends on the efficiency curve if the inverter.

Or allow more rural development to distribute things better. One problem with cities is that you get urban island heat buildup, not a good thing for the residence. Same goes for all the waste and energy generation. These all have to be dealt with.

Like a car engine, they are not at their most efficient at full rated power. Some of the energy is coming out as thermal, rather than electrical, energy. During the odd times the modules produce way over the inverters rating, the maximum power is 'clipped'. Or basically thrown out as thermal energy. Shows the inverter was made by them, rather than someone else. The question from @Home Farm was if he had been supplied a Victron inverter.

Simple, in the UK we could easily release 2% of our total land area to housing. That would double what we currently have. With careful design, just half a percent could house 20 million people. The problem is political will and nothing more.

Do you have a box that says Victron on it. That is the usual giveaway. Why did they swap out a 5 kW inverter for a 6 kW one. Seems a bit odd as it is normal to undersize inverters to improve low light level performance.

What have you actually got there that you know of. So what make and model of inverter, number of modules, total capacity of modules. Can then try and work backwards to see if you got ripped off, which is, I think, what you really want to know.

Hard to calculate without some hard numbers, but I don't think payback is really the best way to look at it. I don't sit in a cold house all year so that I can go on 2 weeks holiday, or worry about the depreciation of my car so I can drive to work, to save some money, to not heat a house so I can go on holiday. You are not much older than me, and we all probably worry about our own mortality from time to time. I think it is normal, only when it starts to cloud judgments that it is a real problem, how I ended up staying in Cornwall I think (not complaining about that though).

500W modules are usually used on large solar farms. They are about 2 metres by 1.3 meters, and weigh around 35 kg.

Common practice for the industry sad to say. Been a few years since I worked in it, but the sales tactics was typical for a double glazing company, which a lot of PV companies where. They relied a lot on people's ignorance, which seems strange to me when they were, at the time, paying £12-£16k for a 4 kWp system.

That is 2 m2 larger than my 2 bedroom house.

A blower, a proper one, would be a useful bit of kit to lend out. How much does one cost second hand? Could join the MVHR kit.

Occasionally, a neighbour, about 100 metres from me, blocks the main sewer. This causes a back up to the 6th house where I am. The smell is very noticeable inside my house. So do you have had neighbours that are causing the problem. If so, report it to the water company, they fine the bend blocking culprits. Failing that, I find it is a hummus supper.

@Home Farm Does your solar array actually have a shading issue?

I seem to remember, from years ago, it is/was.

That is about double what I pay, for a house it is about 6 times bigger. Though energy use per square metre of floor area is not a very good metric.

It is well worth making your own blower if you can as when a house is tested, there is not enough time to find all the leaks. And the leaks are very obvious. No need to get hippy @joe90 with his josh sticks, but I will travel for 200 Marlboro and petrol money.

You can fit heat pumps to any building, just that because of the oversizing, the capital cost may be higher. That is always the case, regardless of heating system. Possibly, possibly not. Oil has been pretty cheap the last 12 years or so. There was a guy, who lives near me, over at the other place, that fitted a GSHP because the price of oil shot up (about 2006/7 I think). Then the price of oil plummeted and his GSHP cost him more to run than oil. As a rule of thumb, if people are on mains gas, heat pumps are not financially viable, they may be more environmentally better. But it does depend on many factors. If it was simple, we would all know what to do.

There is a bit of a myth about using ASHPs (or any heat pump) in an old thermally leaky house. The thermal load, is the thermal load, a heat pump does not care why the load is what it is. What it really comes down to is sizing correctly. With a traditional boiler, gas, oil, electric, you work out your maximum load, add a small contingency, they go and buy the nearest size to it, knowing that it can run at full power when it is demanded. A heat pump, and especially an ASHP, does not work like that. As you get closer to the maximum output, there is a greater risk of them 'icing up'. This is because more, damp air is being forced though the unit, just as it is trying to get the biggest temperature difference. Then what happens is that either/or/and, an electrical resistance element is switched on to help the unit out, the heat pump can 'steal' some of the stored water to heat up the external radiator to defrost it, it can just switch off until it defrosts. It may e a combination of all of them. This is why ASHPs have to be oversized to reduce the chance of them running at maximum output and the resistance heater coming on and reducing the chance of frosting. And that is before the heat emitters have been considered.

Or my water heating and two storage heaters.

That chart has me confused too, and judging by the replies, no one else wants to take it on. Possibly best asking the manufacturer/supplier to tell you what it is about.

Sounds like Economy 7. What are the unit prices and the meter rental charges. 2000 kWh would cost me about 180 quid.

First thing to do is get yourself a site safety certificate, they tend to be cheap to get, sometimes even free. Then just approach small companies and explain what you want to do. Once you have done a year of it, then look into proper college courses.