Dillsue

Its a G98 notification that you should be using as G83 was superseded a few years ago!! The drawing they likely want is a single line diagram showing how the principle components in your house are connected. If you get an A4 sheet of gridded paper its easy enough to draw showing each component as a box with a description in the box or next to it. Show the cabling between each box as a single line. One of the principle things they want to know is the location of the PV isolators so add a note next to the isolator boxes stating where the isolators are. Google "PV single line diagram" for some examples, but keep it simple!

Google "Orbital marine". Up and running in the Orkneys. I think this is something of a test bed with the intent to install more.

Sorry to seem a big negative but if your builders solar installer is offering 268w panels, then you probably want to use a different installer, or fully understand why such a seemingly dated spec of panels is being offered.

I think the "could not manage" should be replaced with "cant be bothered". Unless youve got home generation, batteries or on a TOU tariff, for most people would see no reason to load shift.

But the need to have gas generation isnt going to go away. It will just be paid to be on standby for longer periods to cover for times the wind isnt blowing. Last BEIS forecasts I looked at showed circa 20% gas generation in 2040 and 14% in 2050. Hopefully all with working CCS by then

There could well be. Canadian solar do 450w panels at 2100mm tall so fair chance theres 2000mm panels out there at 400-450w

If youre relying on the advice of others I think you need to be cautious with gas boiler lifetime as its not uncommon for plumbers to advise on replacement prematurely. A friend had his boiler condemed with a replacement quote for £2500. With the cover off in 2 mins it was quite obvious the fan impeller had failed. It was £80 for a replacement OEM fan delivered the next day and 15 mins to fit. Not sure if this was revenue generating or lack of ability, but its not good. My wifes uncle had a similar instance with a leaking condensate drain.

Dont underestimate the potential complexity of ST. Youll almost certainly have an electronic solar controller that needs configuring in the same way as a PV controller/inverter does. Therell likely be at least 2 temperature sensors needing wiring back to the controller and wiring for a pump. If youve got a sealed system youll likely have a pressure releif valve, expansion vessel, auto air vent valve, non return valve, mains top up valve. Installation is more involved running insulated(special hi temp insulation) pipes from the roof through the house versus PV cable. Insulated roof penetrations are more involved than those for a couple of PV cables . You need to find space within the heated envelope for all the bits mentioned above whereas a PV inverter can go more or less anywhere. If youre strapped for roof space then evac tube ST may give more kwh than PV for the same area, but if youve got the space then PV is a more flexible option

Unless youre in a conservation area or listed building, Im fairly sure pitched roof mounted panels are permitted development

Weve got a 30 evac tube array that pre dates our PV. I beleive that evac tubes give a higher output per m2 compared to PV but obviously PV is more flexible. In terms of reliabilty, ours was installed in 2006 and not had any problems. Changed the heat transfer fluid after 10 years and have topped the pressure up twice from the mains water. If you want in roof panels and flat plate collectors its probably worth doing some research on the performance versus similar area of PV. If you want to see how systems can be connected up, google Resol Deltasol and have a look in the controller manual as theres lots of schematics of differing systems.

Appreciate charging a single battery wont make any difference but if that principle was adopted by lots of battery owners then a gas turbine will ramp up to serve the additional load.

So 100% south facing to cram as much in the battery as you can

Plenty of sagging roofs around so very naive of the mounting system designer not to have included a means of fitting straight rails, if thats the case. Lining up the rails takes time so maybe they rushed things and left out packers or slotted angle brackets?? If your roof was sagging, and that was the cause, youd be able to see the panels/rails running parallel to the roof but in one of the pictures the roof looks to be straight??

Arent the roof hook to rail connections adjustable? This may allow someone to reach in from the side and raise the rail where it dips?? Certainly Renusol rails are straight when they dont have a load so its pretty hard to install them bowed unless its at the joint of 2 sections. Im not one for creating unnecessary work so if it can be lifted from a ladder crack on, otherwise get the installer back as it should be straight to the casual glance.

If youre looking to size a battery then the battery will give you a more useable spread of energy and I would guess youd want your array to generate the max it can by being south facing. As I understand things you only want to split the array to give a longer spread of energy if you dont have a battery or if youve oversized your array.

Picture quality isnt so good on the photos linked to, but is there a transformer at the top of the PCB above the fuse??

Its difficult to see for sure from the picture of the inside but it looks like the boost button is just a PCB mounted pushbutton?? If you can solder you could connect a couple of wires either side of the button, run them to the outside of the enclosure and connect them up to a timer with a volt free contact. Check the voltage on the switch so you know the wiring standards required!

Thats the scheme that everyone started on with a deemed export of 50% of what you generated. Once SEG became an option then you could have metered export if you wanted to give up the 50% deemed option

Use the immersion timer to energise a changeover relay/contactor. Common connected to the immersion stat, NC connected to the Solis and NO connected to L. Solis is normally connected to the immersion and when the timer is active the changeover relay/contactor disconnects the Solis and puts a live feed on the immersion stat.

What Dave Jones and myself are trying to explain is how the FIT payments are made up so you can understand which parts you may loose if you do things wrong. If you look up the revised OFGEM guidance youll be able to see how batteries can be added within the rules

Panel cables are just loose on the MCS installed system we have and on the diy systems weve put in this year. Its possible to do a bit of tidying and cable tying as each panel goes in BUT..... If you want to remove a panel in the centre of a row for repair/replacement and youve tie wrapped all the slack into loops, its gonna be a twat of a job to lift anything but the perimeter panels

That sounds like a whopping export rate but are you sure thats not a combined generation and export rate?? We're on a 2015 FIT scheme and that pays one payment based on generated units from a generation meter and second deemed/assumed export payment based on half the generated units. For the deemed export payment it doesnt matter if we actually export it or use it ourselves, we still get paid it. Have look back through the last few months posts as there was a discussion over some rule changes OFGEM had made that now allowed batteries to be added to an existing system without affecting payments. Maybe search for OFGEM

Before you spend time writing, you might want to explore net metering. If its as I think it could be you should be able to drastically reduce your bills by offsetting any export against import. Search for "net metering" on the forum. Also try asking your electrician to see what he knows and if your export and import are on different phases.

Not sure how the Tigo optimisers work but if you were using solaredge optimisers you dont need to worry about MPPT input voltage as its regulated by the optimisers. All thats required on an SE system is for a minimum number of panels/optimisers to be in daylight, from memory its 8, and thats enough to get the inverter operating. Only time you need to consider panel V/I specs is when matching panels to optimisers. If the Tigo versions work in the same way you probably just need to check minimum system specs to make sure that 6 optimisers is enough to get things working

Did you have another thread about the install of this system?? I thought that some/all 3 phase meters did net metering so if you export on one phase and import on another, the units exported would offset those imported. Net result is youd only pay for any units imported that were more than those exported.