Newbie into solar & saving energy

[Solarexploits]

Hi All,

 

I'm Russ, always been an ardent DIY'er, qualified engineer by trade, now largely retired.

 

I've undertaken many home extension & refurbishment projects, I still run a residential rental & sales business. Currently helping out with daughter's dormer extension/rooms in the roof, Boy how building regs/architect requirements have changed!!! There's enough steel in the top of their roof now that you build a supertanker from it!

 

Main reason I've joined is to pick brains & share info about all things solar. I have a 4kW grid tied array which was installed right back in 2010/11 when FIT prices were crazy high. It's long ago paid for itself & now makes/saves me around £2k a year. Obviously I can't extend it as it's already the max for grid tie system & certainly don't want to lose the FIT I'm on.

 

Recently installed a Solic immersion heater controller which is using the surplus kW that used to go back to the grid to give us free hot water for most of the year - it's fairly obvious where ALL energy prices, not just gas, are going in the next few years

 

Current project I've bought 10 second hand 310W solar panels & 4 x 170Ah 12V solar lead acid batteries & am playing with various installation ideas to take some of the circuits off grid (which will give us further kW for free hot water when solar output is low) using a 3kW cheapy inverter & possibly use some direct 24V heating to give some general background heat

 

I'll be posting up some info on what I'm doing in the PV section & no doubt asking some stupid & annoying Q's - please be gentle with me! 

[jack]

Welcome @Solarexploits

 

Looking forward to seeing your posts.

[SteamyTea]

Welcome

 

There are quite a few threads on here about solar and batteries.

If the search facility is not showing decent results, use Google to do a site search and it generally gives more targeted results.

[JohnMo]

I've toyed with idea of PV directly connected to immersion.  Can be done quite cheaply, then it's completely off grid.  Certainly would then start to displace electric or gas heating used in the winter.  The other alternative is MyPV, MPPT DC immersion.

 

There's also an American guy on YouTube doing lots of solar stuff he has a link to a spreadsheet where you input your panel configuration and it tells which AC Voltage Wattage immersion to use to get best performance in DC.

[Solarexploits]

I already have free heating on the immersion for around 8-9 months of the year as I have a 4kW grid tied array put in back at the start of the solar tariffs, so long since paid for itself & now earns me a couple of grand a year! 

The Solic takes any power you're not using from the array which would normally go back to the grid & reroutes it to an immersion heater in the hot tank, saves probably around 6kWh in gas per day, even in the depths of winter it still gets a few hundred watts into the tank & should get more as I take more circuits off grid using the new panels & batteries

[Solarexploits]

Just put a post up in the Solar PV section "Solar PV & battery installation on the cheap!" shold anyone be intereted in what I'm up to!