I dream of genie

[SteamyTea]

12 minutes ago, Radian said:

How's the temperature of your frozen food?

-27⁰C when I last checked.

I usually do the temperatures on the cooked food.

Why we have 5 stars.

[Radian]

21 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

-27⁰C when I last checked.

I usually do the temperatures on the cooked food.

Why we have 5 stars.

 

Was just thinking about how you could do a 'solar divert' but instead of to DHW, take the freezer down a few extra degrees. Maybe hold off on the temperature a little if forecast shows impending solar in the morning as well. Anything below 15C should be fine although I think prolonged temperatures below -25 can alter the water content in certain foods too much.

[ProDave]

It's funny how we never struggle to use all the solar PV power.  Ours is only 4kWp, I can imagine it is much harder to self use with a larger array.

 

Washing machine and TD have had their share today as well as mid morning ASHP heating the DHW. then it's the immersion that's been the beneficiary plus around mid day the little convector heater in the utility room.

 

And we have spent most of the day tidying the lawn with the electric lawn rake, so nice to know that is solar powered as well.

 

Last week was the best March week we have ever had so far for PV generation, and the lowest heating, HW use and lowest electricity import.

 

[Pocster]

27 minutes ago, ProDave said:

It's funny how we never struggle to use all the solar PV power.  Ours is only 4kWp, I can imagine it is much harder to self use with a larger array.

 

Washing machine and TD have had their share today as well as mid morning ASHP heating the DHW. then it's the immersion that's been the beneficiary plus around mid day the little convector heater in the utility room.

 

And we have spent most of the day tidying the lawn with the electric lawn rake, so nice to know that is solar powered as well.

 

Last week was the best March week we have ever had so far for PV generation, and the lowest heating, HW use and lowest electricity import.

 

SWMBO has just come home . So now we are using all the solar and draining the battery 🙄🙄

[Marvin]

2 hours ago, Radian said:

 

How's the temperature of your frozen food?

Low!

[Marvin]

Slow cookers are good.

Trickle energy....

Edited March 26, 2022 by Marvin

[SteamyTea]

14 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Slow cookers are good.

Trickle energy

Trickle power.

Energy is power, multiplied by time. So they may not be as good as you think.

Edited March 26, 2022 by SteamyTea

[dpmiller]

a proper slow cooker is only using 100-150 W. How long does it take a normal lekky oven to *just* get to temperature at 2 or 3kW?

[ProDave]

2 hours ago, Radian said:

 

Was just thinking about how you could do a 'solar divert' but instead of to DHW, take the freezer down a few extra degrees. Maybe hold off on the temperature a little if forecast shows impending solar in the morning as well. Anything below 15C should be fine although I think prolonged temperatures below -25 can alter the water content in certain foods too much.

I often thought of a true "smart home" where ALL appliances were controlled by a central computer that rationed power to each on a priority basis, so for instance the washing machine would only  get power to the heater when there was some spare, so the washing cycle might take longer. and as you say freezer could cool a bit more just to use up a bit of spare if nothing else was able to use it.

 

I can't see that ever happening as a commercial project but would be a fantastic project for a retired geek with too much time on their hands.

 

I have been experimenting with the heating this last week with respect to best use of solar PV.  We don't need much heating now so I have from time to time manually turned the heating on when nothing else  was using the PV energy, and as you say that was thwarted by the room thermostats turning it off so I had to crack those up a bit.  Over heating the house via the ASHP to use up free electricity is on the same level as overheating it with free wood in the WBS.

[SteamyTea]

36 minutes ago, ProDave said:

for instance the washing machine would only  get power to the heater when there was some spare,

This has been tried by the manufacturers and they found out that for the same quality of wash, it actually takes more energy. And the soap manufacturers where not keen because some if the mixes solidify when cool.

Edited March 26, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Marvin]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Trickle power.

Energy is power, multiplied by time. So they may not be as good as you think.

Trickle energy. Yes. Just the 1 at lunch time then.....

[Marvin]

46 minutes ago, dpmiller said:

a proper slow cooker is only using 100-150 W. How long does it take a normal lekky oven to *just* get to temperature at 2 or 3kW?

Slow cooker runs during day and then ready at 6pm. Even if main oven was less energy overall, too much at 6pm to be produced by PV. 

[joth]

37 minutes ago, ProDave said:

often thought of a true "smart home" where ALL appliances were controlled by a central computer that rationed power to each on a priority basis, so for instance the washing machine would only  get power to the heater when there was some spare, so the washing cycle might take longer. and as you say freezer could cool a bit more just to use up a bit of spare if nothing else was able to use it.

 

I can't see that ever happening as a commercial project but would be a fantastic project for a retired geek with too much time on their hands

 

Loxone has some degree of support for this, but my experience was it's too course grained to be of much use. It samples spare export once a minute then turns on appliances in priority order for a fixed time (e.g. for the duration of the wash cycle)

They  are building in integration for Siemens/Neff and Miele appliances maybe that will eventually lead to finer control, bit overall I agree the demand side load shifting is a very long way off if we ever get it.

 

funnily enough we've been away this week so our 8kWp has mostly all gone to export. No amount of self use or storage can really cover this scenario.

Still made us a whopping £13 on the SEG in a week

 

Edited March 26, 2022 by joth

[SteamyTea]

9 minutes ago, Marvin said:

Slow cooker runs during day and then ready at 6pm. Even if main oven was less energy overall, too much at 6pm to be produced by PV. 

Just thought I would look at the usage of my mother's old Bosch oven.

The meter was reading a stead 240W, checked her pie and it went up to 2040W.

So 1.8 kW, for an hour.

My much newer oven used almost half that at 1 kW. Both are a similar size.

 

Getting my supper cooked by some nice Indian men.

Edited March 26, 2022 by SteamyTea

[joe90]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

so I have from time to time manually turned the heating on when nothing else  was using the PV energy,

I thought that, when the DHW was hot and nothing else needed the PV generation and the forecast is to get cool and overcast then heat the slab ready 🤷‍♂️.

[Eric]

Sorry to hijack this thread, I have a new build starting soon & never gave any thought to having solar but times are a changing.

@pocster, @Marvin how many solar panels are you talking about for your generation?

[Pocster]

25 minutes ago, Eric said:

Sorry to hijack this thread, I have a new build starting soon & never gave any thought to having solar but times are a changing.

@pocster, @Marvin how many solar panels are you talking about for your generation?

I’ve currently only got a lowly 4kw but am getting this upgraded to 7.2

[Marvin]

32 minutes ago, Eric said:

Sorry to hijack this thread, I have a new build starting soon & never gave any thought to having solar but times are a changing.

@pocster, @Marvin how many solar panels are you talking about for your generation?

5.12kW for us.

[Radian]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Just thought I would look at the usage of my mother's old Bosch oven.

The meter was reading a stead 240W, checked her pie and it went up to 2040W.

So 1.8 kW, for an hour.

My much newer oven used almost half that at 1 kW. Both are a similar size.

 

Getting my supper cooked by some nice Indian men.

 

Clipped from today's power usage. Started baking cakes around 3:30PM  then cooking pies in oven around 6 ish. Looks like 2.5kW element in fan oven. Microwave kicked in at around 6:30 for some veggies.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, Eric said:

I have a new build starting soon & never gave any thought to having solar but times are a changing

Have a look at roof integrated. As cheap as tiling and looks much better.

[Pocster]

20 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Have a look at roof integrated. As cheap as tiling and looks much better.

Slightly less efficient though 

[SteamyTea]

19 minutes ago, pocster said:

Slightly less efficient though

Not in practice.

The times when windspeed is low, solar radiation high, along with high air temperatures are very rare, and the solar radiation levels are probably higher than STP for the modules, so they would be over performing anyway.

[Pocster]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Not in practice.

The times when windspeed is low, solar radiation high, along with high air temperatures are very rare, and the solar radiation levels are probably higher than STP for the modules, so they would be over performing anyway.

Only what I was told when I was given the choice . Cost differential at the time was minimal, so I choose efficiently over appearance . Tbh my panels are jet black and look ok too me anyway .

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, pocster said:

Only what I was told when I was given the choice

That is sales people for you  they can only sell what they have.

 

[Pocster]

2 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

That is sales people for you  they can only sell what they have.

 

No . They had both options . It was my choice .