Adding panels myself? (Inverter & cables already installed!)

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> There's a procedure to formally request it

 

It'll probably take a week or two for me to get to this. In the meantime, if you search 'wayleaves' and 'dno' or similar here on here, you'll get most of the info.

[glock339]

19 hours ago, Alan Ambrose said:

>>> There's a procedure to formally request it

 

It'll probably take a week or two for me to get to this. In the meantime, if you search 'wayleaves' and 'dno' or similar here on here, you'll get most of the info.

 

Great, I'll do that. Thanks

[Dillsue]

5 hours ago, glock339 said:

 

Great, I'll do that. Thanks

TBH if the cables are safe to work under I'd just get on and fit your panels. Panels aside, your DNO isn't going to restrict you accessing your roof to maintain it/fit a Velux etc so there's no justification to object to access for panel install. The bottom line is if the DNO is concerned about your proximity to the cables they shouldn't have run them so close over the roof.

 

If the integrity of the insulation isn't certain, let your DNO you're planning to fit panels and ask them to shroud the cables whilst you work. Once they are aware there's panels under their cables they might prioritise shifting the cable??

[glock339]

On 30/11/2023 at 16:25, Dillsue said:

TBH if the cables are safe to work under I'd just get on and fit your panels. Panels aside, your DNO isn't going to restrict you accessing your roof to maintain it/fit a Velux etc so there's no justification to object to access for panel install. The bottom line is if the DNO is concerned about your proximity to the cables they shouldn't have run them so close over the roof.

 

If the integrity of the insulation isn't certain, let your DNO you're planning to fit panels and ask them to shroud the cables whilst you work. Once they are aware there's panels under their cables they might prioritise shifting the cable??

 

The shrouding is already up, I had it put on when I rebuilt the roof a while back & just left it up for the solar instal.

 

As I mentioned earlier in the thread I strongly suspect the director of solar company just didn't want to fit the remaining panels & used the DNO as an excuse, he even told me the minimum distance was 2.5 metres (a figure I've not heard anywhere else) to make sure most of the roof would be out of bounds so no point fitting just 2 or 3 panels.  He'd lost money on my instal due to fitting panels to a slate roof that they'd not properly accounted for in my quote so I can't see them installing anything unless I got something in writing which doesn't look likely. It also looks like getting the lines moved will be a very long process & I've had to pay up for the job now (minus the 10 panels) so I doubt they'll be doing the job if I do decide to put the panels on the roof in question.

 

To be honest I'm thinking it might just be cheaper & easier to go with my original idea of putting up 6 to 8 myself on a pergola & shed then getting someone qualified to connect everything up etc.

 

 

 

[Dillsue]

1 hour ago, glock339 said:

To be honest I'm thinking it might just be cheaper & easier to go with my original idea of putting up 6 to 8 myself on a pergola & shed then getting someone qualified to connect everything up etc.

Could well be cheaper but may force you to have the shed/ pergola where you don't want it?? Other thing to remember is you're always better mounting panels as high as you can to stop/ minimise shading and lengthen the time the panels are in direct sun.

[glock339]

21 hours ago, Dillsue said:

Could well be cheaper but may force you to have the shed/ pergola where you don't want it?? Other thing to remember is you're always better mounting panels as high as you can to stop/ minimise shading and lengthen the time the panels are in direct sun.

 

Luckily I have a pretty good area for them facing south with little to no shading etc so it should be fairly straight forward fingers crossed (famous last words).

[saveasteading]

I was nervous for you, but then found that youve been told it's low risk.

I've had power jump about 10m from a cable to a crane mast.

Followed shortly  by a visit from the power company who had to reset a big fuse somewhere.

[Dillsue]

59 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

I've had power jump about 10m from a cable to a crane mast.

I guess that was from an uninsulated HV cable at 132/400 thousand volts and not really comparable to the OPs domestic supply at 230/400volts. We've got 33000volt cables feeding our transformer and the DNO has recently renewed them giving only a couple of metres clearance for farm machinery to pass under them.

[Alan Ambrose]

>>> I've had power jump about 10m from a cable to a crane mast.

 

Good point - worth verifying with the DNO (if you haven't already) whether these or 230V 'low voltage' cables or something more tingling.

[joe90]

9 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

something more tingling.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[Dillsue]

45 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

>>> I've had power jump about 10m from a cable to a crane mast.

 

Good point - worth verifying with the DNO (if you haven't already) whether these or 230V 'low voltage' cables or something more tingling.

It's possibly getting "rerouted underground to the houses" so whilst it's almost certainly tingly it's unlikely to be jumping anywhere at normal domestic voltage.

[saveasteading]

While I have you gurus' attention. If I was estimating the cost of solar to supply a 5 bed house, fixed to the roof facing SW, to run the ashps and car battery  plus domestic, what lump sum should I allow? prob a specialist, not diy. £15k?

[glock339]

19 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I was nervous for you, but then found that youve been told it's low risk.

I've had power jump about 10m from a cable to a crane mast.

Followed shortly  by a visit from the power company who had to reset a big fuse somewhere.

 

Yeh they're just domestic 230v concentric double insulated cables.

Edited December 4, 2023 by glock339

[sharpener]

On 03/12/2023 at 16:41, saveasteading said:

While I have you gurus' attention. If I was estimating the cost of solar to supply a 5 bed house, fixed to the roof facing SW, to run the ashps and car battery  plus domestic, what lump sum should I allow? prob a specialist, not diy. £15k?

 

Were it facing due S that ought to buy you something north of 10kW peak. Have you got the roof area? How will you get that much past the DNO?

 

Even with a big battery in addition I don't think it would begin to keep an ASHP going. I have got 7kW of PV and at this time of year it has been generating about 11 kWh per day. This is enough to fully charge my 10kWh of domestic storage but that only provides 400W averaged round the clock. So the EV has to charge from the mains and the HP will I think have to do the same.

[SteamyTea]

On 03/12/2023 at 16:41, saveasteading said:

While I have you gurus' attention. If I was estimating the cost of solar to supply a 5 bed house, fixed to the roof facing SW, to run the ashps and car battery  plus domestic, what lump sum should I allow? prob a specialist, not diy. £15k?

Really hard to say.

A lot of the price is in the installation, i.e. scaffolding, split roof system.

To give you an idea, 12 years ago, we fitted a 4 kW_p system for £8k on an old, slate roofed place.  Same week, we fitted a 3.5 kW_p system for £5k on a bungalow.

The hardware is not that expensive these days, a quick google bring up https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/solar-pv-cost-data

 

Seems the price, per kW_p, is around £2100.

[Dillsue]

44 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Seems the price, per kW_p, is around £2100.

I didnt read the linked doc, but 4kwp for £8400 sounds very expensive even with data from MCS.

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

I didnt read the linked doc, but 4kwp for £8400 sounds very expensive even with data from MCS.

Worth reading as it has some notes and comments that explain a lot of it.

[Dillsue]

On 03/12/2023 at 16:41, saveasteading said:

While I have you gurus' attention. If I was estimating the cost of solar to supply a 5 bed house, fixed to the roof facing SW, to run the ashps and car battery  plus domestic, what lump sum should I allow? prob a specialist, not diy. £15k?

Alot of money to extend your roof so you could have enough space for a small solar farm. Winter production is pretty poor when you need the juice the most so you'd likely need a massive array to keep pace with an EV, HP,living etc.

 

Work out the load you want to power then look at PVGIS to see how big an array you'd need to power things for the time periods you want. Then see if that will fit on your roof

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

Work out the load you want to power

Should always be the first thing to do.

 

[sharpener]

6 hours ago, Dillsue said:

Alot of money to extend your roof so you could have enough space for a small solar farm.

 

As upthread you might get 10kW pk installed power for your £15k budget. Facing SW you would need something like 75 sq m plan area of roof for that allowing something for margins, chimneys etc.

[Dillsue]

20 minutes ago, sharpener said:

 

As upthread you might get 10kW pk installed power for your £15k budget. Facing SW you would need something like 75 sq m plan area of roof for that allowing something for margins, chimneys etc.

OPs asking what he needs to run HP, EV and house which is likely way more than 10kwp for the period he'll likely need the HP running

[glock339]

I've received a copy of the inspection report (attached), at first I thought they'd completely forgotten about moving the lines but then I noticed they had written across the top "pass to Owen NPG with regards to poss to change supply route" so I'm guessing that means someone called Owen at NPG may or may not be considering it now 🤷‍♂️.

 

The report still seems to be based around safe working height rather than the safe distance for a fixed solar panel even though I have constantly laboured the point throughout the entire process that I am not asking about safe working distances. 

 

For good measure they also sent me a generic HSE PDF about safe working distances from power lines 🙄.

 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by glock339

[sharpener]

 

Not in fact the OP but @saveasteading, from whom despite several responses we have not heard since Sunday.

 

21 hours ago, Dillsue said:

OPs asking what he needs to run HP, EV and house which is likely way more than 10kwp for the period he'll likely need the HP running

 

Well aware what he asked, but he suggested the figure of £15k, and I agree with you what he is asking for is way beyond the capabilities of even a large domestic installation and certainly not achievable for £15k. As you wrote earlier:

 

On 05/12/2023 at 08:46, Dillsue said:

Work out the load you want to power then look at PVGIS to see how big an array you'd need to power things for the time periods you want. Then see if that will fit on your roof

On 05/12/2023 at 08:50, SteamyTea said:

Should always be the first thing to do.

 

 

Is the right answer.

 

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by sharpener

[saveasteading]

43 minutes ago, sharpener said:

despite several responses we have not heard since Sunday.

Bad of me. Thanks all. I have read it all and will read them serially soon and probably have more questions.