Solar PV Project

[campbeji]

Hi all,

I thought I would make a sort of thread/blog type posting here to follow my exciting new project - Solar power

I have bought myself a small Grid tie inverter from ebay - rover.ebay.com/rover/0/e11400.m1842.l3160/7?euid=7987bfe118ae4701ad165ac72f76cb0f&loc=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.co.uk%2Fws%2FeBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26item%3D321219985314%26ssPageName%3DADME%3AL%3AOC%3AGB%3A3160. I am awaiting its arrival.

I will then start looking for panels to go with it, so any advice or information on what is available or suitable would be gladly received. Of course a major restriction with this is budget, at least the lack of one, and also knowledge or rather the lack thereof.

So I guess my next stop is to wait for the package to arrive, make sure it isnt broken and then look at it for a while I have no way at the moment to test if it works or not.

The next step will be to try and find a panel or two to plug into it. I have been looking on Ebay a bit and the number of panels on there is confusing to say the least. All sorts of brands, types ratings etc, I think I'm going to have to try and learn a bit about all this stuff.

Then I guess I will have to figure out how to get the panels onto the roof, not looking forward to that I must say.

Bye for now
Jim

[cye]

it'll be a 12v panel with a OCV of 18v that you'll need for that inverter. a 24v panel will exceed the max input voltage of that inverter.

we bought some nice 12v panels from a german ebay vendor nepasun and they are good quality. after the first panel, the additional P&P cost per panel is minimal

[campbeji]

Thanks Cye,

I'm going to have to get my head around all of this stuff. I had a quick look for that vendor but couldn't find him. I also had a look at a bunch of panels, lots that are 12v but couldn't see any with 18v ocv. I don't suppose you could point me in the direction of some simple online resources that could start me on the right path with this stuff.

While I was looking through ebay I cam across this stuff www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100w-319v-dc-with-mc4-rollup-Flexible-solar-panel-100-flexible-folie/121183193556?rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.m1851&_trkparms=aid%3D222002%26algo%3DSIC.FIT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D286%26meid%3D1825890430593006870%26pid%3D100005%26prg%3D1048%26rk%3D5%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D151138718443%26, I'd never seen anything like it before, read that it was being developed but didn't realise it was so far advanced. I'll maybe paper my electric car with it (if I ever get one )

Thanks
Jim

[cye]

hi jim.

any 12v panel will be ok and will have an open circuit voltage of 18ish volts. i was just mentioning the 18v to give you an idea that the 24v panels would do more than 28v, which is the max volts for your inverter.

when you get the inverter, if you hook up two car batteries in series, i.e., in place of a panel, this will create a 25-26v source and should enable you to test the inverter (i think).

caveman will be able to confirm the viability of this proposal!

[horsall]

Hello Jim
Don,t they have to be of an approved make to feed power back into the grid? and of course wiring to meet latest regulations

But then I may be wrong as we are off grid.

Roger

[campbeji]

Hi Roger,

It depends on what you are trying to do.

If you want to get money for what you feed into the grid in the form of the feed in tariff (I think thats what its called) then all of your kit has to be approved and it has to be commissioned by an authoised person.

If you only want to reduce the money you spend on electric/reduce non-renewable fuel consumption then I don't think it matters, although I do believe it has to have a trip in case the grid goes down, basically so you don't electrocute any poor workman thats working on the line.

Since we work from home and use a lot of electricity all day long it should work well for us, anything we don't use will go into the grid and we won't get any credit for it, but thats cool too.

My intention is to have two systems going (eventually) the first will operate through the inverter and the second will charge batteries so that I can run a low voltage lighting system around the house.

Jim

[cye again]

jim

if you have a 'spinning disk' type electric meter, then you will effectively get credit for any excess you generate on a good day over and above what you use. just make sure you don't have a net excess over an entire billing period or there'll be questions asked. if it's not a spinny disk meter, it's unlikely the meter will wind backwards when exporting power.

[campbeji]

Hi Cye,

No such luck, I use one of those pre-paid meters, all electronic so no spinning disk. We do go through electricity at an awful rate as we work from home and we are pretty much always here and doing something.

If I only reduced the electric I'd be happy, and if we did have any excess that went into the grid, I wouldn't mind, I actually kinda like the idea of being a power station

I'm thinking of this as a sort of experiment for the future when (if) we move house and aim to go 'off grid' as much as we can.