Electrifying our History

[SteveD CB500K0]

Yes. 2.9kWh. It’s the largest that is wall-mounted.

The installation includes an isolator switch as you describe.

My house runs at 260W without any of the obvious appliances switched on.


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[Orcade-Ian]

Hi Steve,
It would be great to have a section devoted to this.  We have been thinking solar PV for a while now but were always reluctant to get involved with any Gov schemes - the rich eating out of the hands of ..........  (Don’t want me collar felt!). We don’t want anything back other than leccy that we can use or store.  Up in Orkney where there is a ‘bit of a breeze’ now and then, I would favour a ground mounted rig - we have plenty of that.
We just bought a Pramac 5000 Generator for any outages and I connect that to a special switched socket in the garage where the Genny sits.  Does the PV system with inverter and batteries need a mains supply in the event of outages?  BTW a friend up here has an older Gov backed rig which produces almost the same yearly output as another mate’s system much farther south in West Lancashire. 

Ian

[Sesman]

Even better……potentially 9 hours or so of autonomy.

[Lobo]

Given you’re not rewarded for feeding back to the grid Steve your set up sounds perfect. Solar panels are like computers in terms of development, when I bought ours (best avail) 4 years ago they were rated at 325W each. Your’s appear double that…
(None of my business I appreciate, but it seems that mix & matching charging set-ups can be a world of pain wrt getting the Inverter to talk to the battery etc. I know this coz earlier this year looked into it, and only then realised how sophisticated these set-ups are; the advice given was to try and use a common manufacturer for all component parts - or at least use tried & proven set ups. Certainly, too many cowboy outfits about.)


Over here (ie Oz), the ability to go off grid as such, is a whole new can of worms. On a normal home set up, if the grid fails your inverter becomes unpowered and the home goes dark. This is a deliberate safety factor to avoid homes reverse-powering the grid and electrocuting maintenance folk every time they shut down local power lines. Whether a battery powered home could incorporate an isolation switch I don’t know, but I’d guess the authorities will have concerns.
My PV switch is to isolate the PV array from the Inverter, ie make working on the roof safe. (This switch is duplicated to the external home switch box for firemen etc)

Wrt home batteries, a really obvious EV development is becoming available… V2L, V2G, V2H etc.
V2L(oad) means you can power anything up to circa 3kW from your car, or indeed charge other cars (great for camping etc)
V2G will allow your car to power the grid, but if UK energy companies won’t pay out why would ya?
V2H allows your vehicle to power your home, and given that EVs typically have batteries 5x the size of home batteries (eg 70kWh vs 14kWh Powerwall) you could indeed power any average home for an extended outage.

Currently, over here, batteries do not make financial sense given the rebates we get on excess kWhrs, but certainly I reckon I’ll be looking hard at V2H in the next car.

I’d appreciate a Solar PV thread; exciting times ahead in this respect and it’s all changing so fast.

[Lobo]

Btw Steve, earlier in the year, on another thread here, it was pointed out to me that a PV array on your roof invalidates house insurance due the fact that UK firemen won’t go near a flaming house with solar panels. Just a thought and something you may want to verify / investigate?

Can’t remember that poster - if you’re here can you chip in & re-elaborate pls?

[Sesman]

I don’t recall anything about ‘invalidating insurance’, but fire fighters certainly are very wary of PV if there is a fire.

[Sesman]

http://www.sohc.co.uk/index.php/topic,28172.msg264065.html#msg264065.

I posted the Zurich report…though it’s dated. The risk to fire fighters is that you cannot ‘isolate’ the DC input voltage to the inverter. Fire fighters have developed techniques to deal with PV fire though. Speak to your local Building Control Officer or PV supplier/installer who will have all the facts.

[MCTID]

My 'two pennyworth' is that I certainly agree to having a dedicated section about 'alternative' power on our Forum......after all, there are some extremely smart people on here who I regard as being worth listening to.

In the next few years we are all going to have to make some important decisions, so the wider the debate, and the more 'unbiased' and accurate advice we can get, the better.

Personally at 72, there isn't much point in me investing in anything other than my 15 year old ICE Mondeo....as it's only covered 36K miles, but I'm sure there are many others who will welcome good advice as and when they are seriously thinking about what they should be investing in in the future.

Bring it on.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

Lets not forget this is a sohc forum for 2 wheel petrol heads - I suspect there is a danger of it drifting towards politics if we do.
For those seeking to go off grid for Electricity there are other places on the internet.

[Arch stanton]

No true motorcyclist would ever ride a electric motorcycle..

[SteveD CB500K0]

I suspect there is a danger of it drifting towards politics if we do.

Not going to happen Ted.

We don’t do politics here. Sometimes a comment or two pop up in a thread but I normally let them go as long as it doesn’t degenerate. Deleting posts in mid thread sometimes breaks stuff.


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[SteveD CB500K0]

No true motorcyclist would ever ride a electric motorcycle..

QED (Ted)

This is a point of view - not a rant.


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[Oddjob]

Henry Cole ridden an electric bike, but then again I don't consider him to be a true motorcyclist, just someone who claims to be to earn money.

[andy120t]

If you wind back a century or so, electric, steam, petrol, diesel were all there as options to replace the horse.

[Sesman]

What’s a”true motorcyclist”? And who would want to be one?