Solar panels on East-West roof.

[dangerman]

My brother is an electrical professor or something... Well, so he says. Nobody believes him.

Anyway, he reckons that the technology in solar took a leap in recent years and the market is going to change a lot in the foreseeable future. He said something about 47% efficient panels, all the current type panels will all be obsolete and cheap as chips very soon.

I think I'll be dodging any big solar investments for a while just to see how the market progresses.

[Deeps]

My brother is an electrical professor or something... Well, so he says. Nobody believes him.

Anyway, he reckons that the technology in solar took a leap in recent years and the market is going to change a lot in the foreseeable future. He said something about 47% efficient panels, all the current type panels will all be obsolete and cheap as chips very soon.

I think I'll be dodging any big solar investments for a while just to see how the market progresses.

Thanks for the heads up mate, now you mention it, one of my mates has a PhD in elastic trickry, I'll give him a wee shout to get his view, he's some kind of consultant. Cheers.

[Deeps]

I've gone for it, I spoke to my more knowledgeable mate for a second opinion and even missus Deeps was up for it and she's usually the more tight fisted one. Once the dust has settled I'll be looking to 'tweak' it as per Poppypiesdad's advice. It seems daft to be generating your own lecky and not be able to use it if the mains is down.

[grenfell]

From what I understand it should be possible , at least in theory , to divert power directly into something like a non voltage dependant water heater doing away with battery banks and the like. So in a blackout situation you would be able to generate and store heat rather than electricity but as something like 60-70% of the power we consume is in the form of heat it's not as bad as it sounds. Simplest way to store electricity would be to charge a battery or two from the mains before the power goes off and discharge via an inverter.
One thing to remember is that there aren't currently as far as I'm aware any factory made panels that come with a switching over from grid to bank capability ( gap in the market ?) so any conversions will be homemade and will probably invalidate any warranty . Personally I'd favour the idea of keeping panels grid tied so you still have the FITs and a bank of batteries charged from the mains but then I don't seethe total failure of the grid for long periods of a time as hugely likely. A couple of days to a week is possible and a precharged battery bank with limited use should cover that.

[Deeps]

From what I understand it should be possible , at least in theory , to divert power directly into something like a non voltage dependant water heater doing away with battery banks and the like. So in a blackout situation you would be able to generate and store heat rather than electricity but as something like 60-70% of the power we consume is in the form of heat it's not as bad as it sounds. Simplest way to store electricity would be to charge a battery or two from the mains before the power goes off and discharge via an inverter.
One thing to remember is that there aren't currently as far as I'm aware any factory made panels that come with a switching over from grid to bank capability ( gap in the market ?) so any conversions will be homemade and will probably invalidate any warranty . Personally I'd favour the idea of keeping panels grid tied so you still have the FITs and a bank of batteries charged from the mains but then I don't seethe total failure of the grid for long periods of a time as hugely likely. A couple of days to a week is possible and a precharged battery bank with limited use should cover that.

Just from speaking to different people, it seems if you live in the wilds then they're in no rush to come and restore power if you lose it but if you live in a more populated area they bust a gut to restore your services. I'd guess like most on this forum, I'm pretty well equipped with cooking/lighting equipment to last for quite a while with no lecky, its more for washing machines/freezers and most importantly laptops I was thinking. A whole week without the internet, not a problem, a whole week without playing Football Manager, I don't fancy that at all.

[Hamradioop]

The easy way would be to charge a power bank during the day when the panels are generating. found this item on BIMBLESOLAR I have no connection or commercial interest but it does seem to be one of the better websites in the UK for Alternative Power.

The feed-in tariff for solar energy reduces and the price of electricity increases. Customers wish to become more independent from the grid and protect themselves from electricity price rises. Nedap’s PowerRouter Solar Battery for self-use, the leading storage based inverter, provides the perfect solution to optimize the use of self-generated solar energy. Use the generated solar energy directly, store the energy in batteries for use at a later time, or feed the energy back to the grid. The PowerRouter is the ideal solution for the use of self-generated solar power (self-use).
http://www.bimblesolar.com/nedap-3kw?gc ... oCapvw_wcB

Price: £2,875.00

[Deeps]

The easy way would be to charge a power bank during the day when the panels are generating. found this item on BIMBLESOLAR I have no connection or commercial interest but it does seem to be one of the better websites in the UK for Alternative Power.

The feed-in tariff for solar energy reduces and the price of electricity increases. Customers wish to become more independent from the grid and protect themselves from electricity price rises. Nedap’s PowerRouter Solar Battery for self-use, the leading storage based inverter, provides the perfect solution to optimize the use of self-generated solar energy. Use the generated solar energy directly, store the energy in batteries for use at a later time, or feed the energy back to the grid. The PowerRouter is the ideal solution for the use of self-generated solar power (self-use).
http://www.bimblesolar.com/nedap-3kw?gc ... oCapvw_wcB

Price: £2,875.00

[Hamradioop]

[Deeps]

I just got my first quarters worth of lecky money, £268 lovely smackeroonies and that's in sunny Fife. I'll have to see after a year but as a rough guide, if that's a spring quarter, autumn will be roughly similar and using this as a baseline, I'm thinking roughly a grand a year subsidy for the panels ??? Our lecky bill has halved to about 30 quid a month as well. Quite chuffed with that to be honest.

Now if I can just get a wind turbine in the back garden.......

[FEISTY]

I just got my first quarters worth of lecky money, £268 lovely smackeroonies and that's in sunny Fife. I'll have to see after a year but as a rough guide, if that's a spring quarter, autumn will be roughly similar and using this as a baseline, I'm thinking roughly a grand a year subsidy for the panels ??? Our lecky bill has halved to about 30 quid a month as well. Quite chuffed with that to be honest.

Now if I can just get a wind turbine in the back garden.......

Hi Deeps
We're Central Belt (probably about the same amount of sun, LOL!). Can you tell me who you used, did you need planning consent, what type of system (sorry, I'm just back on here after a break), does it cover lecky for a family ... etc? My ideal would be a system we pay for ourselves (not tied into a "deal"), that we can generate all our electricity from and be paid for extra lecky - unlikely with our usage!!!! I'd like to be able to take us off the grid in the event of a SHTF scenario. We are in a bungalow with a shallow roof facing in various directions, including South. We're currently paying something in the region of £2.5K per annum (electricity and gas). I still have a multi-fuel boiler on the prep list, but not at that stage yet. Currently have GCH and a separate gas fire we don't use unless it's really, really cold in the winter (we didn't use it last winter). I sense my hubby warming to the idea of solar - I'd like to strike while the iron is warmish, but it's hard to put a case when you don't really know that much about how the systems work. He said at one point that you couldn't have more than 14 panels on a roof - I've no idea why that would be and I see more than that all the time, but I say nothing. How many did you go for?
Cheers