Solar panels

[Ian Morgan]

Yesterday we finally had enough sunshine to charge the battery enough to supply the house overnight. In fact, no electric was taken from the grid until 11:00 today. Virtually no sun today though.

 

 

[Phil Himsworth]

4 hours ago, hayfield said:

I see in some places they cover car parks with solar panels, which to me sounds a great idea using the same piece of land for 2 uses. I guess the infrastructure is more costly, but better than using productive land.

This sounds great all round, it doesn't affect normal use of the space and can keep vehicles underneath out of the sun too. I wonder how much more expensive it actually is? Normal ground mounted panels need a metal frame, is it just like that but with longer legs so doesn't actually cost much more?

[Phil Himsworth]

2 hours ago, Ian Morgan said:

Yesterday we finally had enough sunshine to charge the battery enough to supply the house overnight. In fact, no electric was taken from the grid until 11:00 today. Virtually no sun today though.

 

 

I agree yesterday was fantastic, ours did more in one day than the whole week before it put together, the battery was full and we even exported something for the first time since November!

 

Back to next to nothing today though 🙃

[Phil Himsworth]

4 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

250 acres of solar panels covering land on which wheat used to be grown. At 3/4t per acre thats a shortfall  of 750/1000t of wheat that could be sold into the local poultry feed market.

In the UK 290km^2 of land is used to grow wheat for biofuel; this is more than the total land used for solar PV (230km^2) but produces 1/100th of the energy from the same area. Another 70km^2 is used for sugar beet biofuel, which is a bit more energy dense, but still 1/50th that of solar.

 

If concern about food security is the problem, we should be complaining about biofuels, not solar PV.

 

(Or golf courses, which take up 1250km^2! Imagine how much energy would be generated if we installed solar panels on those 😜 )

[nickwood]

15 minutes ago, Phil Himsworth said:

 

(Or golf courses, which take up 1250km^2! Imagine how much energy would be generated if we installed solar panels on those 😜 )

Care to tell us what recreational activity you enjoy, it’s obviously not golf. You could make the same argument for any recreational areas, sports fields, common land etc. 

If it is ground based areas a more sensible suggestion might be motorway and railway embankments where there are substantial tracts of land doing absolutely nothing.
 

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by nickwood

[Phil Himsworth]

2 hours ago, nickwood said:

Care to tell us what recreational activity you enjoy, it’s obviously not golf.

I had hoped the smiley indicated I wasn't being serious about the golf courses! 

 

The biofuels, though... get rid of them first, then worry about whether solar PV is taking too much space.

[hayfield]

15 hours ago, Mike 84C said:

Just come back from Newark, passing RAF Cranwell there is a large arable farm with approx; 250 acres of solar panels covering land on which wheat used to be grown. At 3/4t per acre thats a shortfall  of 750/1000t of wheat that could be sold into the local poultry feed market. Looking at the buildings on said farm non seem to have any panels on their roof's. If grants were still available to the public for PV panels  and for warehouse/ big sheds/office blocks and the country was still short of generating capacity I could go with solar farms. But its the easy way first, lets pick the low hanging fruit. And the NFU has a very powerful lobby.

   As part of planning for on farm digesters the applicant should have to collect food waste from the nearest town/hospitals etc; but no, lets grow so called energy crops like maize which takes more land out of food production!

  Fallen off my soap box!! but there is little joined up thinking.  To my mind its close the nukes and demolish the coal fired power stations before having viable replacements in place.

 

It seems that at the moment there is a very long wait for solar panel installations, I personally think the time for handing out grants whether domestic or commercial is long gone and not needed, as at current supply rates these systems are very investable and more importantly would go to those who do not need help and exclude the most needy. 

 

I would totally support schemes where those on low income would benefit, but not their landlords !!!

[sjp23480]

13 hours ago, nickwood said:

If it is ground based areas a more sensible suggestion might be motorway and railway embankments where there are substantial tracts of land doing absolutely nothing.

Add some uprights to OHLE gantries and string the panels above the railway lines.  Network Rail would make a fortune.🙂

Edited January 15, 2023 by sjp23480

[hayfield]

19 hours ago, Phil Himsworth said:

I agree yesterday was fantastic, ours did more in one day than the whole week before it put together, the battery was full and we even exported something for the first time since November!

 

Back to next to nothing today though 🙃

 

Today has been the best day of the year producing 3 kwh. As I have previously said our system is hampered slightly being on a single story roof with a shallow angle plus a bit of shading in the morning plus 2 hours of shading in the afternoon

 

We suffer more in the winter for the above reasons but as the days get longer and the sun rises the effects diminish. at the start if January a very good day was 1.4kwh, Friday it increased to 1.9 and with clearer skies today for us a whopping 3kwh

 

Still not expecting too much through Jan and Feb (44 & 108 kwh respectively) but given I was getting 5.5p per kwh exported income was low so with getting 15p per kwh this year any exports will be worth 3 times last years meagre income

 

I like to look back at historic data, back in the late spring of 2021 the projected cash benefit was expected to be £204.59 in the first year (56p per day) whilst today was exceptional for Jan if I used half and sold half it would give me a benefit of 75p and that's in winter !! Just shows how crazy things are

Edited January 15, 2023 by hayfield

[Phil Himsworth]

8 hours ago, sjp23480 said:

Add some uprights to OHLE gantries and string the panels above the railway lines.  Network Rail would make a fortune

If you can make leaf shelters out of solar panels I'm sure Network Rail would be interested! 🙂

[black and decker boy]

23 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

It seems that at the moment there is a very long wait for solar panel installations, I personally think the time for handing out grants whether domestic or commercial is long gone and not needed, as at current supply rates these systems are very investable and more importantly would go to those who do not need help and exclude the most needy. 

 

I would totally support schemes where those on low income would benefit, but not their landlords !!!

ECO4 scheme Grants are only available to households in certain benefits. They are not open to all.

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1010366/eco4-consultation.pdf

 

ECO4 is available to:

Homeowners, landlords and private tenants

People receiving income-related benefits

Properties with inefficient electric heating

Qualifying benefits for the ECO4 scheme include:

Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), income based

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), income related

Housing Benefit

Pension Credit

Income Support (IS)

Universal Credit (UC)

Work Tax Credit (WTC)

Warm House Discount Scheme Rebate

Child Tax Credits

Child Benefit, depending on income threshold

 

we are certainly not getting any grant other than the zero VAT.

[nickwood]

On 14/01/2023 at 23:55, Phil Himsworth said:

I had hoped the smiley indicated I wasn't being serious about the golf courses! 

 

The biofuels, though... get rid of them first, then worry about whether solar PV is taking too much space.

Apologies, the smiley didn’t appear on my screen for some reason. Agree about biofuels.

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, black and decker boy said:

ECO4 scheme Grants are only available to households in certain benefits. They are not open to all.

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1010366/eco4-consultation.pdf

 

ECO4 is available to:

Homeowners, landlords and private tenants

People receiving income-related benefits

Properties with inefficient electric heating

Qualifying benefits for the ECO4 scheme include:

Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), income based

Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), income related

Housing Benefit

Pension Credit

Income Support (IS)

Universal Credit (UC)

Work Tax Credit (WTC)

Warm House Discount Scheme Rebate

Child Tax Credits

Child Benefit, depending on income threshold

 

we are certainly not getting any grant other than the zero VAT.

 

 

Sounds like a lot of hot air and just proposals, quite a lot of things on  the list is more to do with social help, don't get me wrong I am a great believer in supporting the most needy which in my opinion is a totally different subject. It totally misses those who are just above certain thresholds, but equally cannot afford  these things. Many older people are asset rich but income poor, or younger families who are just coping but have no spare cash

 

My parents benefited from government intervention for bathrooms for all. I benefited (twice **)from insulation to my houses walls and loft

 

** I had it installed in my previous house, the previous owner of the property I now own also had the work done

[hayfield]

18 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

Today has been the best day of the year producing 3 kwh. As I have previously said our system is hampered slightly being on a single story roof with a shallow angle plus a bit of shading in the morning plus 2 hours of shading in the afternoon

 

We suffer more in the winter for the above reasons but as the days get longer and the sun rises the effects diminish. at the start if January a very good day was 1.4kwh, Friday it increased to 1.9 and with clearer skies today for us a whopping 3kwh

 

Still not expecting too much through Jan and Feb (44 & 108 kwh respectively) but given I was getting 5.5p per kwh exported income was low so with getting 15p per kwh this year any exports will be worth 3 times last years meagre income

 

I like to look back at historic data, back in the late spring of 2021 the projected cash benefit was expected to be £204.59 in the first year (56p per day) whilst today was exceptional for Jan if I used half and sold half it would give me a benefit of 75p and that's in winter !! Just shows how crazy things are

 

My wild guess of using 1.5 kwh and exporting the same amount has proved spot on. But waking up to snow and lots of thick cloud brings me back to earth with a bump another 0.1 kwh day in the making

 

In last years accounting period ending 25/01 I earnt £0.53 exporting power (9.6 kwh). With 10 days left in the accounting period I have exported 6.4 kwh earning £0.96, just shows how crazy energy prices are at this moment

 

On the BBC website the CEO of a Scandinavian gas producer warned that gas prices would not go back to pre covid prices. I would settle for post covid (18 mths ago) prices as would I guess most people and settle being paid less for exporting in return for lower gas prices

 

A big but, energy providers should be made to pay all domestic exporters a fair price !!  I am lucky to be with Octopus who now pay 15p per KWH  British Gas I believe pay just under 6p per kwh and EDF under 3p. I accept its a free market but how they can justify this disparity is beyond belief  

[Phil Himsworth]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

A big but, energy providers should be made to pay all domestic exporters a fair price !!  I am lucky to be with Octopus who now pay 15p per KWH  British Gas I believe pay just under 6p per kwh and EDF under 3p. I accept its a free market but how they can justify this disparity is beyond belief  

It is crackers how no-one else even comes close. We have the problem that we're on Octopus Go, for the low off-peak rate, but they only let you have the 15p export rate if you're on their standard rate; otherwise even Octopus just give you the standard 5p/kwh. I can see why, as if you have a battery you could turn a profit by buying power when it was cheap and selling it back to them when it was expensive! It does raise the quandary though of which is best financially - keeping the cheap off-peak rate (useful for winter, and charging the EV) but getting little from export, or scrapping the cheap off-peak rate but getting more from exporting in summer? We have a fairly large array so we will generate more than we need, but how much more?

 

Today started badly but has improved, I just saw 3.5kw from ours briefly!

[hayfield]

 

I fully understand that there is no way our exports should receive either retail prices or for that matter standard wholesale rates, however in these days of automation the additional costs of buying small amounts is minimal. Lets face it they are not selling gas at 35p per kwh but far more owing to the support the cap is giving, though with wholesale rates far less than anticipated last year. When the upper rate was 28p per kwh most were paying at least 5p per KWH (which was still much lower that the 7.5p Octopus were paying) why it has not been increased is just awful exploitation of what is seemingly an energy cartel.

 

As for the rate you are on, I guess you choose which offer suites you, at least you have the choice !! 

 

As for today we are up to .6 of a kwh which is far better than I expected

Edited January 16, 2023 by hayfield

[hayfield]

 

I hope I may not get too nerdy but I have been interested in both the days (daylight) getting longer and its effects on power generation, its a bit more difficult with the latter to see a pattern as the weather plays apart with cloud cover

 

As for the length of daylight the time increases more in the afternoon than the morning, in the depths of December sunset went down to 3:40 now its 4:23  However sunrise took ages in getting earlier than 8am tomorrow its 7:52

 

I have also noticed recently my system seems to be waking up later in the morning, today 9:05  3 days ago 8:45. Though frost on the panels may be the cause? as earlier it was past 9 before they started to generate power

 

Any thoughts/knowledge out there please

[Ian Morgan]

Also, the low angle of the sun, even at miday, is reducing the power generated. Today's glorious sun is only producing about 2.5kW at mid-day here when in the summer it was appoaching 4kW.

 

I remember at school the teacher trying to explain why the north and south poles were colder than the equator, and it was not because the sun was further away!

 

Imagine a 1 foot square ray of light and heat coming from the sun. It would illuminate 1 square foot of ground at the equator when the sun was directly overhead. That same size ray illuminating a bit on Antartica would be spread over a long rectangle, because of the angle it hits the ground. Each square foot of ground would, therefore get less of the sun's energy than at the equator.

 

[Phil Himsworth]

8 hours ago, hayfield said:

I have also noticed recently my system seems to be waking up later in the morning, today 9:05  3 days ago 8:45. Though frost on the panels may be the cause? as earlier it was past 9 before they started to generate power

Is that just the last couple of days, or longer? The last two days ours has taken longer to do anything due to being covered in snow first thing. Yesterday there was loads, so even in full sun when it should have been doing about 2kw it was doing about 60w, it made an incredible difference! Alas shortly after the snow melted the sun went in, so the day was a bit of a flop.

 

Today was better, but you could still see the snow or frost didn't clear until mid morning, and the performance before then was much lower than it normally would have been.

 

I've noticed that having a PV system really does emphasise quite how short the days are in the depths of winter. On a good day ours can still peak at over 2kw, but it does it for such a short length of time it doesn't add up to much.

[hayfield]

11 hours ago, Phil Himsworth said:

Is that just the last couple of days, or longer? The last two days ours has taken longer to do anything due to being covered in snow first thing. Yesterday there was loads, so even in full sun when it should have been doing about 2kw it was doing about 60w, it made an incredible difference! Alas shortly after the snow melted the sun went in, so the day was a bit of a flop.

 

Today was better, but you could still see the snow or frost didn't clear until mid morning, and the performance before then was much lower than it normally would have been.

 

I've noticed that having a PV system really does emphasise quite how short the days are in the depths of winter. On a good day ours can still peak at over 2kw, but it does it for such a short length of time it doesn't add up to much.

 

I think its a combination of things, frost being one as well as level of cloud cover

 

Today the frost is not so harsh and it seems to be cloud free

 

I have what I call the ambient level of production of 20 watt, this level caries on long after sunset and earlier in the morning or cloud cover. However today as there is no milky cloud its woken up at 8:35, plus you can see the frost starting to thaw on the panels. From the 6th we were averaging a KWH a day the past 5 days 2 kwh a day, but this depends greatly on cloud cover

 

As I said the afternoons are getting longer than the mornings, and it was just coincidence we had a few days when the system took a bit longer to wake up, I assume thin cloud cover has a greater affect when the son is lower in the early morning and late afternoon. The 15th was my best day producing 3kwh, but as I said my system is adversely affected in the winter, though I guess few sites are perfect

[Nick C]

Because of the way most solar panels are wired, even a small amount of shade (as provided by frost for example) will cause the output of the whole panel to drop dramatically - or even the whole array if they're wired in series (I think most are done in parallel these days)

[hayfield]

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

Because of the way most solar panels are wired, even a small amount of shade (as provided by frost for example) will cause the output of the whole panel to drop dramatically - or even the whole array if they're wired in series (I think most are done in parallel these days)

 

You may have a thing about the shading where those in the shade have a greater affect on those in the sun

 

Looking at where the sun is this week in relation to what is shading our panels, in a week or two the main early afternoon shading should be over, and then a week or two after that the late morning shade would have gone.

 

There will be lots of bad weather days to come but the performance has picked up from late December last Jan was 44 kwh produced, Feb jumped up to 108 kwh then March 224 kwh

 

As for energy exports with a week to go I have already earnt 3 times what I was paid last year, partly down to prices being three times higher, but with a week still to go. Also the next 11 days will see if this January has been sunnier than last  year 

[Nick C]

10 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

You may have a thing about the shading where those in the shade have a greater affect on those in the sun

Here's a site demonstrating it with a nice interactive diagram: link

 

Basically, if even one cell is shaded, the output of all the other cells in series with it drops as well - I suspect modern panels have some clever electronics in them to try to mitigate that to a certain extent, but it will certainly have an effect. 

[Phil Himsworth]

I think the most common way round it is just splitting the array into two strings, so shaded panels in one string can't affect the output of panels on the other string. Most inverters these days have connections for two strings.

 

Going even further optimisers can be used to separate individual panels, so any combination of shaded panels won't affect any unshaded ones. The cost obviously goes up though, so I guess it's not cost effective for most systems.

[hayfield]

 

Am I wright in thinking I notice the drop off from shading is less when the end furthest away from the power exit lead is shaded, than when its the other end in the shade?