Has plug and play solar now been passed, I see adverts?

[JohnW2]

I would assume rounding up or down.

The differences/discrepancies, although not enormous, are far too large to be the result of any credible rounding.

 

[ericmark]

It seems some info logged local, and some goes to a server in China. But close enough to what the smart meter says not to worry about it.

I have seen so many reports about a law change to allow plug and play solar, but still no one has said what law stops us using it.

 

[big-all]

It seems some info logged local, and some goes to a server in China. But close enough to what the smart meter says not to worry about it.

I have seen so many reports about a law change to allow plug and play solar, but still no one has said what law stops us using it.

you can get any old carp from china with fake European ce [china export ]so buyer beware to do the type testing which off course they wont

where as any uk based company cant sell any product that doesnt comply with relevant standards or regulations or they become responsible for selling a non-compliant items unless they specifically state something along the lines off " not for human consumption"....."should not be connected to mains electrics" or"should only be taken under medical advice" in other words a disclaimer saying you and i know what you want to do with this product that at this stage has not been passed as suitable so the blame is fully on your shoulders and i wash my hand off responsibility by my disclaimer

now any responcible company like say lidl are more likly to care about any negativity from selling prematurely with an outright disclaimer over a simple warning " this product must not be used until the regulations change " in the near future but even that could produce way to much bad publicity iff the spec supplied became different to the final spec and not fully compliant

 

[morqthana]

In my garden I have an outbuilding which is oriented basically E-W, with a pitched roof, so one face of that is pretty much south facing. 19m² and virtually unshaded. Angle is less than ideal, about 10°, but overall quite a useful space, and being single storey easy to access.

But with no export earning not much point, and battery payback time is a bit long.

 

[morqthana]

... fake European ce [china export ] ...

Myth.

where as any uk based company cant sell any product that doesnt comply with relevant standards or regulations

Amazon can.

 

[JohnW2]

It seems some info logged local, and some goes to a server in China. But close enough to what the smart meter says not to worry about it.

Are you saying that some of the figures you're being provided with are incorrect?

 

[JohnW2]

In my garden I have an outbuilding which is oriented basically E-W, with a pitched roof, so one face of that is pretty much south facing. 19m² and virtually unshaded. Angle is less than ideal, about 10°, but overall quite a useful space, and being single storey easy to access.

It would presumably be fairly trivial to increase the 'panel angle' to something closer to optimum?

But with no export earning not much point

That presumably depends upon the amount of one's demand during the hours of daylight, particularly in Summer. If demand were large enough to exceed a modest amount of PV generation, then there would be nothing to export. One would, of course (as with everything to do with such technologies) wait quite a long time before one got to the financial break-even point but, ultimately, if one was still alive and the equipment still working, one would thereafter enjoy an increasingly low price for the electricity one had generated and used.

... and battery payback time is a bit long.

True.

 

[ericmark]

In my garden I have an outbuilding which is oriented basically E-W, with a pitched roof, so one face of that is pretty much south facing. 19m² and virtually unshaded. Angle is less than ideal, about 10°, but overall quite a useful space, and being single storey easy to access.

But with no export earning not much point, and battery payback time is a bit long.

My slopping roof is east and west, and when the installers came, they first said some panels on each roof, this would increase the time I get solar for, but decrease the peak output, but it seems they ran it through their computer, and it said west only would be better. And to be frank they were correct, the off-peak is not even spread either side of midnight, but is all in the morning, so does not stop until 05:30, and by 6:30 I am today getting solar, OK only 70 watt, but the battery still at 92% charged, so don't need much for solar, by 07:30 getting 200 watt, so battery no longer discharging any great amount, so the state of charge steady at 87% yesterday by 10:10 battery back at 100%.

It is the evening where we need the production, 19:30 start to see the battery discharging again, I use around 15% per hour, if not cooking, 0.94 kWh per hour, so this time of year, my 6.4 kWh battery is ample, still 61% left when off-peak time started.

Export earning yesterday was 13.1 kWh at 12p/kWh so £1.57 this is with 6 kW of panels on the roof, washing machines running so used 16.8 kWh yesterday. But it is not just the off-peak to peak time, where the battery is required, it is every time a cloud comes over, this means one could not run a washing machine to run on solar without a battery filling the gaps. The trough was down to 656 watts, and this from a 6 kW array, the peak was 5.7 kW yesterday would not hold at that for long, as inverter rated at 5 kW, but to use the solar, you need one of three things. A) Less solar than homes base load. B) A battery. C) Payment for export.

The plug and play we assume no remote sensor to tell it how much the home is using. So its output has to be less than base load, it could use a battery to absorb peaks, and to maintain that base load for longer, it seems with some models you can set battery to discharge at a set rate, so if we had a base load of 200 watt, then 24 hours we are using 4.8 kWh so around 1.2 kWh of solar with around a 3 kWh battery and base load would be about zero with that arrangement, this is around the maximum size of plug and play, that a normal household could use without a large export.

But the question is still, what will the law say? If 800 watt, is that array size, amount back fed through a 13 amp plug, or the amount exported? And also will everyone get paid for export? I was 20 months trying to get paid for export, it needed a second MPAN number to be paid, but British Gas were telling me I had filled in their forms in the wrong format, which seemed mad, it was their forms I was using, so how could they be wrong format. Moved to Octopus as sorted within 2 weeks.

But there must me 1000's in the same position as I was in, exporting solar, but not getting paid for it. If the government says all will get paid for export, that would be a massive change to how much electric is costing the providers, so there would need to be some change to the tariffs, and this is the main problem with solar, EV's, and heat pumps, at the drop of a hat the government can move the goal posts.

When solar first hit the main stream we got 25 years guaranteed payment from the government, and they made a mistake and was paying far too much. Now that has ended, people taking up solar are taking a gamble.