Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 9 replies
  • Subscribers 32 subscribers
  • Views 725 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Solar Thermal - what labelling, if at all?

alanblaby
I've been doing a couple of EICR's recently that are on a new build estate.

These houses have 2 or 3 Solar panels on the roof, from what I can find, they are solar thermal, giving a hot water feed from the panels, as well as an electric supply to the immersion heaters.

It doesnt look like they feed back into the public supply.

There is a 6A mains supply, via a 1mm T+E, to what looks, and acts like, a programmer, for controlling the hot water heating.


Obviously there is a separate supply to the premises, from the PV panels. However, it appears it does not interact at all with the public supply.


What labelling, if any, is needed for this situation, when compiling an EICR?

Obvioulsy a 'This item is connected to the PV, and needs to be disconnected there', sited at the controls/cabling from the PV, but is anything necessary at the DB?

I would say no, as the PV supply does not go near to the public supply, apart from sharing a earth via the water tank.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Parents
  • 0
    There were some experiments with combined thermal and PV panels a while ago (being that PV panels are only something like 10% efficient there's still a lot of heat to be had) - but they had some significant problems - not least that the temperatures needed for a good thermal solar system tend to reduce the lifetime & efficiency of the PV cells considerably, plus the all the difficulty in mixing water and electricity in a module that's difficult to access for maintenance as well as being exposed to the worst of the weather. I wasn't aware that they'd got into any significant commercial production.


    There was one system that had a separate PV panel alongside the thermal panels - the idea being it would generate a suitable amount of electricity to drive the circulating pump for the thermal panels (stronger sunshine needs more pumping to carry the heat away from the thermal panels, and PV panels produce more electricity with more sunshine - so you can see the logic) but I don't think that really took off either - although it was offered as a commercial product for a time.


    Having PV panels solely to supply an immersion (without the benefits of FIT payments) sounds to me like a non-starter - PV panels are significantly more expensive than simple thermal ones and far less efficient. If you wanted more heat, it's far more sensible to add another thermal panel instead of a PV one.


    Anything is possible though - and it's an area that has attracted a lot of DIY experimentation - so rule nothing out, but my guess would be that both immersions are powered by the normal mains, but the lower one is additionally controlled by the solar control system - perhaps switching it on over night if the panels haven't produced sufficient heat during the day, or something of that nature.


       - Andy.
Reply
  • 0
    There were some experiments with combined thermal and PV panels a while ago (being that PV panels are only something like 10% efficient there's still a lot of heat to be had) - but they had some significant problems - not least that the temperatures needed for a good thermal solar system tend to reduce the lifetime & efficiency of the PV cells considerably, plus the all the difficulty in mixing water and electricity in a module that's difficult to access for maintenance as well as being exposed to the worst of the weather. I wasn't aware that they'd got into any significant commercial production.


    There was one system that had a separate PV panel alongside the thermal panels - the idea being it would generate a suitable amount of electricity to drive the circulating pump for the thermal panels (stronger sunshine needs more pumping to carry the heat away from the thermal panels, and PV panels produce more electricity with more sunshine - so you can see the logic) but I don't think that really took off either - although it was offered as a commercial product for a time.


    Having PV panels solely to supply an immersion (without the benefits of FIT payments) sounds to me like a non-starter - PV panels are significantly more expensive than simple thermal ones and far less efficient. If you wanted more heat, it's far more sensible to add another thermal panel instead of a PV one.


    Anything is possible though - and it's an area that has attracted a lot of DIY experimentation - so rule nothing out, but my guess would be that both immersions are powered by the normal mains, but the lower one is additionally controlled by the solar control system - perhaps switching it on over night if the panels haven't produced sufficient heat during the day, or something of that nature.


       - Andy.
Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines