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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.

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    Any solar PV system that is not connected to the mains has a real control problem. Too little sun and the voltage drops, stalls the pump and burns it out, too much sun and the voltage rises and burns out the pump.

    It would be possible to connect a fancy controller that cuts off with low voltage and dumps the electricity in the immersion heater when there is too much but what happens when the tank is all hot, is it allowed to boil?

    If this is what you say it seems to be, then it is a rather clever system. Any name plates around?



    What I was referring to were the various systems out there (Immersun is one, but I personally have never implemented it so cannot recommend) that have a conventional grid connected inverter with a second immersion either simply switched or modulated. Normally this is in conjunction with export monitoring and arranged so that rather than exporting to the grid, excess energy after other electrical loads is diverted to the hot water cylinder. Idea being that it's better value to offset the gas than to export.

    And no, it shouldn't be allowed to boil... there ought to be a stat!

    As for pumps, solar pumps have been around for a long time. Varying levels of quality from cheap water fountains upward, but some are actually decent and are used for essential things like pumping drinking water in remote villages in developing countries, f'example.
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    Any solar PV system that is not connected to the mains has a real control problem. Too little sun and the voltage drops, stalls the pump and burns it out, too much sun and the voltage rises and burns out the pump.

    It would be possible to connect a fancy controller that cuts off with low voltage and dumps the electricity in the immersion heater when there is too much but what happens when the tank is all hot, is it allowed to boil?

    If this is what you say it seems to be, then it is a rather clever system. Any name plates around?



    What I was referring to were the various systems out there (Immersun is one, but I personally have never implemented it so cannot recommend) that have a conventional grid connected inverter with a second immersion either simply switched or modulated. Normally this is in conjunction with export monitoring and arranged so that rather than exporting to the grid, excess energy after other electrical loads is diverted to the hot water cylinder. Idea being that it's better value to offset the gas than to export.

    And no, it shouldn't be allowed to boil... there ought to be a stat!

    As for pumps, solar pumps have been around for a long time. Varying levels of quality from cheap water fountains upward, but some are actually decent and are used for essential things like pumping drinking water in remote villages in developing countries, f'example.
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