Nottseagull
Well-known member
I'm seriously considering having panels fitted to my roof, so I was wondering what quotes (post-December 12th) people have had and for what size of system.
Thanks, I'll do that.I work for an offshoot of the government that specialises in advice for this sort of thing.
check out http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk for free and impartial advice on this.
PM me if you want more information on any of this.
Thanks, I'll do that.
Does anybody know if you can have an arrangement whereby, at the flick of a switch, current could be diverted to a bypass cable which incorporates a diode, therefore preventing electricity from the National Grid entering my consumer unit? The reason I want this is that I would like to have a heater running when I'm out, but only using my free solar, i.e. not drawing expensive daytime power. Am I right in thinking that, say, an immersion heater element would still warm up if it was only receiving (on a day like today for example) 200 watts?
That would cut off power to everything though, including the fridge/freezer.
Better to put a thermocouple on the tank and send all the free electricity to the immersion until a certain temp is reached.
You'd need some tricked up control circuitry and whilst it's possible it would probably be a bespoke design and quite expensive.OK thanks, I'll put that to my proposed installer.
It's looks like you may be able to answer this question: in a situation where there are only a few hundred watts available, is there a relatively cheap system that could feed appliances in a set order of preference, such as the lowest-drawing appliances getting priority? Imagine this scenario: I come home (in daylight) to a house that is using all the solar PV for heat. I turn on the TV, and the power being used by the heater drops slightly to compensate. I use the microwave, and it drops a bit more. I then turn off the TV in favour of the radio, and a little more electricity is fed to the heater. All this is happening with no input from the National Grid BTW.