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Solar Panels UK - is it worth it?
- Thread starter jdwuk
- Start date
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I've got TP Link Kasa smart plugs - much the same thing as GivEnergy ones I expect (I believe that the TP Link ones are ITTT, should that ever become a necessary feature, and I believe the [cheaper] TP Link Tapo don't have that)
I'm only using the Energy Monitoring plus to ... log energy usage to decide if anything is a hog and whether I could fit a (cheaper) Kasa smart-plug (i.e. without energy monitoring) to turn the thing off overnight or similar.
I think using an energy monitoring plug would be useful if I had something where I wanted to know that it WAS on (or off). For example, a fish tank heater - bit of a disaster if that started using zero watts! Or the pump on my cesspit - blinking expensive every time that fails, floods all the motors and wrecks them. My solution to that is a second pump, higher up, that just discharged to the lawn - so if we get a flood there I know that Pump #1 is not working. But a "Hasn't used power for X hours" would be an alternative test
I assumed all my servers here were the power hogs ... but that was the first thing I monitored, and it isn't them. I'm at a loss to know what is causing the heavy "background consumption" now. I reckon I'll have to throw breakers until the power drops (I can see that on PowerWall APP ... probably SmartMeter too), but that is likely to turn off something that will be a hassle - electric time clock that will then need resetting ...
I'm only using the Energy Monitoring plus to ... log energy usage to decide if anything is a hog and whether I could fit a (cheaper) Kasa smart-plug (i.e. without energy monitoring) to turn the thing off overnight or similar.
I think using an energy monitoring plug would be useful if I had something where I wanted to know that it WAS on (or off). For example, a fish tank heater - bit of a disaster if that started using zero watts! Or the pump on my cesspit - blinking expensive every time that fails, floods all the motors and wrecks them. My solution to that is a second pump, higher up, that just discharged to the lawn - so if we get a flood there I know that Pump #1 is not working. But a "Hasn't used power for X hours" would be an alternative test
I assumed all my servers here were the power hogs ... but that was the first thing I monitored, and it isn't them. I'm at a loss to know what is causing the heavy "background consumption" now. I reckon I'll have to throw breakers until the power drops (I can see that on PowerWall APP ... probably SmartMeter too), but that is likely to turn off something that will be a hassle - electric time clock that will then need resetting ...
I've noticed my American fridge freezer is quite a power hog. It goes through a couple of daily cycles which I think are something to do with auto-defrosting that draw around 400W for 20mins a time.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
previous owners left two here. They were on 24/7 until I cleaned out the filter's-grill on the compressor !!
I have air-air heat pump units in two bedrooms, which they heat in no time, and plan to install three more in the other rooms in which we mainly live (replacing the outside unit with a larger one) so we burn less heating oil.
The installer’s calculation of the heat output in kW required for the new indoor units seems much higher than I had expected based on experience so far. What’s the experience of air-air heating in the group? Would a 3.5kW unit suffice for kitchen/dining area 30m2? My installer says 5kW, but on that basis the capacity of the outdoor unit is exceeded. Thanks in advance.
The installer’s calculation of the heat output in kW required for the new indoor units seems much higher than I had expected based on experience so far. What’s the experience of air-air heating in the group? Would a 3.5kW unit suffice for kitchen/dining area 30m2? My installer says 5kW, but on that basis the capacity of the outdoor unit is exceeded. Thanks in advance.
RedMod3
Member
It depends on the average U values of the six sides of the box; it is impossible to comment on sizing otherwise.
Installer should be modeling the house fairly accurately - talk to them to check their assumptions match your knowledge of the building.
I've been through this, some things to look at and not
- Fridge for us is about 1kw a day (accept or upgrade), but I haven't measured the standalone freezer or wine fridge yet.
- Servers (and switches and router and PoE wifi points) are down to 2kw/day (90w cont) by swapping the server PSU to a ultra efficient and silent one
- Media stuff. Each sonos unit is about 7w idle. 24/7 x 7 units in our case. I now turn off the less used ones and leave one wired in one as a root that doesn't get powered down.
- Equally some old but good stereo and surround stuff was idling at up to 30w when in 'standby' so they now have a smart switch that _really_ powers them all down.
- We don't talk about how much power the projector uses when in use,
- Projector idles at <1w so all happy.
- My PC uses a fancy external water cooling system in which the pump used 20w, again 24/7, so I got one of the e-on smart trigger plugs so that only comes on when the PC is on (PC doesn't see much use compared to the work laptop)
- PC's phone chargers, monitors etc in standby are not worth fighting over.
- Dishwasher and washer/dryer were measured and pushed to overnight and on average slightly more eco programmes.
- We have some z-wave smart lights which let me measure those - you don't really need to measure as you can do the sums quite easily really. But with a kitchen with 5 main spots and 5 worktop spot lights, even with LED lighting that adds up to potentially 50w which are on much of the day. For the main lights I added a motion sensor so if no one is in the kitchen they dim down to using 5w between those 5 bulbs rather than 25 total. High WAF BTW, this automation seems to really work.
- I have a bunch of garden equipment and e-bike chargers in the garage which I've put on a smart plug, so if something needs charged it turns itself right off once charging is done.
- Given our HW comes from the heatpump, I am seriously considering waste water heat recovery for the main shower. Need to do some sums as I suspect they don't really do much, vs the theoretical capabilities and SAP points they are sold on to landlords.
Just had a set of 4 plugs and slowly worked around the whole house finding all this out. Biggest and most painful surprise was the stereo equipment and doing the sums on the Sonos. Also, those smart plugs use 1w btw - so some of the sonos would have been diminishing returns to automate. I just used them on units that are mostly unused for extended periods.
All this gets be down to ~340w overnight from about 500 which I'm pretty happy at. Every 24/7 source of 10w eliminated saves £30. Not much, but sorting out my sonos is effectively an extra meal out a year. The server PSU is another one. And it all means that we live within solar+battery more of the year which I like.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Thanks for that. Of the things that I am aware of is always on I've only accounted for "not very much" of my background kW usage, in particular all the things I had, wrongly!, assumed would be the power-hogs. I'm 1kW (continuous) short ... which is, of course, a lot.
I've been trying to get our IT guys to do that for all servers without much success ... can you point me in the direction of what you got pls?
Mine is all off-when-not-in-use. We fitted isolating switches next to TVs when we rewired the house and have good "switch off" habit.
Something (part of HA) in the rack turns off stuff when it detects a period of non-use, that kills those devices until a Remote tries to start them again. But ... they are in the rack, so have been part of my logging so far. Media can be a biggie though ... SmartPlugs do a good job for that - e.g. with a "Goodnight" routine that turns them all off, and then they only need to come back on when the TV, or some other entertaining, is required - "Alexa turn on Sonos" should work for that
Similar to "Goodnight" we have HA turn off all upstairs lights at 10AM - which takes care of teenagers who think getting up involves not opening the curtains, turning on all lights, and then abandoning the room in that state. I'm going to give them a one way ticket to a Greta skool-strike training session!
All that sort of stuff is part of our off-at-the-wall habit here, when not in use. I have a bank of chargers for all the garden / power tool batteries, that has a push-button Danlers lag-timer for 30m, 1h, 2h ... so all that lot is off when charging has finished (removes some fire risk too). That timer is a 1W thingie though. (Image on their site is wrong, they do have 1H ... 6H version, but this one is actually 1/4H to 2H). Could do all that with a SmartPlug as you mentioned
We used to have Sonos in each room (back in the Noughties, and it was a revolution to have Sonos streaming music to rooms back then ...). When we rewired they all got moved / centralised to the rack, and speaker wires to each room - so one smartplug can now isolate all Sonos and other AV gear ... spent £millions on the rewiring and giga-miles of cable too ... so not sure the economics was sound!
My goal too. I'm sticking with Ecconomy-7 for that reason (shorter on-battery day length), and having PV on East/West, rather than South, gives me a period of useable power between 1 and 2 hours more each summer day
Would a storage heater be possible - charge-up overnight to heat during the day?
We have Victorian-style pulley ceiling clothes drying rack - a cast iron former at each end and some cheap wooden battens (any length you like) in our boiler rom
But can't find anything much below £60-quid
Pretty sure when I bought mine it was just the ends and pulleys, and I supplied the rails, and it only cost me a few quid.
24KWh a day? Oh boy that a lot to find.
I'm at about 180w base load over night, and that's from the wifi 4 node grid, 3 Ring cameras, Fridge, nightlights, 4 alexa and about a million items on standby.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
ouch, a missing 24kwh is.. a lot. You mentioned teenagers, are they running a crypto rig at your cost? Could potentially be a broken something? Time to dig in the back of all the appliances? I would absolutely be throwing those circuit breakers to find that. I have bought, but still not fitted an emporia smart monitor which might be a slightly less intrusive option?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08CJGPHL9 (other retailers are available etc)
My 'server' is really just a PC with win2019 on it, so I was able to fit this: The SilverStone Nightjar NJ450-SXL 450W SFX PSU Review: Passive Excellence. Because it is fanless and enclosed its actually stupidly over specced to keep it cool. Its not its 50-80% load I was looking at, it was the 5% that the server spends most of its time at that I looked at. Titanium plus spec PSU's are possibly available for your application?
I'll look at a storage option for the drying that could be charged up on cheap rate - thanks!
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
They've left home, so I only have to deal with their excess when they bring all their mates for a weekend's free-board-and-lodging!
Thanks, I'll take a look
Just over 9 months from ordering the solar and storage project is nearly complete. Just over 10kwp split equally east/west with 19kwh of storage. Also a new gen 2 Zappi and Eddi solar diverter (to follow when available). The inverter will also be switched out for the newer more powerful version when they finally reach the UK early next year.
The EPS gives full house back-up and switches automatically in less than 3 seconds. Not seamless but easily good enough as we have UPS on critical gear.
It's been a tortuous route but a very nice installation and a bargain at £16.5k compared to current prices. Good to finally get it over the line.
The EPS gives full house back-up and switches automatically in less than 3 seconds. Not seamless but easily good enough as we have UPS on critical gear.
It's been a tortuous route but a very nice installation and a bargain at £16.5k compared to current prices. Good to finally get it over the line.
Great info,. I need to get smart plugs. And find the power hungry device's.
One thing the wife likes is, wet cloths in the same room as the servers. They use about 300w all the time and the room sits at 22c with out any other form of heating.
I would like to get the base load of the house down to 500w - From 900w
Ordered a new server parts to replace 2 old ones back in April still waiting for the parts!
A few questions if I may.
You say it's a temporary inverter, which are you going to get? I'm quoted for the 5KW Gen 2 Hybrid.
Those batteries seem to be stood out from the wall, how thick is the bracket supporting them. Was it your choice to not have them on the floor?
Do you have anything to prevent drawing too much current if you have cut the house over to battery, the Giv Energy backup feed is limited to 3.6KW I think.
Looking very tidy, I bet your exhausted - I know I am! Are you batteries earthed to the inverter? Just to the side of the gen2 plug on the battery and underside right of the inverter?
I believe it's a Gen 1 currently installed as the availability of Gen 2 is poor.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I think this is ideal. My East PV starts producing useful power (enough to power the house) 30-60 minutes before the South array. I am planning to add West PV too. That will be 60 - 120 minutes more each day when PV available, which translates to 60 - 120 minutes of "overnight" that the battery does not have to support the house. Either makes for a smaller battery, or just more flexibility / more often that I succeed in zero-grid.
(I know some people start out thinking that lack of South aspect is a disadvantage, but they have only 50% of the roof to use as the North is useless, and I now think that East/West is far better)
We get a lot of powercuts here (Electricity Board has been saying they are going to retire the tired-knackered transformers "real soon now"). Without PowerWall Gateway every one of those would cost me time (working from home) waiting for internet to resume, and having to reset all the clocks on cookers - which have ovens that won't work until they are set - who thought that was a necessary feature? <sigh> Too much kit here, and spread about, for UPSs, so whole-house battery suits me very well. most of the country doesn't have an unstable grid though ...
I have TP Link Kasa (because it has ITTT which the cheaper TP Link Tapo don't have, but that's my only reason). They have power-logging ones and cheaper ones that are just "smart".
I found it easy to plug in a power logging smart plug, wait a day or two, and then review when power was used, and how much. Ask Father Christmas nicely perhaps?
I've bought some for stocking fillers for my (grown up) kids.I haven't found much that I can disable (we already have good habit for turn-off-at-wall, and out TVs all have isolation switches). But for anything hard to reach, or a forest of 13AMP extensions, a smart plug will definitely help. Also a "Goodnight" program can kill everything and then they can be turned back on when first needed -TV might not be until 6+PM tomorrow, and equivalent of "Alexa turn on Sonos" will do for some kitchen music during the day ...
"JFDI" I reckon
