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One of our website visitors, Matt, has recently had a 1.5kW solar pv array installed on the roof of his house by Dulas Ltd . He's very happy with it so far, but told us it was a bit of a struggle to make it happen - so here's his account of the highs and lows of getting solar power on your home. getting the grantsDulas sent me a self survey form which I promptly filled in and returned to them.
But then in January an email arrived from Dulas saying that because of
the complete mess the DTI is making of the grants system they wouldn’t
be able to complete domestic installations -the chances of
getting a grant were too slim. Undeterred, I e-mailed them back and assured them that if anyone will doggedly sit up all
night trying to secure a grant, it is me. After some persuasion they finally agreed to quote because of my insistence...they kind of
believed I’d get a grant! getting the wiring sortedWith the grant in the bag, Mark from Dulas Ltd arrived on the 4th April in advance of the main kit to complete the internal wiring.
This was impressive - the invertor and requisite isolators went up in the loft, and he managed to seamlessly feed the cabling down through the house, and hook it up via another isolator and energy meter (see left) into my fuse board. This took about 6 hours in all. I can’t emphasise enough how valuable it was having a very experienced electrician to do the job. Walking around the inside of the house, you'd have no idea there was a renewable energy system installed at all! the panels arrive
By 4.30pm all twelve panels were on and connected up to the invertor. The following morning the system was tested and finally signed off. In all the install took about two days. performance outputSince the system started generating we've had an average of about 7kWh a day, with a maximum output of 1632W so far, not bad for a system rated at 1560w. I’m signing up to the Good Energy’s Home Generation scheme and so far I’ve generated £2.52 at 4.5p per kWh. the componentsThe quality of kit installed is excellent - the wireless Fronius display gives a constant feed of data and displays everything produced now, that day, the year and since installation.  I’ve even taken the display unit down the road to see if it still picks up and it does...nearly 200 metres away! The invertor automatically starts up and shuts down when it can’t generate enough to keep itself going. When shut down it doesn't use any power, but still manages to know when the sun is up! We're very happy with the whole system and feel that the entire experience has been in no small part due to getting an experienced installer. The PV array and system consists of:
comments (9)
Matt Elphinstone-Walker
said:
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The first step was to make sure the house was up to scratch in terms of energy efficiency, which is one of the criteria for getting the government grants (eg you must have energy saving light bulbs). I'd been disappointed a few years ago by some low quality bulbs from Ikea so I was pleased to find the ones available these days are much better and it was easy to convert the house to low-energy lighting. We also made sure the roof was well-insulated.
On
the 1st March the £500,000 allocated to the Low Carbon Buildings Program ran out in just 70
minutes. I logged onto the application website at
8.50am and just kept refreshing the page until
it allowed me to make an application. I got the grant
application approved at 9.12am. So my tip is, make sure you’ve got all the information you need
prepared, and keep hitting that refresh button! 
On the 16th April the Dulas team were back to install the roof system. I had a mad panic when my scaffolding didn’t turn up when expected but all was fine by the time the 
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Hi Mike, sounds as if with ROC and 10per/kW you could be getting about the same deal over all. Hovever I'd personally rather sit in the dark than go with E.on. They are trying desperately to build the UK's first new coal fired power station in 30 years. Its absolute madness, what is the point of the likes of us trying to do our bit in lowering emissions when the "winds of change" type greenwashers such as E.on can do things like this! As a quick update currently at 1208kw so already beat the estimated 1170kw for the year and hopefully 3 more sunny days to go! Sorry for the rant but I think the only way we can force companies like E.on to be more sustainable is to move away and let them know why! |
Michael Orton
said:
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Thanks for the post Matt, nice to know. Eon (ex-Powergen) are paying us just over 10p/kWhr, but that is for energy exported rather than generated. Your deal may be better, but we will qualify for a ROC this year and I don't think you keep yours. I suspect the power companies are deliberartly keeping the sums complex! |
Matt Elphinstone-Walker
said:
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As of 28 Feb 08 had generated 1047.6Kw so after the wet summer not too bad. It remains to be seen if I get to the 1170kw by 17 April 08, have to generate on average 2.5kw a day to get to the target. Average so far is 3.3Kw a day so quietly confident to smash 1170Kw!!!! As of October last year Good-energy now pay me 9p per kw generated. which has doubled the income from the array. I've also made contact with a local renewable installer now, and on my recommendation has managed to procure the services of the solar installer/electrician who installed my array. So if you want a quality install I can guarantee one now! Not going to plug said company but if anyone wants the details let me know. |
Michael Orton
said:
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I've graphed the ouput of our solar panels over about 13 months at www.conteck.demon.co.uk/green3.htm . In an ideal world it would have been a sine wave - you can see the bite taken out of it by the poor weather this summer! |
imdad hussain
said:
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dear sir/madam . we are building two new house and need help in building . please kindly we need your help and advices can yo email plaes |
Matt
said:
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Hi Brian I can't take the credit for the website that's all down to Toby the nice guys here at bettergeneration. First thing I can tell you is google! you can find lots out about the panels and inverters but to be honest, get yourself a good installer and you should be able to rely on them to do the work for you, I assure you, you will be paying them for it anyway! You can always ask Toby for my e-mail address and I'll gladly take you through the jargon. The government recently assured us that the grants scheme will be fully funded till it ends by giving it more money.......and massively cutting the grants! Unfortunately you can now only get a max £2500 towards your system regardless of its size. The grants are from www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk Unless you can convince the installer that you have the funds most companies like Dulas who installed my system, will probably pass you onto a smaller company. So if you want a company like Dulas be persistent and keep at them, it worked for me. All the best with your project and if you need any other help or any questions give Toby a ring and im sure he'd pass my e-mail on to you. |
Brian Croydon
said:
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Hi Mat, would just like to say excellent website and the project looks very good indeed, I would like to know how and where you started to find out about the different panels and where to get advice and buy them from. Also do you have to shop around for the best " grant " or does everyone get the same grant, Many thanks, Brian. |
toby @ better generation
said:
| For the sake of comparison, a typical UK household uses between 4000 and 5000 kWh a year. You can check your electricity bill to find out what you've used. So if Matt's solar panel does produce over 1000 kWh in its first year, that could constitute a quarter of his bill. With energy efficiency measures too, it could be more than a quarter. |
on behalf of matt
said:
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This from Matt - As of today its generated 474.5Kw April 17th-30th: 84Kw May: 158Kw June: 163Kw July: so far 69.5Kw That works out at 5.04Kw a day since installation, never generated less than 1kw per day and max 10kw in a day. Still very happy with it though, have just got a 1Kw immersion heater in replacement of the standard 3kw version. So when the panels are outputting the necessary juice and we are at work, they can heat water. Normally they predict that my array should produce 1170kw in a year based on 75% of peak output, looking at April I thought I'll beat that, but now I'm not so sure I'll come close. It all depends on how the rest of the year goes. |
