Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Renewable Reality

We have recently had solar installed with a 6kW inverter and the license was granted by the network provider no problem. It’s working well and of course payback is now pretty good with the current buy-in tariffs even though the SEG rates remain pathetic.

A friend in a different area applied for the same size of system and SSE refused it unless the inverter was limited to 3.8kW, which makes the whole financial and practical justification unattractive. However they did say if he would contribute £30k-£40k to upgrading the local network they would accept 6kW!

Just another example of the disconnect between reality and our future energy utopia.

Needless to say, he’s pretty hacked off and writing a few letters.

Undersizing the inverter may not lose as much power as you might think. On my 6Kw array they installed a 4kw inverter with an estimate that we would lose 18kw due to clipping. (But after I set up a routine to monitor how often my system clipped they did swap it for a 5kw to stop my moaning) if intrested in battery storage DC batteries also fix the problem.

The infrastructure of the grid network was designed originally to only provide power to homes. The distribution network operator sets an invertor limit therefore for single phase homes of 3.68 kW to control excess solar power exports. Above this special permission is required from the DNO dependant on local distribution infrastructure.

Richard beat me to it .... since its inception the electricity network has been a distribution network ... like a tree ... big thick trunk near the power station with decreasingly sized branches down to the twigs that feed the consumer ... it's unrealistic to expect that system to slam into reverse over a handful of years because home generation has become suddenly available as an easy package for those with the means.

My long-standing system has no grid connection with the power being generated and used on site ... though the feed-in situation may develop, my view is that the aim should be for producer/consumers to utilise most/all of their energy on site with minimal feed-in of the surplus. ... heat storage, battery banks etc all need developing in a way that makes them viable for real-world domestic use rather than viewing domestic solar installations as a way of winding your leccy bill backwards.

K

I seem to remember a bit of chat some years back when a then new housing estate was being built and that diversity factor calculations in cable sizing allowed for circa 6 amps per house... ?

It occurs to me that step down transformers on local distribution wouldn't take kindly to their flow being reversed if there wasn't some control.

That would barely power my toothbrush

Perhaps they meant 6Kw? .... back when I set my system up I know that 6Kw was all the capacity left available on the local supply should I have wanted to connect to the mains.

K

You may be correct K, BUT..? Who said there is a chance that lot of misinformation on the interweb... 6kw seems far more plausable..
Being somewhat of the mindset of self reliance, some years back I had the opportunity to acquire both an old school hand crank/electric start diesel generator, batteries a plenty, and living just outside the edge of suburbia on a former pic farm, I did give it some thought, but in the end gave into convenience....!
Today with the advances in technology, in terms of solar generation linked to wall mounted storage panels and the ability to also use an electric car as storage would work well in my situation with less noise smell and garage space being taken up with an old diesel gen set fuel storage, glass cells change over switch gear etc.etc.etc.... Yeah well seems I am perhaps more a selective Luddite than true to the cause

Given our possible life span at this moment on a cost benefit analysis, the sums just do not add up.... Though on saving the planet, in my most recent home extension, (jeez it it realy circa 7 years since i finished it) the sun room acts as a heat source able to heat half the house on sunny days and the rest of the house old and more recent, has had a fair bit of time and effort put into upgrading insulation to a considerable extent.. Yeah I have had a busy few decades...

Just to add that I was told by a very reliable person who is at the centre of these thingsthat no domestically produced electricity from solar panels reaches the grid.
He told me that all such electricity is lost at the first substation it meets, dissipated as heat.
His description was that the grid is like a river and the flow to your house branches off that river. Trying to "swim against the flow" of the current is impossible. It was set up to deliver not collect.
His evidence, as it were, was that any reference to flow to grid and all the payments made to the public in this regard are labelled "notional" and that it was very easy to discover this.
He further claimed that all the credits etc. were just there to persuade us to create energy for our own use.
He (even) further told me that even the big solar panel farms have difficulty getting electricity into the grid and that new solar farms were being targeted not at this objective but at the idea of supplying a local need. His example was the latest solar farms which are situated adjacent to and supply a block of, say, council offices or other business users who will use the power as it is produced during the day and not demand when the sun goes down.
Nick