Illustration courtesy of Homepower Magazine
The Solar PV installation is now up and running. The system was tested for a week or so by A Shade Greener then the scaffolding removed.
On a bright, sunny day we can knock out about 2.5-3.2 KW in the middle of the day and even in cloudy conditions it covers our normal consumption of 500-700 Watts.
We're getting used to operating power-hungry equipment like the washing machine and dishwasher in the middle of the day instead of overnight on timers - years of Economy 7 training!
The output from the panels is displayed on an OWL energy monitor - it can become addictive if the weather is variable, watching the KW being pumped into the house. Gloomy days now are low in our popularity stakes but a bit of sunshine brings the joy only known to Microgeneration households!
See Wikipedia for enlightenment.
The monitor clips to the roof panels AC feed to the house consumer unit, and transmits a wireless signal to the display unit. We have another similar display that shows total power taken by the house, so we can tell if the solar panels are producing enough at any one time and also if we are exporting to the national grid if an excess is generated.
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