Solar panel users

Could I please have an update on anyones solar panel types and preferences.

Is it really worthwhile with the new BER issues coming into fruition.

Is there a saving to be made.

I have a 300sq.m house & I need some recommedations.
 
Pope John 11 said:
Is it really worthwhile with the new BER issues coming into fruition.
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I dont understand what you mean by this?

Solar will improve your BER Rating. Tubes will improve it slightly more than Flat Panels. The orientation and pitch of the roof will also have a bearing on your BER. Shading also needs to be taken into account.

With the grant system still in place, a properly sized and correctly installed solar system system is a good investment IMHO.
 
Hi,

I have 4.2 SqM of Vacum tubes (2 panels of I think 12 tubes each) and a 210Litre tank.

At 9.05 this morning the roof temp was 40 Deg C.

You can see all of the data from my instalation at www.irishecoplumbing.com

In the interest of full disclosure, the company associated with the above website is run by a friend of mine, and the live solar data feed on the site comes from my house, but I have no financial association with the company.

I bought my system from rvr (www.rvr.ie) with whom I have no association but I was happy with the service and the system.

I should point out though that when the panels were first installed I was getting terrible performance, and discovered that the sensor on the panels was not seated in the sensor pocket correctly, once this was sorted the system worked fine. Solving this was actually pure chance but a long story for another time!
 

What do you reckon your annual savings are?
 
What do you reckon your annual savings are?
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Ah, now that is the question!

I have had the panels up since end of July last year, but I only fixed the sensor problem at the end of september, so I have no real "summer" data to go on.

There is no real answer to this question in my opinion - the more "wastefull" of energy you are, the more "cost savings" you can expect to get. I installed solar panels because I had to change the HW tank anyway (wrecked by hard water, now I have a softner), and it "appeared" to me that they were a bit of a no brainer. When I did some back of the fag packet maths before I got them, there was NO wasy I could financially justify the instalation. My ESB bill is approx €65 euro a month (of which 20 is standing charge), and I burn approx 1200 litres of oil a year, this for a 1700 sq ft house permenantly occupied (i.e. my wife and kid are there all day every day).
If I assume that 50% of my ESB units were used to heat water (not really the case I know!) then it would take about 14 years to recoup the capital instalation cost (discounting energy price fluctiaions, other use of the money etc. etc.)
I can't put a figure on the "change" in my energy bills since I installed the Solar, but what I can say absolutly is that the fact of installing it made us much more aware of our use of HW.
I have done some very basic analysis of the data I capture, and did find that between Octomer and march there was very few days where the solar made no contribution to the HW. One of the interesting things about it for me was that in the depths of winter the water entering the HW cylinder from the attic is very cold (about 10 deg. C) so any heat in the panels is pre-heating the water in the cylinder, lowering the amount of external energy that is needed to bring the temperature up to what we want.

That is a long post to say, I have no idea what difference it makes financially!
Les
 
Thanks Gtec.

Think I will wait until I need to replace my HW system before thinking about the Solar route and hopefully that is many years away!
 
chimpster said:
With the grant system still in place, a properly sized and correctly installed solar system system is a good investment IMHO.
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Could you please give us a few figures to justify that it is a good investment.
Cost to install, materials costs, savings against using oil/gas etc.

Agree that it will improve the BER rating of the house.

Gtec could you give us an indication of your costs and the size of your house, appreciate it
 
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Costs wise the solar system was around €3,500 (panels, tank, pump, controller and anti-freeze), piping, insulation fittings etc came to approx €500, and instalation cost me a website and a long hard days labour! (bartering still works).

I got a grant of €1260 from SEI.

The rest of the details are in my previous post about "cost savings".
 
Just wondering are solars worth the money? I am just starting to investigate the use of solars, but already i am coming up with figures of about 6000, but i think this could go to 7000, this includes installation. Because our solars will be on the garage roof and cylinder in house, it will cost us a bit extra for the piping. Assuming they will provide free hot from about may - sep, and contributing for the couple months around this, how long before we would get 7000 worth of free hot water?
The house is 3070ft in the north west, so if anyone has any advice it would be greatly accepted. Tks
 
Just heard an ad on Newstalk for Carey Glass Solar, manufactured in Ireland apparently. Looking into getting one myself from an eco point of view but not good a the technical stuff so will be giveing them a call. LS.
 
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