OP
pauldreed
It's a quick fix, but not a very efficient one!Hi all, Im new to this forum and have read everything with great interest. I was due to have a 4 Kw system fitted today but been put back to next Thursday. I have been looking for ways of optimising my consumption of my PV output and accept that using it to heat water and store it seems a good idea. The point I raise is a standard 36" x 18" cylinder will have about 25 gallons of water and from cold will take less than an hour to be heated to 65 degs. What are you going to do with the rest of your output on a clear long summers day?
My first thought was to use a low power element in the very bottom of the cylinder, say 400 watts, and using a timer, and the output profile, have the element switched on during peak hours, say 1000 to 1500 for a south facing roof. this should heat the water without importing any power from the grid and allow other surplus to be consumed by other activities.
Just a thought!
If you check my solar power graph for today you will see that for the majority of the day my 3.3kw system has generated less than 200W, with a short peak for a few minutes up to 800W. Now if you check the Home Power Usage graph you will see that for the majority of the time home appliances have used all of that solar power - and more besides!
A quick check of the Accumulated Heater Power graph shows that today, only 5Wh of power was switched to my immersion heater.
So my point is that if you used a simple timer, the vast majority of the immersion heater power used today would be drawn from the grid as chargeable units, especially if you were running any other appliances at the same time.
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