The Intelligent Immersion i2 was also recently reduced in price to £199 and is now available with enhanced software that gives less export and a better looking but just as robust enclosure www.intelligent-immersion.co.uk
Discuss PV immersion heater proportional control in the Solar PV Forum | Solar Panels Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net
advertising wars!
Just done a trial on intelligent immersions latest unit. The unit is well built and survived my very old immersion going short circuit which is impressive. The performance is very good under all house power factor conditions which cannot be said of some rival units. I would be very nervous of solar immersions claims of only 5W export at 800W available as this cannot be achieved under normal power factor variations.http://solarimmersion.co.uk looks like a more professional unit and with the advanced features offered by Solarimmersion ( http://solarimmersion.co.uk ), the £29 more spend is really worth it.
Thushar, EWP and echase are all promoting THEIR OWN products, along with some very shill looking support posts.. But then I am a cinic, and will probably be berated as such
You'll find that the leading product is promoted by installers. (see my comment in the line above )
If you want to know who will be around in 5 years time to support their warranties look at the companies behind each of the various products, and see how long they have been in business and check their financials - do a credit report on each of them. Also check out their current record on support and warranty support - what does each provide to an installer if one needs replacing? Then make your own decisions.
You have a few to choose from
Solar Immersion
Solic 2000
ImmerSun
Intelligent Immersion
Sola Controlla
Open Energy Monitor
Solar Cache
Solar Divert 3000
And I know I've forgotten a couple of others.
Do your own research first.
Thanks! Good, but could somebody (preferably impartial) please quickly summarise above mentioned proportional controllers.
Particularly info like: burst fire / phase controller; possible flickering; internet connection (via Arduino or something similar); extra benefits if any...
If you could indicate price tag would be great although I can see some prices even on last couple of pages...
I believe there are more people like me seeking this kind of info in one place.
I'm following (but not regularly) this thread for a while but to be honest I've lost a continuity. I guess as these controllers are on the UK market they should meet certain criteria for the home installation. Is that a case for all of them?
I'm about to upgrade my old combi boiler for a new condensing boiler and I'm considering to install also immersion heater as a either main source of hot water (summer) or preheat (winter) unit for the combi boiler. Obviously I would like to use surplus from my solar PV (Juraj'sPV 2.850kW | Live Output) and I'm looking for the right proportional controller for me.
Already for a year or so I'm using Sailwider (Home Energy Monitoring and Control System Solar Version with automatic operation function) controller to control 3 remote sockets for a background heating in north facing rooms to my full satisfaction.
I just hope that I'll be able to continue to use it in conjunction with proportional controller. I'm not an electrician but I do not see any reason why it should not work.
My idea is that proportional controller will feed the immersion heater up to water temperature of 60 degree and then the rest will be spread by this Sailwider controller.
thanks in advance,
Juraj
.........snip
Already for a year or so I'm using Sailwider (Home Energy Monitoring and Control System Solar Version with automatic operation function) controller to control 3 remote sockets for a background heating in north facing rooms to my full satisfaction.
I just hope that I'll be able to continue to use it in conjunction with proportional controller. I'm not an electrician but I do not see any reason why it should not work.
My idea is that proportional controller will feed the immersion heater up to water temperature of 60 degree and then the rest will be spread by this Sailwider controller.
thanks in advance,
Juraj
Not really sure how the sailwider senses that it has available energy at its disposal, so I assume is via a CT, if so I think you may have an issue using any one of the Immersion Devices - as they may fight for use of the surplus energy and secondly do you have enough energy available for both systems |??
If you do you may find that its very seasonal when both can take advantage of surplus at somepoint during the shiny hours, but fight the rest of the time ?
Just a quick follow on since I made this initial suggestion, I've had a brief look at your PVo and your Sailwider seems to do a fairly good job of utilising your surplus, HOWEVER its lets you down on really sunny days as if you review 25 March - you simply dont utilise all available surplus...... therefore I think you need to findout how immersion systems would interact with your existing Sailwider before moving forward with one of them - that IMO maybe the weak link for you, unless you can do as I suggested previously.
snip....................
One thing I am not sure where can I clip the proportional sensor. Is it OK on the live between meter and solarimmersion as their picture shows?
I just remember when I was first time connecting all my energy monitors (3 of them) it took me a while to understand where to clip them. I could not clip it between meter and fuse box because it could not recognise whether I am exporting or importing. So I've end up with my fuse box full of clip sensors for energy monitors and Sailwider and no space left for anything else :-(
Any chance to answer the firsts part of my previous post about summarising available proportional controllers?
Unfortunately I do not have enough product knowledge of each device to give you a summary of each but a few suppliers have offered that information in various posts, some havent !
All I can tell you is in a normal situation - they all work and use surplus, supplied at different purchase costs, if you want to know finer details, you need to speak to both suppliers and some of their existing customers.
hth
ps> Note for all - to a certain degree there is a benefit of these devices in conjunction with OLD DNO meters - it will in the majority of cases stop the meter going backwards in naturally the right conditions - lol
I'm about to upgrade my old combi boiler for a new condensing boiler and I'm considering to install also immersion heater as a either main source of hot water (summer) or preheat (winter) unit for the combi boiler.
Juraj
If you want to know who will be around in 5 years time to support their warranties look at the companies behind each of the various products, and see how long they have been in business.
Anyone had a look at iBoost? Seems competitively priced and communication is wireless so no issues if the immersion is not on it's own circuit.
Solar iBoost - Free Hot Water From Your PV Array
Before you ask, no I don't work for Marlec or have any interest in the product!
echase on solution for you:
Pumped mains pressure (i.e permanently circulating) hot water is a commion feature in premises with long hot water pipe runs and is used a lot of commerical premises, ideally of course going through a thermal store, that way hot water is always hot instantaneously.You need effectively a 'ring main' of hot water pipes to do this of course.
danesol, has a trade price that is less that Immersun & Solic 200.
The key benefit for me is the wireless connection.
My last house had such a pumped system but it had been disconnected, presumably because of the heat losses from constantly circulating it in uninsulated pipes mostly buried in the concrete floor. Running its standard CH type pump all the time to circulate it can’t have been very energy efficient either.
I could do it on this house for the annex only, but would need a small pump and/or a control system to keep the losses down, e.g. turn it off when no occupancy/movement detected. Or detect the pressure drop when tap turned on and then starting the pump like caravans use. If it were a CH pump on full speed it would then pump the hot water to taps pretty quickly. Are there standard ways to control this?
My last house had such a pumped system but it had been disconnected, presumably because of the heat losses from constantly circulating it in uninsulated pipes mostly buried in the concrete floor. Running its standard CH type pump all the time to circulate it can’t have been very energy efficient either.
I could do it on this house for the annex only, but would need a small pump and/or a control system to keep the losses down, e.g. turn it off when no occupancy/movement detected. Or detect the pressure drop when tap turned on and then starting the pump like caravans use. If it were a CH pump on full speed it would then pump the hot water to taps pretty quickly. Are there standard ways to control this?
danesol, has a trade price that is less that Immersun & Solic 200.
The key benefit for me is the wireless connection.
Danesol, as is often stated on these threads, announcing trade prices is not very helpful; we all need to make a living. However I can see that Immersun is being offered on-line fitted for £495 including VAT and I am sure you could get the iBoost fitted for a similar price.
I am not quite sure how I am being pulled into a discussion about pricing, my original question was about iBoost and if anyone had any experience with it so perhaps we can discuss that. If you have I would be very interested to to hear! Alternatively, if you have experience of fitting another device that communicates wirelessly I would be very interested to hear about that too as this is my primary interest in this device.
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