Running an AGA on Solar electricity

We have had many queries over the years asking if we can arrange a system that will use the Solar PV electricity to run an AGA cooker. As any AGA owner will know, this device is the one big consumer of electricity/gas or oil in any household. They are beautiful cooking and heating devices, but boy, they do eat the utility bills! Eco they are not!

I've recently met up with Malcolm Stickler who runs a company specifically to install electronic free electric heaters to AGA's . These are compatible with Immersun's and most other add on PV power diversion devices.

People who already have a PV power diversion device for their hot water will know the massive savings they can make simply by using that spare power that would have been exported to the grid sent to the immersion heater. This exact technology can now be safely used on an AGA.

You will need to have the conversion carried out by Malcolms crew, who cover the whole of the UK. The cost is £1950 + VAT and entails replacing the existing oil/ gas or electric heater with a complete custom new module.

However, for maximum effectiveness, you'll need a 4kwp south facing solar PV system, possibly even bigger to cope with the low winter light levels. As well as getting Government Feed in Tariff payments, you'll be running your AGA for far less cost than you could believe possible previously!

This is just one way you can use more of your generated solar PV power thus getting great value for money out your investment.

For a solar PV quote in the South West UK, call Rudge Energy on 01392 368724

For the AGA conversion, call: 01278 769802

Not much time left for the Solar Feed in Tariff?

Small commercial Solar

After new money saving measures announced by Amber Rudd on behalf of the Government over the past few days, renewables have been hit quite hard and are calculated to end solar PV funding as soon as possible. This will rid the Government of what
is now considered a funding headache. With the Green Deal, and other green funding knocked on the head, will small scale solar PV systems be next on the chopping block?...


If the Government can knock Solar FiT on the head, then most of this money will simply be flipped over to subsidise Nuclear power. More power for the National Grid needs to be found somewhere! Some years ago I noticed that in Gov press releases, Nuclear became renamed as a 'low carbon' power source. It can be seen as such, with a high health risk and a very hard to dispose of end product.. When operating correctly, in that squeakily fine balance between high efficiency and disaster, nuclear will provide a lot of power on a small geographic footprint, 24 hours a day... With a very low operational carbon footprint and extremely high operational cost. All to be funded by diverting our money from elsewhere.

Going back to Feed in Tariffs though.. When on April 1st 2016 the large scale ROC (renewable obligation certificate), scheme comes to an end, there will be a large bunch of investment funded companies kicking around with nothing to do, who have made a living from bleeding the the Government ROC scheme dry. Many of these companies are based offshore, thus UK money is going elsewhere. A scenario not considered by the Government all those years ago.

These companies on 1st April, will be determined not to be foolish enough to simply close up shop and go away.. I strongly expect that this Monday morning, after the usual moral boosting meeting,  sales guys will be moving over to finding large rooftops to populate with solar under the Feed in Tariff scheme. This will be disaster for Solar PV. Calculated by Government advisors, as if that gets played out, the smaller solar installers bread and butter will be killed off by the middle of the year when a massive degression is announced, reducing Feed in Tariff to such a small rate, it will not be worth installing... There goes the industry! Or maybe Amber Rudd will simply kill it all off before next year anyway?

Of course, people will still want solar to keep their power bills down, but realistically, the drive of the Feed in Tariff needs to keep the industry buoyant for a few more years until power bills take a few more price hikes and make people actually realise that simply making your own power is the way to go, even without FiT. By that time searching for someone to install PV properly will be difficult.

To my thinking, the easiest and best fix will be to limit FiT installations to sub 50kW systems, thus limit FiT payments and make it available for the people that actually need it .. Oh, and stop subsidising Nuclear and Fossil fuel production of course!!

Off Grid in the middle of the city?

A recent installation we have completed is possibly the most curious and exciting, an Off Grid power system in the East End of London, not far from either docklands or the Olympic site at Stratford and smack in the middle of thousands of grid connected houses.

The reason is all for the sake of art!

Chisenhale Gallery were needing an off grid system to operate a specific set of equipment as part of an art installation. This installation operates 2 projectors and a sound system for 6-7 hours a day, and is the featured exhibition until the end of August 2015, see later.

Using our standard Off Grid calculator and also being re assured that the installation will only be run during the Summer months, we were able to use standard Victron Easy Solar, 6 @ 250Wp solar modules and a 600Ah battery set. This will run the system for 6 hours even on a cloudy day in August.

To complement the installation, it has been installed into a cage to provide an industrial aspect, plus of course keeping prying fingers away from the switches too!

If you are around in the area, go and see the installation at Chisenhale Gallery Nicholas Mangan's exhibition is running till the end of August.

At the end of the August, this complete installation is being sold on. The system generates enough power to run a small economic Off Grid house with ease. We will be storing and shipping it all from Devon. If you are looking for a ready to go Solar Based Off Grid system that has the provenance of being used at an esteemed art exhibition, email me for all the details. We can install if for you too!

Another Solar PV system for the RNLI

Our recent completion in time for the April FiT drop, of a 133kWp Solar PV system on the RNLI Lifeboat Support Centre in Poole will not only massively reduce their power bills, but will provide the Nations favourite charity with healthy Feed in Tariff payments for the next 20 years, not to mention a far lower carbon footprint in line with new legislation coming soon.

Using leading edge solar technology to get maximum efficiency for the RNLI, no matter what the weather conditions! We have used the new SMA Sunny Tripower 60kW inverters for efficient power conversion, negating the need for an array of smaller inverters where inefficiencies can cumulate to result in lower performance. See SMA Website for more information on these inverters. This RNLI project is the largest rooftop system so far to use the Tripower 60's .

For the rooftop, we chose JA Solar 285 Percium Monocrystalline modules that offer a really good output for the square meterage we had available on the Support Centre roof. Getting 133kWp onto the roof AND leaving the required service boundaries around roof lights and man safe systems made the JA 285's the only choice to use for staying within budget.

The RNLI's Lifeboat Support Centre is the national hub for all engineering and service warehousing, operating a 24 hour a day service to ensure the downtime of any lifeboat malfunctions kept at a minimum. The electrical standing load of the premises is pretty much the same as any larger office premises. Due to this, the payback period of this new PV system will be within 6 years, with another 14 years of lower power bills and FiT payments coming in. It's a brilliant long term investment for the RNLI to support their lifesaving operations.

Biomass RHI degression

I've just had a notice from the MCS people alerting that the RHI may be subject to degression in January 2015.

Though a degression was anticipated, this early timing was not and will be a shame, as the RHI only goes some of the way to pay for a decent Biomass system at the moment and only if using cheaper low end biomass boilers such as MCZ or Red.

As most interested parties have now found, the RHI is not anywhere near the incentive that was promised. Once the cost of a Green Deal Assessment and loss of earnings in taking time off work for contractors is taken into account, the payout will not get anywhere near paying for a boiler change in 7 years.

The RHI promise will only work out if oil prices rapidly rise, over the last year though oil prices have fallen around 20%.. Though strangely (and predictably) this lower cost has not been passed onto the consumer… So that RHI plus oil price financial model is not working out, thus slowly killing off any domestic biomass installation and supply companies.

Transcript of the MCS notice today:

Dear MCS Biomass Installer,

We would like to make you aware of the latest announcement from DECC concerning a potential degression in the biomass Domestic RHI tariff, which, if triggered, would come into effect on 1st January 2015.

The statement from DECC in the most recent review said, “For biomass, forecast expenditure increased by £1.0m in September, and as at 30 September 2014 is £4.0m. This is £0.2m below its 31 October 2014 degression trigger of £4.2m. If this trigger is surpassed, then a 10 per cent reduction to the domestic biomass tariff will be announced in next month’s quarterly forecast (to be published by 1 December 2014), to come into effect on 1 January 2015.”  Please go to https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/domestic-rhi-mechanism-for-budget-management-estimated-commitments#history for the full degression report.

This potential degression would only apply to applications submitted from 1st January 2015 by new applicants. Those already receiving payments will not be affected, neither will legacy applicants (those who installed before  9 April 2014). We would remind those with consumers in the legacy group, that they have until 8 April 2015 in which to apply to Ofgem; after which the window for legacy applicants will close.

MCS would like to remind all installers:

·         To register all certificates within 10 working days of the commissioning date.

• That MCS certificates must only be issued once the system is fully commissioned. Installers should not be tempted to issue them in advance to help a client ‘beat’ degression.

·         The timescales around processing Extended Access requests will not change. All these requests should be received well in advance of the degression date.

·         That the applicable domestic RHI tariff rate will be based on the date that an eligible and complete application is submitted to Ofgem, not the commissioning date of the MCS installation certificate. A complete application submitted to Ofgem must include valid MCS , EPC and GDAR certificates and applicant bank details.  Please ensure your customer is aware of this and that you have provided all paperwork to them in advance of the deadline. 

·         To please advise consumers to speak with the Energy Saving Advice Service on 0300 123 1234 (pre application enquiries) or the domestic RHI line at Ofgem on 0300 003 0744 (post application enquiries) to discuss any concerns or queries they may have about RHI payments. MCS cannot answer these questions.

·         That MCS will likely see an increase in enquiries during this period so please be aware that you may experience longer queuing times on the phones. If your enquiry is not urgent, we would strongly recommend emailing the helpdesk (mcs@gemserv.com) for a response and we will process enquiries as soon as possible.

Solic 200 Immersion Heater divert unit

In the quest to test as many of the current Immersion Heater controllers that let you use all your excess PV generated power, I got hold of a Solic 200 Immersion controller to try out.

My first impression was that unlike most of the other Immersion Controllers that are on the market, this little unit was really basic, a box with 3 lights! No digital display or other high technology to be seen.

Opening the unit, I found a circuit board with a decent set of connection terminals, and plenty of space for manoeuvring cables. One end of the housing is used for cable entry through pre made 20mm holes, plenty big enough for up to 6mm cable.

Though the unit is supplied with blind grommets to pop into the cable access holes, you could also use 20mm compression glands, which fit nicely and would hold the cables in place.

On my test installation, the house has a 2kWp solar PV and a 150ltr hot water cylinder.

As with many other Immersion controllers, the Solic 200 needs to be installed by the main consumer unit (fuse box), and have access to the main incoming ‘tails’ from the electricity meter.

As you will see from the inside view photo, the instructions are really not needed for the wiring, as all is printed inside, so wiring was simplicity itself.

I needed to remove the Immersion heater feed cable from inside the consumer unit MCB, and extend with another piece of 2.5mm T&E cable to reach the Solic200 location. Another length of 2.5mm T&E cable was cut to connect the Solic200 incoming power back onto the MCB inside the consumer unit.

Ensure all Earth connections are insulated and connected inside the Consumer unit and Solic200.!!

That was it for wiring!.. Though this installation was a test and cable dressing was not at the top of the list, I had the installation completed  in 15 minutes. So easy!

Before switch on, the current clamp needs to be installed. The Solic200 current clamp cable is about a metre long and the clamp needs to be clipped around the live incoming cable. If there is enough space, you can do this inside the consumer unit, but outside is easier if you can get to it.

Switch on .. Checking the instructions first, I was pleased to find that I just needed to make sure the hot water tank needed heating up, thus the immersion would be heating, and switch the PV system off.

Switching on, the unit goes through a self check and makes sure you have the current clip the right way. Once a green and red LED are lit, I switched the PV system back on. After 3 minutes the third LED lit up green to show power is being fed into the Immersion heater.. That’s it!

I found the unit really easy to install. Though there are no little extras that other units such as the Immersun2 will have, the Solic200 has been designed by a seasoned MOD electronics designer to quick and easy to operate. Once in place, it will be soldier proof!

The only user interface control that will get used is a handy 30minute immersion heater Boost button.

Conclusion .. The test Solic200 has been running for over a month now during the summer 2014, and has provided a tank of hot water every day from a 2kWp PV system. There is no indication of just how much power is being sent to the immersion heater, nor any display besides the green or red lights, but this is reflected in the cost of around £225 for the DIY install. An installer should not charge more than £100 to carry out an installation, as its so easy.

For people who simply want a ‘fit and forget’ device, the Solic200 does this very well, being inexpensive in comparison to other types.

The only thing I found annoying during the installation were the tiny lid fixing screws which are inserted at the ends and easily lost. Other than this, I can see the whole unit has been thought through for minimum hassle installation and low cost.

More info  I missed out information on the alternative operating mode, as I feel this would not get used so much, but you can find all the information on the unit, with stockists at www.earthwiseproducts.co.uk

Immersun 2 in use

After the last post before Christmas, giving you an overview of the new Immersun 2 unit and comparing to the older, smaller and less expensive Immersun version 1, we thought it a far better idea to simply do a quick video of an Immersun 2 features in use.. So much more succinct than hundreds of words!.
As our guy Richard at the office was the first to get one installed at his house, despite the murky winter weather which will not provide a massive PV output, he has put together this video to run you through the main features