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Supply and Fit Solar Electric
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petermeachem
- CVO Senior
- Posts: 253
- Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2003 10:32 am
Supply and Fit Solar Electric
Do you know anyone who knows what they are doing with Solar Electric. I need to get 2 or 3 more quotes.
Solar
Peter, do you mean solar water heaters?
If so, you should give Fernanda Jacob in Lagoa a tinkle (00351) 282 353 320 - they install SolarHart and Edwards systems
If so, you should give Fernanda Jacob in Lagoa a tinkle (00351) 282 353 320 - they install SolarHart and Edwards systems
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petermeachem
- CVO Senior
- Posts: 253
- Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2003 10:32 am
Peter,
There are specific companies that supply such system, I will try and get you a contact.
As far as economy goes and aside from the aesthetic aspect of having large panel surfaces and an extra house just for the photovoltaic (sp) cells, these systems have been prooven to be so expensive, that you can happily purchase normal electricity for over a decade for the money you will be investing. That does not account for repair costs that will also inevitably pop up over the years.
There are specific companies that supply such system, I will try and get you a contact.
As far as economy goes and aside from the aesthetic aspect of having large panel surfaces and an extra house just for the photovoltaic (sp) cells, these systems have been prooven to be so expensive, that you can happily purchase normal electricity for over a decade for the money you will be investing. That does not account for repair costs that will also inevitably pop up over the years.
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petermeachem
- CVO Senior
- Posts: 253
- Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2003 10:32 am
Except that in our case the nearest electricity mains is around 10km away, so we have no choice.
The two I know of are http://www.solar-blaser.com/portugues/index_po.html and http://www.ffsolar.com/index_uk.html . I'd just like to get a couple more prices.
The two I know of are http://www.solar-blaser.com/portugues/index_po.html and http://www.ffsolar.com/index_uk.html . I'd just like to get a couple more prices.
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Homme Poco
- CVO Master
- Posts: 509
- Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:26 pm
- Location: CVO/Norfolk
- Contact:
Solar Electric
Hello Pete
Did you have any luck with the solar electric.Have been told that it can be installed for about 25K Euros and the excess power can be sold back to the grid(two way meter) for about 300Euros per month.In theory could pay for itself in 10 years,in reality ,does this happen?
Anybody else have any experience or leads ?
Many thanks.
HP
Did you have any luck with the solar electric.Have been told that it can be installed for about 25K Euros and the excess power can be sold back to the grid(two way meter) for about 300Euros per month.In theory could pay for itself in 10 years,in reality ,does this happen?
Anybody else have any experience or leads ?
Many thanks.
HP
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Homme Poco
- CVO Master
- Posts: 509
- Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:26 pm
- Location: CVO/Norfolk
- Contact:
Thanks Pete
This is going to be a fairly big house (and pool) though,approx 4oom2+.
Also all electric,apart from a wood burner.
We have enough area,so we thought we would go for it,so any names or leads would be great.The price I mentioned was just off the top of the architect's head,if you have someone who could do it much cheaper ,then great.
I shall look forward to your wife's input.
My memory's like your's(too much Holstein at an early age!!!!!)
Thanks again.
HP
This is going to be a fairly big house (and pool) though,approx 4oom2+.
Also all electric,apart from a wood burner.
We have enough area,so we thought we would go for it,so any names or leads would be great.The price I mentioned was just off the top of the architect's head,if you have someone who could do it much cheaper ,then great.
I shall look forward to your wife's input.
My memory's like your's(too much Holstein at an early age!!!!!)
Thanks again.
HP
Solar Power Installations
Grid tie applications are already 100% over the government applied quota which they base on the EDP grid capability. It could be years before new grid tie installation applications will receive approval.
However this is not a problem for stand alone installations but capital cost can be an issue as there is very little assistance with this from the government - there is, I believe, a tax allowance of up to €2.800 which can be applied against capital purchase each tax year - the implication here is that you buy some of your equipment in one year and the rest the next year to gain the most benefit. An additional benefit is the 12% IVA rate on renewable energy systems rather than 21%.
Despite the cost implications solar power is great! Quiet, clean, almost dependable (for 300 days a year?), stable and not subject to fluctuations due to international tensions and oil supplies. Subject to your generating capacity and storage you no longer have to follow the family around turning off lights!
A family home with the normal appliances will require around 23KWh of power but when you add a borehole, water pump and swimming pool pump this could easily reach 32KWh and this is likely to set you back around €32.000 - either way you are looking at payback periods of around 20 years.
If you can avoid storing power in very large and expensive batteries by using the main appliances whilst the sun shines you can minimise the expenditure. Replacement batteries also are likely to be the main expense over time - you will get what you pay for with these!
However this is not a problem for stand alone installations but capital cost can be an issue as there is very little assistance with this from the government - there is, I believe, a tax allowance of up to €2.800 which can be applied against capital purchase each tax year - the implication here is that you buy some of your equipment in one year and the rest the next year to gain the most benefit. An additional benefit is the 12% IVA rate on renewable energy systems rather than 21%.
Despite the cost implications solar power is great! Quiet, clean, almost dependable (for 300 days a year?), stable and not subject to fluctuations due to international tensions and oil supplies. Subject to your generating capacity and storage you no longer have to follow the family around turning off lights!
A family home with the normal appliances will require around 23KWh of power but when you add a borehole, water pump and swimming pool pump this could easily reach 32KWh and this is likely to set you back around €32.000 - either way you are looking at payback periods of around 20 years.
If you can avoid storing power in very large and expensive batteries by using the main appliances whilst the sun shines you can minimise the expenditure. Replacement batteries also are likely to be the main expense over time - you will get what you pay for with these!
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Homme Poco
- CVO Master
- Posts: 509
- Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:26 pm
- Location: CVO/Norfolk
- Contact:
Solar Power Supplier / Installer
I will send you a PM to save advertising on the Forum!
Last edited by jimc on Tue Oct 25, 2005 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeap! Thats what our electricity meter shows.
As for the number of panels that's tricky to be exact because it depends how finicky you are about not running out of power when a cloud or two come over.
I would suggest 15 x BP 175W panels for each 10KWh required per day!
Whilst panel ratings suggest an achievable figure in perfect conditions it is unlikely that you will see the full rated output very often. Also the amount of energy you can extract from the sunlight depends on the time of year - for the Algarve we would work on an average of around 4.5 sun hours per day - many more in summer of course but you still need power in winter. Given that you can minimise irrigation and pool pumping in the Winter you can assume that the extra power you get in the Summer can be used for these tasks. That leaves you with trying to generate 20KWh per day in the Winter months (for an average house) plus a bit more to cover the cloudy days but this must then be stored in batteries.
Hence 15 x 175 x 4.5 = 11.812KWh
So we are talking, for a complete installation, of 30 x 175W panels for which you then need a couple of Maximum Power Point controllers, at least a large inverter (5Kw with overload of 10Kw) and loads of BIG batteries - a 12v 200Ah battery will store around 2.4KWh of which you really only want to use 25% to ensure long battery life. To store a full 20KWh for a cloudy day you could require up to 100 batteries and even the low-cost ones will make this investment around €10.000 (however it is unusual to get a completely cloudy day and the batteries will not suffer too much if they are drained a bit more now and again so around 50 batteries will be OK).
You could also go for a solar tracker - they are quite big and some people don't like the look but I love them - a bit of camoflage paint over the silver coloured 8" support borehole pipe and you'd never know it was there! This keeps the panels pointing directly towards the sun and will possibly gain you around 30% power.
So this all mounts up - BUT - this would provide you with the sort of level of service you would probably be used to if you lived with mains power and turned things on when you wanted rather than when the generator / supplies wanted you to. You can help a lot in reducing the initial cost if you change your habits - do the washing machine loads when the sun is out etc. This saves the need for power storage and reduces the standby load for cloudy days.
You might also consider changing the irrigation system so that it delivers water below the surface rather than over the top - not only is this more efficient but it will allow watering during the day.
From experience it will take a few weeks to educate the family into new ways but it's fab seeing the sun and knowing everything is running and not actually costing anything (apart from lost interest - negligible in Portugal - on the capital of course).
As for the number of panels that's tricky to be exact because it depends how finicky you are about not running out of power when a cloud or two come over.
I would suggest 15 x BP 175W panels for each 10KWh required per day!
Whilst panel ratings suggest an achievable figure in perfect conditions it is unlikely that you will see the full rated output very often. Also the amount of energy you can extract from the sunlight depends on the time of year - for the Algarve we would work on an average of around 4.5 sun hours per day - many more in summer of course but you still need power in winter. Given that you can minimise irrigation and pool pumping in the Winter you can assume that the extra power you get in the Summer can be used for these tasks. That leaves you with trying to generate 20KWh per day in the Winter months (for an average house) plus a bit more to cover the cloudy days but this must then be stored in batteries.
Hence 15 x 175 x 4.5 = 11.812KWh
So we are talking, for a complete installation, of 30 x 175W panels for which you then need a couple of Maximum Power Point controllers, at least a large inverter (5Kw with overload of 10Kw) and loads of BIG batteries - a 12v 200Ah battery will store around 2.4KWh of which you really only want to use 25% to ensure long battery life. To store a full 20KWh for a cloudy day you could require up to 100 batteries and even the low-cost ones will make this investment around €10.000 (however it is unusual to get a completely cloudy day and the batteries will not suffer too much if they are drained a bit more now and again so around 50 batteries will be OK).
You could also go for a solar tracker - they are quite big and some people don't like the look but I love them - a bit of camoflage paint over the silver coloured 8" support borehole pipe and you'd never know it was there! This keeps the panels pointing directly towards the sun and will possibly gain you around 30% power.
So this all mounts up - BUT - this would provide you with the sort of level of service you would probably be used to if you lived with mains power and turned things on when you wanted rather than when the generator / supplies wanted you to. You can help a lot in reducing the initial cost if you change your habits - do the washing machine loads when the sun is out etc. This saves the need for power storage and reduces the standby load for cloudy days.
You might also consider changing the irrigation system so that it delivers water below the surface rather than over the top - not only is this more efficient but it will allow watering during the day.
From experience it will take a few weeks to educate the family into new ways but it's fab seeing the sun and knowing everything is running and not actually costing anything (apart from lost interest - negligible in Portugal - on the capital of course).
I suppose that would work, but in the same way that a Hummer will take you to the shops.
We are estimating 2kwh per day which is round about 4 to 5 panels + batteries to allow for 3 to 4 days of solid cloud. The biggest power user is the fridge, followed by lights and telly.
I'm surprised you haven't mentioned windmills. I'd love one but the house is in a valley so it would be bit pointless.
We are estimating 2kwh per day which is round about 4 to 5 panels + batteries to allow for 3 to 4 days of solid cloud. The biggest power user is the fridge, followed by lights and telly.
I'm surprised you haven't mentioned windmills. I'd love one but the house is in a valley so it would be bit pointless.
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Homme Poco
- CVO Master
- Posts: 509
- Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 8:26 pm
- Location: CVO/Norfolk
- Contact:
I had thought that the villa would probably be connected to a mains supply,its adjacent to the plot,but also install the solar panels and sell the excess back to the grid,through a two way meter.
Whether or not this is feasable,I'm not sure,but I hadn't intended to use the panels on their own.
When we mentioned a windmill to the camera architect,he was not impressed."A blot on the landscape",a rough translation.
Do you think the above would work?
Many thanks for the various imputs.
HP.
Whether or not this is feasable,I'm not sure,but I hadn't intended to use the panels on their own.
When we mentioned a windmill to the camera architect,he was not impressed."A blot on the landscape",a rough translation.
Do you think the above would work?
Many thanks for the various imputs.
HP.