Quote:
Originally Posted by Allan_L
I monitor power produced and used real time. And try to schedule high power drain appliances in sequence. A lot of people don't seem t understand that.
For example, we produce more than we consume most days, but in real time, we don't have enough solar power to run much more than a kettle(2400watts) at the same instant. Any two heavy drain appliances running at the same time will almost always mean we are still buying from the grid to cover the total at any one time. And that does not even account for periodic drop in production due to passing clouds.
|
That's a very good point Allan. Our monitoring system allows us to see the output of each separate panel at any given time, which is very handy but it doesn't give us any simple figures for consumption versus production. When we first had the solar installed we had an old fashioned meter with a spinning metal disc. When production matched consumption the disc would stop completely. Easy to get a general idea of how to do the matching you suggest.
But the great thing was that when we were exporting it would actually run backwards! The usage reading on the meter would also start going backwards. So when we used grid power at night we could in effect get back 100% of what we had exported during the day, in a cost neutral manner. Which seemed very fair to us!
This went on for over a year, despite the meter being read regularly, the panels being clearly visible on the roof, and a big red Warning Solar sign in the meter box. But of course it was too good to last and eventually we were given "free of charge" a shiny new digital meter that keeps a hawk's eye on everything and makes sure we now only get a few measly cents for what we export.