What would you do? Solar PV Install

[Bikerz]

Im lucky enough to have bought my dream home finally (Middle of nowhere Wales). I did solar in my old home and now have a lot of space on the new house.
I own everything in the picture and the house is the long thin barn conversion and the other barns are just that (barns).
I have a large demand for power:

House 10kwh a day
Hot Tub (Unknown)
Electric car (200kwh a week)
I also plan to build some holiday let wood cabins with hot tubs (So electric demand only going to increase)

The barn conversion is approx. 34m long. Would you do a East / West setup? How many would you go each side?
Do I ignore the small south bit of roof I have?
Should I ground mount any? (I have 6 acres)

I have a stream that has about a 10m head on in my land about 250m long, so I might try and micro that on the cheap just to keep me entertained. I need to measure flow but its about 1m wide and 200mm deep

Thanks for your advice

 

[ProDave]

Lots to play with there.

Hot tubs should play well with solar PV, they would make a damned good dump load to sump a lot of PV diring the middle of the day, as long as they are well insulated to keep the water warm when the sun has gone down.

A lot of that is going to have to be off grid or at least done on the quiet or you might have the DNO saying you can't have that much PV connected to the grid, even if it is all self used.

 

[Andy1733]

Do you have a budget in mind

 

[Bikerz]

Its costs what it costs, happy to buy a 2nd hand inverter as used a few in past with no issues. I was going to say £10k is without a battery so that should get me loads, off top of my head Im thinking 2 x 6kw inverters and run 4 strings each with 11 panels east west setup and ignore south roof.
I thin about 11 panels on a string if going to be limit of voltage. 43V x 11 = Under 500V
This why Im asking am I daft not to do south roof? Its approx. 8m x 5m

 

[Bob Smith]

West-East is also very good orientation. To give you an idea. I got my 4kWp in 2016 facing South East. Panels are 15% efficient. My aunty got her 4kWp in April 2022 facing West - East with panels 21% efficiency. I generate a yearly average of 3850kWh. She got 4100kWh her first year (ok she leaves 1h away from me so is Preston sunnier than Cheshire?).

I am also planning to have panels on my other side of the roof, ie facing North West. Using an online calculator (see links below).
I determined that those calculators are conservative.
For my existing panels, they give an estimate of 3400kWh while as mentioned above, after 7 years I got a yearly average of 3850kWh
When I model on the North West roof. It gives about 3100kWh. Knowing that the new panels will be nearly 50% more efficient and that I can install 6kWp instead of 4kWp. I am actually expecting that this array will produce yearly about as much as my panels facing South East if not more and it will be facing North!!

So yes, if you have little shade on your roof. I will not hesitate to install as many panels as possible.



I wrote this post last year, You'll find several links to model how a PV system will perform according to several parameters

https://electricianforum.co.uk/thre...the-generation-in-kwh-of-the-pv-panels.55061/

 

[Ucatchmydrift]

Im lucky enough to have bought my dream home finally (Middle of nowhere Wales). I did solar in my old home and now have a lot of space on the new house.
I own everything in the picture and the house is the long thin barn conversion and the other barns are just that (barns).
I have a large demand for power:

House 10kwh a day
Hot Tub (Unknown)
Electric car (200kwh a week)
I also plan to build some holiday let wood cabins with hot tubs (So electric demand only going to increase)

The barn conversion is approx. 34m long. Would you do a East / West setup? How many would you go each side?
Do I ignore the small south bit of roof I have?
Should I ground mount any? (I have 6 acres)

I have a stream that has about a 10m head on in my land about 250m long, so I might try and micro that on the cheap just to keep me entertained. I need to measure flow but its about 1m wide and 200mm deep

Thanks for your advice

View attachment 15927

Looks like my kinda dream home also.. Personally, i would be going completely DIY off grid, fill both roofs up to the max, and/or ground mount system with a diy tilt system for winter efficiency if ground mounted. Basically build it for winter. Go for a hybrid inverter something like this 12kw/18kw panels, and run two of them in parallel: (about £5k each)

So assuming 36kw of panels to suit the inverters, without mounting costs, around £7200 second hand (£50 a panel @ 250w each x 144) - yes alot of panels! - but the cheapest way.
Then add 30-60kw lifepo4 of diy storage (about £4.4k-£8.8k)
Without doing the maths, im sure that would be enought to get you through winter,,, although, you are in wales!
Spare power for the rest of the year, of which, youll have alot! - buy a couple or so of these:
https://unigrade.com/shop/mining-ma...x6vWYjZER3JvIkWXbwT1WFtcnZijSW7RoC5pgQAvD_BwE
- Bitcoin miners, above ones consume a huge 5.5kw each, and will make you about £10 a day each at current prices. And with that much solar, im sure they would be running quite a bit thoughout the year helping to pay back the ininial costs.

Probably seems a bit over the top, but thats what id do if i had the land and the money!

 

[bladerunnerpv]

If I had lots of land I'd be asking myself about ignoring the roofs completely as scaffolding cost could be removed if you ground mount the panels, and they would be easier to maintain or upgrade too.

I'd think about where ground mounted panels could go and the length of cable needed to connect panels/inverter to loads

As pv doesn't supply much in winter and looks like you have the space I'd be taking a good look at if it possible to locate a decent sized wind turbine or two.

If those don't work out, then roof mounted pv with lots of battery storage would be next thought.

How is the property heated?

A look at misubishi combined heater/aircon units would be on my list too.

Also to assess if ground source heat pump was viable option.

Do you have any grid connection?

Hope this helps on the ideas front
Enjoy

 

[Bikerz]

"House" was built in 2016 and is well insulated and complete water UFH along with unvented cylinder (250L) and a small oil system boiler. Its single story so wont need scaffolding.
Its "only" 80-100m above sea level although pretty open but I still see wind as rather expensive, I do have a stream that might net me 300-500W constantly.
The house is approx. 33M long so have a lot of roof space. If I put in garden whilst I have space you really have to think about where you put them and mowing around etc....
Yes have a single phase 100A grid connection (transformer in field next to house)
Im going to buy a digger as want to do holiday lets in bottom field (not in this photo), so yes might do ground source pump.
I always have natural spring water and waste is off grid too.

 

[binky]

can't see what state your roofs are in, but barn doesn't look suitable as it's old asbestos cement fibre board, which will be very fragile by now - I wouldn't want to be walking around on that. If you did decide to recover that roof with box section steel, it's a great space.

Main hiuse has lots of space, but can't see what the lsates are, but given the space, I like ground arrays - simple to fit and maintain, plus doesn't leave any potential issues with the main bouse roof.