Old Ellerby
Having moved into a larger property and having taken an all electrical company car (EV), I needed to reduce costs on my energy. I had made a provision for this in my calculations when we made the move.
I started ringing around suppliers of systems but was struggling to find anyone that could answer any of my technical questions, and as such, this gave me very little confidence in investing such a large amount of money with them. I do have an electrical background but not in this particular area, so my questions were maybe a bit more informed than normal. Fortunately I was then recommended Paul at Prolec by the person I had purchased the house from. They had done some work for the previous owners and they had been very happy with the work.
I was in no doubt, when I spoke to Paul, that he would fit the system for me. His knowledge was very good from the start, and more importantly when he wasn’t totally sure on something he said so and said he would get back to me, which he did. We agreed on the basic requirements for the system, approximate capacity and storage. We agreed where the panels should be installed, on a building close to the house, with the invertor and battery in the garage. Paul took the requirements and sourced the best combination of sub-systems to meet our needs.
1) Install solar system with battery.
Gives savings as battery is charged by solar and discharges overnight.
This is an obvious benefit and saving but not huge, maybe 10 to 20%.
EV is still using a huge amount of electric and will drain the battery in the house.
2) Get an overnight tariff which is generally around 33% of a price of the general daytime tariff.
Invertor set to charge house battery and car charger to charge car during off peak period.
House battery is then not drained by the car as it can’t discharge and charge at the same time.
By morning House battery is at a level to support house through darker days.
House uses little to no electric at higher rate as the battery takes the load during off peak.
All car and house batteries charged at lower rate.
This extract shows the battery discharging providing the load for the house fully at 00.20 just before it and the car battery start to charge at 01:00 to 07:30 when the battery and Solar take over again
3) Fit Zappi and Eddi or equivalent.
Zappi car charger.
Eddi water heater divertor for water tank.
On days with good solar power, when the house battery is full, the Eddi takes priority and uses the excess energy to heat the water. When the water is heated the excess is then used by the Zappi to charge the car.
This saves on gas through the summer, reducing the gas bill to just the standing charge through the summer months.
The water tank thermostat is at 10 degrees higher on the emersion heater than on the tank thermostat controlling the gas boiler demand, ensuring the gas would heat the water if required.
On the left shows the car and house battery charging then the Eddi diverting power to the Hot water when the house battery is full
On the right shows the house taking power from the solar and or battery to satisfy the house demand whilst not drawing power from the grid. Zappi and Eddi waiting for excess.
The system is amazing! In general there will be a benefit from the system for anyone, but this can be hugely improved if the user is able to refine the system to optimize it’s capability, based on their own situation/energy usage.
Paul and his team are very professional and have been there every step of the way. Due to the nature of the installation it wasn’t straight forward, we have had a number of issues but Paul has worked through them with us. The majority of these were down to earth leakage and nuisance RCD tripping with the existing installation highlighted by the adding of the new system. The system its self has performed well with no issues that are related to the Hardware performance or quality of installation.
Finally though back to my objective to save money. On this objective the money invested is delivering a greater return than if it was in the bank or for that matter in anything else I could have invested it in at the time with a very low risk. I estimate the system is saving in the region of £200 a month. This is without considering the saving on the gas during the summer months to heat water.
We couldn’t be happier with the service provided by Paul and his team at Prolec and we can highly recommend.
Thanks Paul and Anne.