Solar Systems

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Weather - depending on where you live, what season you're in and the weather will dictate what you get out of your solar panels. On a dark damp short winters day, you'll get very very little power, a mere trickle charge. In contrast, on a long sunny summers day, you'll have so much power coming in, you won't know what to do with it! On days like we've been having recently, by late morning I've got the immersion tank full of boiling water, all the batteries fully topped up and the grid tie inverter doing it's best to make the meter spin backwards at a high rate of knots!

MCS - Microgeneration Certification Scheme, this is the mark of quality and demonstrates compliance to industry standards. You don't have to get MCS panels but, given the choice, it's probably best to do so as they've had to meet certain standards. Recently there's been issues raised by the EU over the Chinese dumping their cheap panels and under cutting ones made in the EU. They wanted to levy a dumping tax to make them more expensive for the likes of you and me. Long story short, it looks like they've finally sorted it out between them and we can continue to buy at a reasonable price from China. Don't be put off by the Chinese stuff, they are just as good as EU ones, most with MCS accreditation and much cheaper!

MC4 - these are the weather proof connectors for your panels. Don't skimp here cos they're not that expensive and could save you a lot of hassle if a non waterproof connection goes duff and you're contemplating going up on the roof when it's snowing and -10 outside!


Solar Panel Mounting - this is where many will hit a brick wall. For me, going up alone when it's freezing cold and start drilling holes in a perfectly sound slate roof went against all my instincts! But then again, I've not always been that bright. To comply with your house insurance (which these days seem to automatically include roof mounted solar panels), you must roof mount securely ie bolt into the principal rafters will do nicely. BTW, these 250W panels are heavy (about 50lbs each) and awkward to man handle up ladders. It was the only time I had to rope in a mate to give a hand, no way I could do it alone. Oddly enough, the biggest danger with roof systems is the force of the wind trying to suck those babies up rather than any weight issues with the panels themselves. Re the mounts, again, don't skimp! You want proper secure mounts that are corrosion proof and made for the job.

Alternative to roof mounting is mounting on a frame on the ground. Nothing at all wrong with that and if you've got an ideal secure place, go for it. They may be more vulnerable to theft or other issues but they'll be a dream to maintain and you can even make a swivel mount so you can follow the sun if you are so inclined!

Last but by no means least, you can have a portable set up that you can take in at night and put out during the day. These will inevitably be small low powered foldable units but if your requirements are small then why not?

Grid Tie - as I mentioned before, grid tie inverters must be G83 compliant to make sure you and others are safe. G83, amongst other things, ensures that if the grid goes down, it will disconnect and not electricute some tired engineer trying to get the grid back up. Important to note that grid tie inverters rely on the mains being on to work. If the grid goes down, so does the grid tie inverter, you get nothing from it. I fitted one to use my excess energy and save on electric. If you have an old style meter ie the disc that goes round and round then you should find your meter going backwards on sunny days! Recent smart meters don't do this. Very grey area with respect to legalities but a lot of people do it. Energy companies don't like this cos it'll eat into their miniscule profits and are reduced to eating only bread and drinking only water.

Switches and Fuses - although controllers and inverters have their own protection for circuits, it's a must that you fit your own fuse from the battery in case of a short. DON'T underestimate the power from a little battery, it can cause a fire just as much as mains! Also good idea to fit an appropriate isolation switch (ie a switch with the correct ampage rating) so you can conveniently turn off the system for any maintenance work. My teenage daughter last week accidently plugged in the vaccuum cleaner into my 12v to mains system and melted one of the switches! It was carrying 110 amps (12v side) and it was HOT! What annoyed me was that the plug from the inverter had a 3A fuse (230v side) that didn't blow despite passing double the ampage. Lesson learnt, now all my systems will have in line quick blow fuses direct from the batteries.

I suspect that I may have put too much info up here and people will think it's too complicated or expensive and not bother. Please, it IS worth it. Whatever your budget, you can at least get something going to keep your mobile phone charged and some LED lights burning all through the night if need be. At the end of the day, you're connecting a solar panel to a controller that is attached to some batteries. That is then connected to an inverter for your mains back up. It's just a matter of how big a system you want/need. You can always start small and build on it.

Simples!