The sun also rises

We are going, going Gone [photvoltaic] PV Solar because we desire to save the planet and save a packet. I lose track of time, it has been so long a-coming but having 'expressed interest' in December 2023 and signed papers about a year later, ground-works started at the beginning of April and took a bit longer than they or we expected. But we were blessed with ground as dry and hard as you get round here without being like the drought of 2018. Then we had snow and a week of rain and half a day's work in the drizzle. But finally, finally, Eco Horizon's sparkies came on the last day of April, installed the DC→AC 'inverter' and connected all the wires. We are now supplying surplus electricity to The Grid.

The 18x photovoltaic panels convert photons into electric current whenever the sun shines. I am told that they generate more ooomph on crisp sunny Winter days because the PV works better if the panels are cold. Who knew? The deal is that at max drive, the array generates ~5.25kW. This is when to switch on the immersion, wash the dishes and all the bed-sheets [but not together], bake cakes, invite all the neighbours and boil banks of kettles for tea.  If we run out of sheets, or are off-site on our free travel-passes, the surplus electrons are sold to The Grid for €0.20 /kWh. The ESB or their subcontractors sell it on for €0.38; and indeed that's the price we pay for units used after dark or when it's raining. The Solar energy is not free: we, and the Planet, would be better off if we didn't boil so many kettles. But it's half price using our own solar power.

We could just make zero change to our habits and life-style and watch our grid consumption go down. But where's the fun in that?  One of the sparkies held my hand while I down-loaded the Fronius Solar.Watt app onto my smart phone. Typical display shown above [L]. It clocks the incomming; and splits that between what we are currently using and diverting the rest to The Grid . . . in real-time with a lag of about 5 seconds. This particular snapshot shows that somebody has switched on the immersion heater before our PV panels are ready for the task; so we're pulling from The Grid. We don't, yet, have any batteries so that icon is not active. Here's the whole day's PV traffic showing inter alia the draw from the immersion heater at 0900hrs. Looks like, on a day of basically continuous sunshine, we are generating max electricity from ~11:30 to ~17:00. For much of the morning, we have a row of tall pine trees shading the panels.

I am unaccountably, hand-clappy, delighted with our new kit. And look, it comes with a bus shelter for when we get an electric car to charge.