EF members' installs - show us your work!

[Energetic]

Another from Us, this is one some of you have seen before but this is a recent photo taken at our 12 month check. Keep em coming guys...

 

[jason121]

Enphase inverter on this install

 

[jason121]

Cement fibre Asbestos roof

 

[JulianC]

Got panels up this morning, after a right drenching yesterday. 16 x Canadian Solar 250 / StecaGrid 3600 combo. Finishing off Monday with an ImmerSUN

 

[Maff]

 

[nathanb]

Hi

looks like a 30 or 40KW system, just wondering did you fit surge protection or did the inverter have it internal also all your panels are together so for maintenace would it be better to section off each string?? just a thought

 

[jason121]

What maintenace, all i can think of is cleaning them. Which is the new trend in London

 

[Silly Sausage]

Some nice work there chaps!
The trouble with those ground mounted arrays, for me, would be the worry of vandalism. Too many headcases out there.
Do you get much trouble that way?

 

[Gavin A]

Case Study | Quaker Meeting House, Leeds


In August 2011 Leeds Solar installed a 4kWp solar PV system on the roof of the Quaker meeting house, opposite Leeds University in Leeds. The system consisted of 16 x REC mono-crystaline black framed panels (250Wp I think), chosen for their lower than average carbon footprint, and an SMA SB3300 inverter.

The building is in regular use during the day time and early evening most days of the week for a variety of community activities and meetings, so the consumption patterns are a good match for solar PV generation times.
The graph below shows more than a 50% reduction in electricity consumption over the year, with a 60% reduction in electricity consumption even in the poor summer of 2012, and perhaps more surprisingly a 40% reduction in consumption even in the peak of winter, with no particular changes to usage patterns or other factors that would have impacted significantly on the consumption levels..

Monthly electricity consumption before and after PV installation

The reason the reduction is still so high even in winter is that on cloudy days the solar system still generates a few hundred watts of power, but all this generation is then used within the building, whereas in peak sunlight the majority of the additional generation is exported.
Where peak generation is significantly above the average daytime consumption levels there may not actually be much difference between the energy savings on a sunny day vs a cloudy day.
In very high consumption situations where most of the generation is consumed on site even in peak sunlight, there would be a lot more difference between summer and winter energy savings.

 

[JD6400]

Just a few from when we were still installing .
Picture 15 had a shed built around them straight after that photo !

 

[Gavin A]

Picture 15 had a shed built around them straight after that photo !

glad you said that. I was going along with the whole outside thing until I spotted the meter.

Some decent workmanship on display there IMO. Interesting that you do the same as us on the commercial mounts in terms of cruciform mounting on most of it.

I might have to nick the idea of using a tray to run the cables up and over the cutter, that looks quite a good solution

 

[sparkless]

if only this was mine

 

[Earthstore]

View attachment 16828 if only this was mine

Hell that's impressive......

 

[Ian-LS]

I'd love to see the prediction for that system....

 

[Gavin A]

View attachment 16828 if only this was mine

it's all wonky. They could at least have levelled it up