Help please - central heating linked monitoring???

[SRE]

I've just lost a job to a company who are offering a monitoring system which links to the central heating system - what on earth are they talking about? The customer says "I have decided to go with a fully monitored system it controls the central heating and can be added to as new technology comes along"

Any thoughts - this is one of the few houses that made the D rating!

 

[dansk]

eh?? would be an "emma" to divert excess power?

 

[SRE]

Mmm I'd forgotten about Emma what does it stand for again - have you seen how many Emma's there are on Google :willy_nilly: I seem to remember it was expensive and not particularly effective. I've had a look since I posted and I think he might be talking about a Grid Buddy although that doesn't do what he thinks it does. Don't suppose anyone knows what either would cost? I seem to remember Emma being around £1500 not sure about Grid Buddy (or Vectron multiplus inverter in another World).

 

[dansk]

Not sure about the cost - did you sort it?

 

[Worcester]

You'll find a bunch of stuff about EMMA on our website, typical cost £2k installed, it;s expensive, however it is the only product on the market at the moment that does the job properly.

All the rest are a technical bodge, that doesn't deliver, such as:

Solar Immersion Heater Switch - Use Surplus Solar PV Power to Heat Water & Save Money (know where's that approval certificate...)
Greenologic | Domestic Wireless Energy Management System
MiCasaVerde.com - Vera2 With mods
SolarDivert Solar PV Immersion heater controller products better but still not the right way to do it.


I know of three products currently under development that will be VERY affordable, they are all about 3 months from certification, at the prices that these are coming out, you will sell one of them to EVERY body that you've installed solar to, and they will have the same output logic control as the EMMA - watch this space.

However for £200 you could have offered then the immersion switch above - I wouldn't, I won;t recommedn it to anyone. I'd tell them to save their £200 know and they'll save even more in a few months when the new products come out.

There are only about 150 EMMA's installed in the UK, France and Eire..

 

[Gavin A]

mis-selling I'd expect.

unless they're actually getting something like a heat pump or the 'thermodynamic panels' (aka a heat pump fed from panels), as well as PV which actually could possibly be worth having controlled relative to the solar PV.

otherwise it's a bit pointless having something that auto switches the heating on when its sunny outside.

 

[SRE]

Thing is - this guy is an electrical engineer, he loves gadets and I can't se him falling for something that's questionable. I wonder if it's the Emma ......

Gordon - is this new stuff going to be ready for launch at the oct solar show in Birmingham???

 

[Worcester]

Maybe ..... with a bit of luck ... the problem is getting all the certifications.

 

[Worcester]

If he is an electrical engineer and loves gadgets, I can show him how to make one for himself for less than £200 in parts, looks Heath Robisnon, works b***y well though!

That's the problem, turning a bench working device into a production unit, with the certifciations, the basic design and componets are all actually available off the shelf. - A few CT's, a couple of programmable control devices that can read the CT's and a phase split SSR with filter, a bunch of code to control the SSR based on the output from the CT's that's it
Simples as Sergei would say:43: