Load balancing / pooling

[DomB]

Hi all,

We're just quoting on 6 terraced cottages which are all owned by one landlord and rented out.

We're basically doing 6 different installs with 6 inverters, 6 strings etc but all panels laid out next to each other across the roof.

Does anyone know of a way we could load-balance the system so that whoever needs the electricity from the solar gets it. It might be that one person works from home during daylight hours more or one cottage becomes empty for a period of time - is there any way we can 'pool' the solar array?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this

 

[TedM]

Assuming each property has its own meter and MPAN I think any sharing downstream of the meters would be illegal. (Visions of extension cables looped through open windows!)

If you did find a way of doing it legally - by the landlord having a single meter and then sub-metering to each tenant, for example - then the system would run in to FiTs issues as it would then become a single system in the 10-100kW range with the income dropping from 41.3p to 31.4p with a corresponding hit on payback time. (I'm assuming each house would be at least 2kWp.)

 

[SolarCity]

Incidentally, if you do plan on installing these systems - make sure you speak to the DNO beforehand.

 

[DomB]

Yeeaas..thinking it through I guess connecting multiple houses to one grid-tied array would effectively involve hooking their supply meters togethor, which could lead to all sorts of trouble. Guess they'd all then be sharing the costs of each others grid-supplied electricity too, lol.

Ah well, was worth a thought. Thanks both.