Monitoring a solar panel system

[fiesata]

I have recently had a free PV solar electricity sytem fitted which I am very pleased with

To make best use of the free electrity I need a meter which can tell me the rate of electricity being produced

Does anyone know where I can buy one of these - the installation company don't supply them unless you have purchased the system

[jomifl]

Not knowing how your system is set up and how the electricity is used it is impossible to say. Do you have storage batteries or is it sold back to the grid or what?

[fiesata]

thanks for the reply the sytem produces electricity and we can use as much of that as we like, it cannot be stored so it has to be used as produced. Any we don't use is exported to the National Grid and we lose it.

Why I need to know what it's producing is so we can switch on mobile phone chargers the washing machine etc to use as much as possible while it's light or especially when sunny.

[jomifl]

How much per unit do you get for the electricity that you export to the grid?

[AlBags]

I don't think they are getting anything at this time.

[fiesata]

It's 43p per unit but I don't get that, the company who installed the system gets that. I lease them my roof for 25 years

Systems installed after 12th December 2011 will get 21p per unit

The money is paid whether I use the electricity or whther it is exported to the National Grid

I just get the free electricity

[beso]

What brand is your grid feed inverter?

The German SMA brand has an oprional a webserver interface that shows evrything on a webpage. I am sure some others would also have something similar available..

[braeside]

Fronious and SMA inverters both have a panel on the front showing real time generation I would have thought they all did.

[jomifl]

If you don't get paid for the surplus electricity then you could store the surplus in batteries and use an inverter to supply your house. This would probably not be ecomomically viable as the batteries are expensive and don't last forever. A simple cheap and reliable method would be to store the energy as heat, either in storage heaters or as hot water. You would however need a pretty large power supply to make this worth while. A simple way to measure the current going to or from the grid is to use a clamp meter. this does not require an electrical connection, just access to the cables, preferably insulated for safety reasons. What is the area of the pv array.

[fiesata]

It is an SMA inverter but it's in the loft - it can be monitord via an app but can't seem to get the solar company to reply to my requests to buy it from them

a clamp meter is already on cable 4 monitoring electricity usage -did try it on the down cable from the panels but no reading which cable of the 4 from the meter would I use?

I have 12 x 200w solar panels

[jomifl]

The one that gives a reading when it is sunny.