I have a hybrid thermal solar and photovoltaic system that I installed myself. The panels are ground mounted on the slope up to the pool facing a local farmers field ( he is also now mayor) and has never objected. if I understand it right I did not need permission as the panels are only about 30cm off the ground. We also have solar thermal on the roof of the house which we applied to the local commune and received permission.
The solar photovoltaic feeds diectly into the phase of supply to the pool house and helps run the pool pumps and hot tub. I have never applied to the electricity company and don’t get or want any feed in tarif. Any idea if I am oK with this?
Feeding into one phase of a 3-phase supply seems to not be a great idea in terms of balancing the phases, though I see that it is listed as an option on at least one solar PV site I just checked.
Hi
You have to register your PV panels and produce the inverters certificate (in French) for Enerdis. They need to know that if the power is down, your inverters will stop working so that the lines are no longer live and are safe to work on.
Hi Not sure how I could balance the phases. One phase supplies the house power consumption up and down with cooking etc. One phase the barn with little load except in winter, a pellet boiler with ignition demand central heating pump, tools and if required an immersion heater. The final phase to the pool house has the greatest load with pool pump, pool heat pump and a hot tub. hence the Solar on this phase to cut some of the costs
Looking up load balenceing on three phases it seems to be most important if using three phase motors and other equipment which we do not have. It also seem to be for the suppliers to balence loads but I would think one little house would not make too much difference on the loacal grid.
On the subject of Solar inverters. I bought a Sofar inverter from HalloSolar in France. It states that it shuts down in a few milliseconds in the event of a grid failure. I have seen this when the trips go it shuts down almost instantly.
Hi We do not use ENEDIS we use SICAE but I suppose they will have the same agreement, I will have to find out. I assume if I want to put in another 6kW of Solar I will have to get it certified by a local installer.
Badger, true I started out with hybrid panels to heat the pool and supply some power to save on the pool electricity costs.
The former owners had a water based system that pumped pool water through black plastic pipes. However they found they were forever freezing (we are at 500m and it gets cold in winter) so that system had already been abandoned when we bought the place. The old pool pump for the system was still in place and very useful when the main pool pump broke down last month.
So we decided to go for hybrid solar panels using a glycol circuit and generating electricity on the side.
However I have plans to build a car port Abris and roof it with solar panels about 6kW. We will have to apply to the Marie but I don’t see any problems as we are quite rural. The farmer in front of us across the valley has just had a bloody great barn built with solar panels (I assume in some deal where he gets a new barn and the builders get the electricity)
If we do this then I will probably tie the existing panels into the system and get a three phase inverter, maybe even some battery stockage.
I see online such systems are going for about 6-10k Euros. Have to do the sums and see if it is worth while. But I do enjoy projects.
Not knowing your setup but an average pool pump is using 1200-1400 watts a small one around 780 watts and all unecessary on the filtration cycle. Could free up a bit of additional power is my thinking.
I have cut down pool pump time to heures creuses 12:30 to 16:00 to save money and as that ties in with peak photovoltaic should be even better. Plus of course it also mixes in the sunshine heating and the solar thermal at peak production. Good at the moment but will have to change it all about when it gets too warm.
That from a water quality perspective is counter productive. I dont know the size of the pool or the equipment but 3.5 hours? You probably are not turning the water over even once. That would equate to around 50% of the water being filtered only. Whilst new dirt is arriving all the time. It is way more efficient and effective to turn over the water slower but for longer both in terms of water quality and energy saving. By example, my pool running 24 hours will use less electricity than the equivalent std setup will use in two hours. The water quality improves by a factor of 4.
Hi Mat, with every pass of water through the filter we should aim to remove as much dirt, bacteria, algae etc as we can. Two major elements of this are the filtration media itself and the correct flow speed through the filter. Manufacturers of filters state unreal flow figures for the filters out of some marketing rubbish, on most setups I have tested owners do not get more than half the stated flow rate. I do wonder if the manufacturers use the backwash rates as less restriction would allow a higher figue to be achieved. That said most setups are still trying to push too much water through the filter to achieve the best filtration. If a Chef wants a clear consome they allow the fluid to drip through slowly, if they squeezed the filter it would lessen the filtration and cloud the consome. Slower the flow the better the filtration. You only need high speed for backwashing. Coupling up your pump via a variable speed drive will allow you to reduce the pump flow to more optimal levels for filtration. A small reduction in the pump speed brings a big reduction in power usage. The power drawn is proportional to the cube of the rotational speed and slowing a pump to 50% speed reduces the power used to 12.5%. So big savings are made and filtration is improved. Even with longer pump run times the savings are there and skimmers only work when the pump is running, that means any dirt, leaves etc become water logged and sink so requiring more effort, robot or manual to remove them from the bottom. When using a variable speed pump or drive some type of flow meter should be used to set the optimal rate. Payback is usually within 2 seasons.
Sand has worked pretty well as a filtration media but Dryden Aqua’s AFM ng or even the original AFM to a new level. It removes 4 times as much as sand and couple that with an optimal flow rate will remove particles down to 1 micron without flocculation and sub 1 micron with flocculation, sand removes down to 20 microns although a dirty silted up filter will remove some finer particles, sand get colonised by bacterial biofilm, AFM does not. There are even more improvements that can be made all of which pay for themselves over time by saving more energy. The pool industry just do bad plumbing jobs and a lack of design and compensate by sticking on a big pump that way no matter how bad the plumbing is water will eventually arrive where its wanted.
Corona Thank you yes your reply answered my question. A Friend got a new pool pump a few years ago with a variable speed selector. ( I did wonder why) I suppose that is the way to go when my latest pump gives up.
