Google announced plainly that Google Powermeter will be cancelled in 90 days, 16th September being the termination date.

That was an unpleasant surprise.  After drawn in with all the jingly pump of helping to save the planet they have doubtless got bored and pulled the plug.

You get what you pay for !
A timely reminder that the free services offered can be pulled at any time at the discretion of the providers.

Here is link to images of the appliances in happier days of Powermeter

Q. Am I happy would I do it again?
A. Yes/Yes

Q. Is it right for everyone ?
A. Depends on your roof location (southerly and not shaded by trees/buildings/mountains)
……. and whether you can stomach a long-term investment
ie 10 years to break even !
(not for elderlys in there twylight years, mobile youngsters or wobbly relationships !)

Q. Can you recommend your installer ?
A. Yes, heartily – Highly recommended

Q. Technical Part – What do you have ?
A. System is a 3.95 kw peak rating installed by Tom Morley, Solar Technology, Edinburgh. Yingli polycrystalline panels and an Aurora PVI 3.6 inverter

Q. Poly or Mono ?
I am poly cos’ that’s all that was available at the time.
I have no advice on this, I would probably go for the best price for decent construction quality.

Q. What the financials/numbers
A. Installed total cost was approx 14k, I was fortunate to also gain a grant (~ 10k to me).
First year return or ‘contribution’ from FITS plus export plus less import electricity
~ £ 1650
A very rough rule of thumb is 50p per kwh

Q. Scotland is cloudy and rainy these panels are silly .. surely ?
A. Well we certainly don’t need to clean the panels !
Levels of collectible solar radiation is far better further south in Cornwall or the Sahara for sure, here are my figures in kWh for the last year. (note Dec to Feb is next to nothing)
J 500, A 430, S 340, O 190, N 75, D 29, J 66, F 11, M 250, A 460, M 500, J 500 *

Q. What is the most you have generated in a day ?
A. 27 kWh, yes it was a sunny not a cloud in the sky great day
However, today was good, certainly no heat wave has been okay and I got 23 kWh
Paradoxically, these panels become less efficient in hot weather and derate due the high surface temperatures on the roof, even by 20-25% that’s why the difference between sweltering hot and bright and windy is not so large.

Q. What about Solar Thermal (hot water heating)
A. I would have liked to do this and have reserved some roof space for this system, however, this may require a lot of extra plumbing, it does not attract the same high FITs, and for now if you have mains gas it far cheaper to use your efficient combi boiler.  The case is better if you have no mains gas supply (or a hot tub!).

Q. Do you log monitor your energy usage and solar generation  ?
A. Yes, browse through the other blog posts, I log all the electricity generate, used, exported as well as gas etc

Q. Big or smaller installer ?
A. I only had small installer quote that did not employ salesman that was I guess 18 months ago.  Drive the best price and watch out for all the predictable smoke/mirrors double-glazing sales trickery.
At the end of the day the cost is due to  the parts and spending time drilling fixings onto your roof, oh and profit as well.

Q. Is it money-making or planet saving or green ?
A. Another interesting debate, but I do believe in using less and being flexible in our energy expectations. ie a longer debate for another time !

Q. Is there better ways to spend the money (on becoming energy-efficient)
Again another lengthy consideration I really can’t answer for you – Insulation, monitoring, send children to an orphanage, cruise, drink etc etc etc

Anyway, I have been hankering for a bigger screen, full HD 1080 support and freeview HD.  Oh, and I have noticed LED TVs with sub-100w power ratings. I had hoped by now OLED would have matured and been commercialised, but they seem to have stalled and are taking longer to come to fruition. 3-D does not cut it for me at the moment.

So, good old Makro mail tempted me in with a 46 inch Sharp model at £760 including VAT. Way down on the price when this model was launched.  The Sharp Quattron LC46LE811E really did look rather nice in the flesh and a 5 year guarantee was a nice bonus (internet sales do not qualify!). Furthermore, this model topped the energy leaderboard at an ‘in-use’ 85 watts over at SUST-IT

So its fitted, up and running and looks glorious, so what are the energy figures according to my Kill-a-watt device.

> Shop Mode – not measured
> 112w Eco Off (too bright – horrible)
> 82w Eco Standard (looks fine to me)
> 68w Eco Advanced (a little dimmer also looks great)

So there we have it a large 46 inch telly taking a meagre sub 70 watts quite remarkable.

Not too shabby.

Okay, it’s not a race, but it is both nice to see the ‘green’ investment performing slightly above expectations and there is also that childish hypnotic ‘odometer’ rollover syndrome.

Back to the numbers.

1,000 kWh generated in 72 days in sometimes sunny Glasgow, Scotland.

That’s 3.47 kWh / kWp installed.

If it were a car it would now be considered officially ‘broken in’.

Nearly a year ago I looked at solar thermal for hot water and could not justify spending money on this technology.  So it’s time for an appeal review armed with all this recent solar knowledge and experience.

Why do I want to do this ?

• I like the idea of saving money, CO2, reducing energy usage
• I would really like some diversity from gas/boiler
• Maybe even drop boiler maintenance contract (further saving)

Why not to do it ?

• Currently our hot water usage and efficiency is surprisingly very good
• Teenage shower madness has been solved with an aerated shower head
• Too much effort for too little financial return
• Gas is still very cheap per kWh, furthermore the standing charge or daily fee makes it less attractive to save on gas.

When next to consider it ?

• When the Russians ramp up gas prices
• When the gas distribution network gets unreliable
• When I get a new boiler (a long time away)
• If the RHI Renewable Heat Incentive scheme made it more financially attractive (cannot see that happening now)

Measuring Hot water gas costs
As you may know I’m now logging gas usage with the Brultech ECM 1240

What would I have proposed to fit at this point in time ?

• Something like the Navitron high efficiency double wall evacuated solar tube panels
• A new unvented highly insulated twin coil tank with electric backup heater.  (Maybe a thermal store – budget dependant)
• Reconfigure boiler from direct HW to system boiler

Budget ?

Well assuming no RHI payment it would be a DIY low-budget outing ~ £1500.  Sized to provide 70% of hot water from the solar collectors.  This represents a 20 year payback for my current situation.  Note, that for ‘normal’ family using more hot water than us I reckon 10 years and for those using electric heating it would then be a no-brainer 3 years.

Appeal rejected – case dismissed

Anyway, nice to report that the flash lite bundle worked on the standard browser without any tweaking.  See the snap below for a Google Power Meter working nicely on wifi.

Try that on an iPod !

Short answer is yes !
The total haul was 445 kWh or 3.6 kWh per day per kWp installed on Glasgow SW 30 degree roof.

Commenting on the August results.

• Highest Daily record now 25 kWh
• also a new record low of 4 kWh as well !
• Financial contribution £222 (FITS, used, exported ~ 50p kWh)

Here is some additional snaps of relative electrical household usage and Net metering.

…..and finally how does it compare to the official prediction /statistics ?

Answer: rather well for August, actually spot on for a July, but it’s all down to the weather !

On first use I had a number of bug bears, product suggestion ideas and annoyances.  But they just secretly get slipped in, like some new game you have to spot them.

One feature lacked on release way the ability to wave the mouse over the google flash chart and see point values, quite annoying.  Anyway, it’s slipped in unannounced and without any update/install/selection.  Can’t even see a mention of it when searching the web.

Keep it coming.

Or maybe not, here’s the challenge.

• Target Cost £5 per person per month.
• Unlimited free calls between all family members.
• Unlimited SMS/texts for 2 teenagers
• Some inclusive talk/texts for everyone
• A basic phone

It was a rhetorical question, because it can be done !

Check out http://giffgaff.com/ here’s the deal.

• Free calls between all giffgaff’ers no need to register or pay for family/friends
  (need to top up £10 every 3 months = 10 x 4 x 5 = £200 )
• Unlimited Text goodie bag for two teenagers = 5 x 2 x 12 = £120
• Giffgaff referral payback for family (should be more)
  £5 referrer and £5 for reciever, that gets 4 x 2 x £5 = -£40
• Miser grade 5 phones at 90p each = £4.50
• Calls are 8p/min, texts are 4p so you get some minutes included

Total annual cost = 200 + 120 – 40 +4.50 = £284.50 /5

= £ 4.74 each per month !

Another key benefit is that is contract free, no lock in. Hurrah

What’s the downside ?

Not much, but you don’t get an iPhone though !

PS.
Anyone who knows me, call and I’ll sent a free sim.
You get a £5 added to your account for nought !

Head scratching begins to figure out why the peak was down over 18% on less spectacular days.  The inverter was up at 60 oC but this is not an issue.  The panels were rather hot.  I’d hazard from the touch test maybe up nearer 60 oC as well.

Apparently, according to a source on the web …..
Crystalline panels suffer a high voltage DROP when heated by the sun (Crystalline panels lose power, for each degree above 25C). At the 60 C they lose approximately 30% power. Output only 60% to 70% of Wp.
...This was from an article pushing different materials.
Other sources 20% loss at 60 oC or 0.5% per degree above the lab 25 oC rating.

So, doing the sums backwards based on losing 0.5% per degree above 25 oC to get the loses the panel temperature should in theory have been 62.5 oC.

I also checked back on an okayish day like today which yields 17 kWh but the wind and lower roof temperatures managed to high full expected peaks of 3.995 kWp

C’est la vie, bummer !