Case Study 1 - 3.30 kWh Domestic Solar PV Installation

Case Study 1 - 3.30 kWh Solar PV

We recently installed this solar PV system on a three storey town house in Nether Edge, Sheffield. The client had a large South West facing pitched roof abutted by a flat roof and wanted a large PV system in order to take advantage of the feed in tariff.

After a site visit and consultation with the client, Homeco Energy recommended the installation of a 3.30 kWh system. This system consisted of 18 solar PV panels connected to a Sunny Boy inverter with a wireless display console which provides detailed information on the performance of the system anywhere in the property.

The 18 panels were secured in place by two rows of roof rails. Below you can see the installation of the first few solar PV panels.

Here you can see the same shot with all the panels in place.

Here we are just making some final adjustments to the panels.

 

This is the finished system.

This is a Sunny Boy inverter which converts the Direct Current (DC) from the panels into usable Alternating Current (AC). In this project the inverter was sited in the client's garage and fed into the consumer unit located nearby.

The inverter has a wireless connection to a display module which can be located anywhere in the property and shows both current and total output of the system, as well as other performance indicators.

The chart below shows the expected electricity generation of this system and the income that is produced by the feed in tariff. Note also that an electricity saving is made since the client no longer has to pay for the amount of electricity that his system produces.

System Size	3.30 kWh
Annual Generation kWh	2,750
Electricity Saving @ 12 pence per kiloWatt	£330
Feed In Tariff Income @ 41.3 pence per kiloWatt	£1,135
Year 1 Income and Savings	£1,465
Year 5 Income and Savings - cumulative *	£7,893
Year 10 Income and Savings - cumulative *	£17,375
Year 25 Income and Savings - cumulative *	£59,500
Pay Back time for this project	7 yrs 6 mths

 

* The feed in tariff is guaranteed for 25 years and is index linked and therefore rises each year. We have taken a 3% inflation figure for this illustration.

Please note that the feed in tariff rate shown above are last years rates when this installation was completed. For all systems installed on or after 1st April 2011 the rate is now 43.3 p/kWh.