Power your home with solar

One of the first customers to use an Enecsys micro-inverter system at his home gets a visit from Mike Scialom

You can fit your house with solar panels

Adrian is an early adopter – one of the first customers in the UK to have an Enecsys photovoltaic system installed on his roof.

Originally he wanted to have a simpler water heater system set up for his home but he allowed himself to be persuaded by a friend to go the whole hog and get a photovoltaic system instead. As he shows me round the system installed in his home he makes it clear he’s delighted with the results so far.

The system was installed last November by Newmarket-based We Heat (http://www.weheat.com/) at a cost of £16,000. For this he had 12 solar panels installed on his roof – and each panel has its own Enecsys box to feed the converted energy into the national grid. He considers the fact that the roof is south-facing (“just three degrees out is close enough”) very significant. It means the panels are getting a regular amount of sunlight, even though, with trees to east and west, not all the panels get the same amount of sun at the start and end of each day.

“The big deal with these panels and micro-inverters is that if one panel is in the shade the ones that are properly illuminated are doing a proper job and that wasn’t the case with the previous generation of inverters,” says Adrian.

Once the panels are installed, the current harvested has to be linked to the grid. Adrian’s utility firm is Good Energy (http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/) – “others are getting close, but currently Good Energy is the only firm who do 100 per cent green energy for domestic customers”.

The Enecsys Dup micro-coverter

Adrian’s conventional metering system stays the same, and the photovoltaic meter is simply added in to the mix. It’s a simple process to monitor both standard electricity and solar-generated electricity via the meter. But more detailed information is available online.

“Wherever I am I can use the internet to see what my house is doing,” says Adrian as he shows me the on-screen real-time monitoring system which gets its information via the transmitter in each Enecsys box. It’s impressive to see what’s going on and work out how even a passing cloud can make a difference. He’s delighted with the installation process and full of praise for We Heat (“My installation was the first time they’d used this equipment”).

As well as providing cheap electricity – the formal estimates suggest that Adrian could save £199 a year from his electricity bill – the Government pays him through the Feed-In Tariff for the electricity the system generates. This grant is the subject of some concern in the UK because of the proliferation of commercial solar farms. In fact he needn’t worry – the grant system is indeed guaranteed for 25 years. As things stand, Adrian receives £991 a year from the scheme. New applicants will get a similar amount if they apply but from March onwards the amounts involved do go down but are still guaranteed for 25 years.

Read Mike's interview with Henrik Raunkjaer, Enecsys' ceo.