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Solar panels and storage heaters

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Colonel Graham

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 11:01AM

I'm hopefully having solar panels fitted shortly. It occurs to me if I put a small storage heater in the conservatory, it would charge during the day and release the heat on a winters evening.

Is this practical?

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woodchip

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 11:06AM

Does not work like that, its stored in Batteries, unless you have the hot water solar panels

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Colonel Graham

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 11:10AM

When I say 'charge' I mean the electric element heats the bricks in the heater during the day.

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woodchip

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 11:12AM

There is not enough power comes from Panels to work like that on most setups

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Aitchbee

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 11:44AM

During winter the sunshine (light duration) will not be very good.

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interzone55

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 11:52AM

Unless you're looking at several acres of panels you'll be lucky to pull in a kilowatt of power, which isn't nearly enough to charge up a storage heater.

We sell a kit for powering a CCTV camera and transmitter, the panel is 4' x 2' and is used to trickle charge a 65amp leisure battery. The camera pulls 6w and the transmitter pulls around 8w. The battery generally lasts a month before it needs to be properly charged from the mains.

Adding a small wind turbine extends the life by a couple of weeks.

This is similar to the kit we sell http://www.maplin.co.uk/60w-solar-power-kit-223250

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Aitchbee

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 12:08PM

alan14 - could I fit a small wind turbine to my windy verandah? The solar panel you described would also be a viable addition to my south-west facing dwelling perhaps.

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interzone55

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 1:38PM

AitchBEE

There's no reason why not, although the small panels & wind turbines only deliver a tiny current, typically 50kw then you're looking at spending around £170,000 for the turbine, deliver, installation and connection to the national grid

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Aitchbee

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 2:03PM

alan14 - I would like to harness a little of nature's 'free-gifts' and see them in operation on my verandah, which is ideally placed...weather-wise, for solar and wind power, on a very small, and manageable scale.

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interzone55

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 8:59PM

AitchBEE

If you get a lot of wind across your veranda then one of these would work, but it only delivers a maximum of 50w

http://www.maplin.co.uk/50w-telescopic-vertical-axis-wind-turbine-396269

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DM.

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Posted September 2, 2011 at 9:32PM

Colonel Graham

We are getting panels fitted to our south facing roof. They will generate 1.6Kw of dc energy. This is then converted to AC and fed into the house.

**I'm hopefully having solar panels fitted shortly. It occurs to me if I put a small storage heater in the conservatory, it would charge during the day and release the heat on a winters evening. Is this practical?**

Yes. Even if it does not fully charge the storage heater it will use all of the dc power and then be topped up from the grid. the trick is to use one appliance at a time. This will maximise the output of the panels.

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