The ever expanding solar setup
Part of our plan here has always to be entirely self sufficient in energy. That said, there is a huge pole and some wires that bring 11,000 volts to within 20 feet of the house, so despite our immediate thought ‘that pole has to go, its right in the way’, we realised that we could earn some money selling our surplus electricity back to the grid, and that perhaps the pole might not go entirely, but be moved out of sight.
Imagine our surprise then, when Northern Ireland Electricity told us that to move the pole 30 feet further away would cost SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS. We had been warned that it might be expensive (the NIE surveyor took great delight in letting us know that it wouldn’t be cheap) ,but still – SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS. That was pretty much all I could say for a while. SEVEN THOUSAND BLOODY POUNDS?
Anyhow, after I’d calmed down a bit, I realised that the only answer was to tell NIE to go and poke their pole where the sun don’t shine, and go it alone, so ahead of that glorious day (they have to take it down at no cost to us, ironically), we’ve started expanding our solar capacity, and are considering connecting the wind turbine up to the house, although that requires a cable as thick as your arm and about as expensive as getting a new arm too.
So we are up to about 800watts now, and we’ll be over the kilowatt by Christmas, if all goes well. The other side of all these panels is the labyrinthine array of controllers that now line the walls of our not-under-stairs (we have no stairs, just a cupboard), cupboard.
Our PV controller collection
Come the new year, and the lengthening days, we’ll be able to make the call, and wave goodbye to our highvoltage eyesore. Not a moment too soon either. SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS. You see, there I go again.
Hi, All the best with this. I’m watching with interest as we too would prefer to be off-grid. Mind you as you say being connected gives the option to sell back. It may be worth questioning NIE’s quote. We did this with SSE when they quoted us £27.5k for connection to the grid. Their re-quote came in at just over £9k. (I THINK SOMETIMES THEY JUST PLUCK FIGURES OUT OF THE AIR). The off-grid solutions were just too expensive £30k +, so I guess we’re stuck with being reliant on the cartel in the short term anyway.
Also I found out recently that you can get alternative quotes from private contractors http://www.lloydsregister.co.uk/schemes/NERS/providers-list.aspx
Cheers,
Gary
Sadly in Northern Ireland we can’t get an alternative supplier – NIE have complete control over the infrastructure. I did a lot of leaping up and down, demanding they provide very specific breakdowns etc, and we removed £500 from the quote, but that is as far as they’ll go. Like you say, it would be sensible to sell electricity back to them, but if we don’t then I’ll find an alternative use for the surplus – water heating seems the most likely.
The other thing about being grid tied is that you are then into approved contractors, suppliers etc, and if you are happy doing a DIY install, the costs are roughly halved. My plan is to either tie in the old generator we have as a ‘just in case’ or get a new ‘silent’ one that we can convert to veg oil, so that we always have a back up, but I bet we don’t need it often.
A lot depends on how comfortable you are with electrics, the (il)legalities surrounding doing them, and whether you are living somewhere you plan to stay a long time. It all has a bearing on how you go about things..