My first post, so I hope I have understood the ethos of the Forum correctly and am asking a reasonable question...
We are in the process of getting quotes on a PV installation. One of the potential suppliers has recommended a device called "EMMA" (Energy and Micro-generator MAnager) from an Irish company called Cool Power as a way of maximising the use of generated power.
As I understand it, if the system spots that you are generating more power than you are using, it diverts the excess (or at least some of it?) to an alternative use, typically some form of electrical or heat storage, e.g. an immersion heater in your hot water tank.
Does anyone have experience of this arrangement, or have thoughts on its practicality or potential?
tony
31 Jul 2010, 5:18 PM
Their claims of themselves seem to me to be excessive
I would go for pv and FIT but not that controller
beware that the prices of pv are falling but so are FITs
skyewright
31 Jul 2010, 5:42 PM
Thank you Tony.
Yes the claims do seem pretty stunning. I imagine that the potential for savings is very system dependant? For the sort of figures they mention there would need to be more excess genaration that we are likely to produce and more water to "soak it up" than we have need for!
We are certainly aiming to go for PV, but I suspect that a bit of sensible scheduling of household activities could optimise use of the generated power just as well as the EMMA and at little or zero cost. :)
I'm puzzled by your mention of "...falling but so are FITs". Is that a recent change. I thought that the 41.3 applied to retro-fit installations of up to 4kW till 31st March 2012, and that the tariff at the time of installation then applied for the duration of the scheme? Am I missing something?
tony
31 Jul 2010, 10:13 PM
after that the FITs start to fall on a sliding scale
skyewright
1 Aug 2010, 2:39 PM
Yes, but unless something has changed (or there is a lot of confusion out there) the reduced tariffs on the sliding scale will only apply to new entrants to the scheme, so I'm not clear on the relevance of the sliding scale to this topic?
We hope to be making our decision well before March 2012.
