System Details

We finally had our system installed on the 20 September 2011 by EVO energy. This followed a couple of months considering various options and getting several quotes from 3 different installers. The main issue was that our roof was slightly too shallow to take two rows of standard sized panels in portrait orientation. We were offered 12 panels as 3 rows of 4 in landscape orientation but this left us with at best a 3kW system. We wanted to get something closer to 4kW if possible to maximise our returns. Some research revealed that Sanyo had some very efficient panels that would deliver the same power in a smaller footprint. Using  the Sanyo panels we could fit 2 rows of 8 panels on the roof, the only catch was that they were more expensive per panel compared to their less efficient competitors. After a few days running the various options through some of the modellers available on the Internet we decided to go for the Sanyo panels. Below is a picture taken from the scaffolding just after the panels were installed - a very tidy job.

16 Sanyo HIT-N240SE10 panels (3.84kW peak)

The Sanyo panels are around 19% efficient at converting sunlight into electricity, most other panels vary between 12% and 14% efficiency. The Sanyo panels are handy if you have a roof like ours where the standard size panels won't quite fit. Below is a photo of the Kaco inverter which was installed on the garage wall. We were lucky as the garage was on the side of the house that the panels were installed so the cabling could be run down from the roof in conduit and into the garage. The inverter and switchgear often gets stuck in the loft which not only makes it inconvenient to get to but also means it gets very hot in the summer, electronic components have a shorter lifetime in hot environments.

Kaco Powador 4202 Inverter and swithcgear on the garage wall

We were very happy with the job done by EVO, they were comfortably able to finish the job in one day and spent time explaining the system to me and showed me the commissioning so I could see how the system operated. They supplied a system manual with full details of all of the components and how to do some basic troubleshooting.

The panels are located on a south-east facing roof with a pitch of around 30 degrees, there is no shading during the daytime but the neighbours house does block the sun first thing in the morning for a couple of months in the winter. The south-east aspect means that we generate most electricity in the morning, this is handy for running the laundry or dishwasher to take advantage of the free electricity.