Help, we have had air source heat pump fitted with solar panels and back up battery. This is our first winter with this new system and our electricity bills have tripled, we are afraid to turn the heating on. Our bill for the last 3 months is £1150 when it hasn’t been exceptionally cold. How can this be?
Air Source Heat Pump: Electricity bills have tripled since having solar installed - any advice?
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Updated on 09/10/24 by Shads_OVO
Without any more to go on this is what I suggest you do:
Turn the hot water down to 50 degrees C. Make sure you’re only heating it on a schedule, not on ‘reheat’. I heat our hot water at night during my cheap rate hours and again in the afternoon when the outside temperature is warmest. The space heating (ie radiators) won’t get any heat when the hot water cycle is running so do it at a time when you won’t notice it missing. Mine takes about 45 mins. If you have a ‘legionella’ or disinfectant’ cycle enabled you can disable it. It’s reckoned to be unnecessary in a domestic setting where you’re using and refreshing the contents of your hot water cylinder every day.
Next, rather than have the radiators on for a few hours at a time (generally an inefficient way of running a heat pump) run it at a lower temperature for longer hours. Without knowing what heat pump you have it’s a bit difficult to explain the changes you need to make. Mine is a Daikin Altherma 3 and I have a Madoka room sensor. I’ve set the controls to Weather Dependant, which means the radiators are cooler when it’s warm outside and warmer when it’s cool outside. You may have been set up with a fixed flow temperature which is not an efficient way to run it. Open all your radiator valves (the adjustable ones) fully so they all receive heat at the same time. The heat pump needs a good flow of water pumped around and there’s no benefit closing some off here and there. If that sounds extravagant then don’t worry, you’ll save by the hp running at tickover rather than having to burst into life every time a change of heat is called for, as it is currently. You can turn the overall temperature down to use less electricity rather than turn it off. This does all sound involved I know. With more info on your system I might be able to explain better how you can do all this.
+5- Plan Zero Hero
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juliamc wrote:
So
Not necessarily. As I mentioned, it depends on the whole set up because some inverters have their own internal ‘measurement’ sensor rather than having an external clamp.
Perhaps an idea of the inverter make/type might help if that’s visible or written somewhere.
BPLightlog wrote:
juliamc wrote:
So
Not necessarily. As I mentioned, it depends on the whole set up because some inverters have their own internal ‘measurement’ sensor rather than having an external clamp.
Perhaps an idea of the inverter make/type might help if that’s visible or written somewhere.
Ooh heck where will I find the inverter please and what does it look like
+5- Plan Zero Hero
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There are various manufacturers but it will look something like this
There should be some detail with the name, model and size (x kw) which will help. If someone can find these details, I might be able to check how it’s supposed to be set up
BPLightlog wrote:
There are various manufacturers but it will look something like this
There should be some detail with the name, model and size (x kw) which will help. If someone can find these details, I might be able to check how it’s supposed to be set up
Aw thank you so much, I will have a look tomorrow, I think that it might be in the Cape Canaveral control room lol.
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juliamc wrote:
Did your granddaughter take some photos of the other kit
Just two before her phone died, she’ll take more over the weekend of the Cape Canaveral control room and it’s panels. This is the ASHP and the switchy thing outside. but don’t suppose you can get anything from that.
+3- Carbon Catcher***
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That’s a good start !
The little bit of insulation visible before it goes into the black trunking is okay. Some very shoddy installations have big gaps in the insulation, so as long as there aren’t gaps elsewhere that’s not too bad.
I don’t know the Vaillants size-wise. There is a tendency to oversize which reduces efficiency and means high bills. There should be somewhere for the condensation to run off the back of the unit so it doesn’t get icy round there in winter, I can’t see anything like that, which is not good (but wouldn’t effect the bills of course).
Could you list here the names of the kit shown on the literature you were given by the installers ? eg it might say Vaillant aeroTherm Plus 7kW etc. Plus all the other stuff please !!
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+3- Carbon Catcher***
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A few more questions
Did you have gas central heating before ?
Have you had any new radiators ?
Who were your installers ?
Yes we had solid fuel central heating before. Sprint renewables were the installers and they put in new rads,, plumbing and shower. I have contacted Sprint and hopefully they will get back to me bu in the meantime I have someone coming to take photos of the whole system and will be able to put them on for you to see on Monday.
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juliamc wrote:
A few more questions
Did you have gas central heating before ?
Have you had any new radiators ?
Who were your installers ?
These are the pics of the set up in my control room plus a pic of the battery. Can any of you clever guys get anymore ideas from these? I did forget to say in my post that although we do have the battery we were still taking energy from the grid during last summer months when we should really have been generating and storing enough for our use. We are just two oldies living in a small 3 bed house.
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+5- Plan Zero Hero
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Ok - so it looks like your inverter is a Sun Synk unit. Some of their information says :
All inverters (control units) can take power from the solar PV panels or from the grid. The thing about charging from the grid is that, that needs a cheaper tariff to make sense.
Are you on an economy 7 tariff or similar? If not, I wonder if the system is set up to charge the batteries during peak times.
I will try to look at their monitoring system and user manual to get some more details.
BPLightlog wrote:
Ok - so it looks like your inverter is a Sun Synk unit. Some of their information says :
All inverters (control units) can take power from the solar PV panels or from the grid. The thing about charging from the grid is that, that needs a cheaper tariff to make sense.
Are you on an economy 7 tariff or similar? If not, I wonder if the system is set up to charge the batteries during peak times.
I will try to look at their monitoring system and user manual to get some more details.
Thank you, no we are not on economy 7, our plan type is Simpler energy and it is variable.
+5- Plan Zero Hero
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Sun Synk have a monitoring option via a WiFi connection .. hopefully you have that?
(The plug in device shown above connects into the inverter).
If it wasn’t fitted, you could get a unit installed which would help to check and adjust usage settings.
https://www.sunsynk.org/remote-monitoring
They also have some videos to show how to set things up
https://www.sunsynk.org/training-videos
They do also mention a CT connection so somewhere in the system, there should be a CT like we showed earlier
+5- Plan Zero Hero
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There should also be a web based monitor .. not sure if this was set up for you
+3- Carbon Catcher***
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juliamc wrote:
No,Julia, the house isn’t warm enough as we are afraid to turn on the rads, we just got one rad going in the lounge and our log burner.
+5- Plan Zero Hero
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juliamc wrote:
…
It’s looks like a pylontech battery which uses convection cooling so there will be vents which need some space
+3- Carbon Catcher***
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+3- Carbon Catcher***
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BPLightlog wrote:
There should also be a web based monitor .. not sure if this was set up for you
I can find something under the inverter that looks like that wifi thingy, it has a flashing red light on it but I can’t see anything that looks like a ct clamp. The only wifi that was set up was to connect the rads to the control hub which controls the temperature.
juliamc wrote:
The serial number is 21230400100473831300105046N5 aroTHERM plus.
VWL 105/6 A 230V S2R1
I have no idea what a working figure is or how to find it
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serennu wrote:
BPLightlog wrote:
There should also be a web based monitor .. not sure if this was set up for you
I can find something under the inverter that looks like that wifi thingy, it has a flashing red light on it but I can’t see anything that looks like a ct clamp. The only wifi that was set up was to connect the rads to the control hub which controls the temperature.
The hub is a Honeywell monitor just used to control the temp
+5- Plan Zero Hero
- 2724 replies
serennu wrote:
BPLightlog wrote:
There should also be a web based monitor .. not sure if this was set up for you
I can find something under the inverter that looks like that wifi thingy, it has a flashing red light on it but I can’t see anything that looks like a ct clamp. The only wifi that was set up was to connect the rads to the control hub which controls the temperature.
Yes the flashing red light sounds like a WiFi connection (although they’re often green when connected).
You should be able to set up an account either on the app or web to look at the inverter set up. This shouldn’t need much adjustment but it would show how things have been set up.
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