WHY You're Told You Can't Have More Solar Panels Fitted

if you stumbled on today's video it's because you've recently been told by an electrician or solar fitter that you can't have a bigger inverter than 3.68 kilowatts or you can't have more than four kilowatts with solar on your roof and if you're looking at your roof thinking well I can fit more than that I can see it and you want to know why they won't fit it well today's video we're going to be telling you the real reasons why electricians won't fit you a bigger array now before we get in to the main reason why most installers are giving you smaller arrays there is some genuine reasons why you might not be able to have a bigger array than what you actually want and the big reason might be you just don't have a big enough roof you might have a small roof you might live in a small house that can only have a small array based on the roof size that you actually have at all you're currently in the shade or you're permanently covered by another building and only one of the roofs that you want to use is actually in an ideal spot these are valid reasons now if that is a valid reason just check what wattage the panels are because you can get different wattages in different size panels and obviously the higher the efficiency of the panel so the more wattage of that panel for that size the more expensive it is so if the electrician is quoting you a very large panel with a very very low wattage there is a possibility that trying to avoid fitting you a bigger array because of the last point in this video a reason they may give you is you don't want to generate more and Export the energy because they pay peanuts well there's a part argument for this but we'll get to reasons why that's not completely true in a minute also in the winter you're going to generate less so you want bigger panels than what you're going to just use in the summer because you want to you know use the stuff when it's less efficient in the winter you could also store it in battery storage at home for users at night when you know it's not Sunny so there's plenty of reasons why you want to over generate solar there is also some reasons why you might not know what Expo sum to the grid and we'll get to why really doesn't matter if you export extra because you might be using more energy in the future you might have zero electric cars now you might be getting two electric cars three electric cars you want to be able to fit as much slow as you can because the price the panels and the price of the inverter are relatively cheap it is that initial call out for the engineer the electrician to come and fit it and that initial cost of the scaffolding that bring up the cost of electric so why are they avoiding fitting extra panels so if they told you you shouldn't have more because you shouldn't have any panels on your Easter or west array we'll explain this in a minute now I'm sure I'm not teaching anyone any science here but the sun rises in the East and sets in the west now obviously you don't really want any panels on the North array there's no point having any panels on the North it's pretty much never going to have direct sunlight pointed at it and it would be a waste of money but if you have a East South and West roof cover all those parts of the roof in in solar you're going to get the most benefit from the south array obviously the South put as many panels as you can the South will be the best part of generation especially if you've got battery storage but if you've not got battery storage or you want the best amount of energy profile the East array will generate all the power you need for your house in the morning that might be turning the kettle on having a morning shower the Easter egg is going to have direct sun as it comes over and generate the most power as the rest of the day moves you're going to go down to the South and as you're at the South array the east and south Road will still be generating power together and as the sun goes to set in the west you might be coming home from work plug in the car turning on the oven having a shower you know depending on what you do where your life works so that west and south Ray will generate that power at the best times for you when you're working and you get that balanced profile so why on Earth are they telling you you can't have more solar admin is the answer it's literally just admin now let me quickly explain if you have a four kilowatt solar array you will not generate four kilowatts of solar apart from some Goldilocks days you will be generating less so what tends to happen is they fit a four kilowatt array and a 3.68 kilowatt inverter and the 3.68 we'll get back to in a minute because this is the important part about the admin but basically if you've got six seven kilowatts of solar and your invert inverter is 3.68 you're wasting your solar your inverter should be bigger than that and a lot of solar installs will fit bigger solar panels lots of solar panels okay they might fit loads of solar but only fit you with 3.6 kilowatt inverter and they might give you an excuse that they've done they've overspect the soil on the roof so you generate 3.68 throughout the whole year okay even in Winter which is true you know you will generate Less in winter but you're wasting it in summer you've got this big array and only a tiny inverter so why are they only fitting a 3.68 kilowatt inverter so in the UK we have something called a dno that's a distribution Network operator your dno is in charge of your local electricity grid so you've got the National Grid and then you've got your dno okay around here it's electric North West if you fit solar less than 3.68 you just do a g98 application a g98 application is I fitted solo at this house it's currently live and the dno go thank you very much for telling us we'll put that on our file and make sure that the grid can COPE in that local area if you're doing bigger than 3.68 you are now doing the same form that a solar farm has to do that's a big form it's a big complicated form because it's meant for really big arrays and if you're only fitting five six kilowatts um it might seem a bit of over over egged form especially for a small electrician or a small Solar Company to fill in one of these big really complicated forms it also has a few problems it has added costs which we'll get to in a minute and it has a 12-week timeline which a lot of Engineers can be put off by and they may need a deposit off you up front before submitting a g99 because there's a lot of admin a lot of work for them to fill that form in and they may feel a little bit scared asking for that money up front or saying to you uh we need to do g99 application you're going to have to pay me to fill the form in an admin and by the way they may say no which means you would have paid the engineer for a g99 application and they might say no but they should give you the customer the option in my opinion and I'd love to know what you think in the comments should they give you the option of doing a g99 or should they just submit g98 fit you a small array and not ever give you the option for larger solar let me know in the comments what you think what would be the best preferable option for you moving back on to additional costs additional costs how does it work you do it all your neighbors have got solar so let's see you're in a street of 10 and you are the 10th house and all nine with your neighbors have got solar you could do a G9 application for 4.5 kilowatts of of inverter you know five six kilowatt array and the dno could say well we're over subscribed in your area because everyone's got solar so we need to upgrade the street and you go oh great we're going to upgrade the street the problem is because you did the g90 they think that you want the solar so therefore they give you the bill for upgrading your entire Street for all your neighbors and that's just wrong it's just wrong the whole thing's wrong so I think two things should happen first of all the dnos should now start looking that everyone wants solar and upgrading the whole street and maybe making a new form for solar that goes up to five six kilowatts and says there's an application fee of I don't know a thousand pounds per application which is added onto the price of everyone and that would upgrade the street means everyone can have a bigger array and it would mean that the cost is divided fairly for everybody rather than it just being the last person that put the larger application in because what could happen is you could do a g99 you get accepted and then your neighbor asked for a g99 and they could get refused and landed the bell and this isn't fair because everybody's now going to be getting solar for two reasons the price of electricity is through the roof and if you have an electric car which a lot of people on my channel do they go They're Gonna want to install solar because the price of charging at home and on the street public charging is higher than ever and that's why I think you should watch this video

Channel: Nicolas Raimo

Views: 232,912

Keywords: electric cars, ev nick, nicolas raimo, nicholas raimo, solar panels, solar energy, solar panel system, artisan electrics, solar panels for home, solar panel system for home, electrician life, solar panels worth it, solar system, tesla solar, solar panels for beginners, g98 solar, g99 solar, 3.68kw solar, solar inverter, max solar panel wattage, max solar panel, max solar inverter, solar panels uk with battery storage, DIY Solar, diy solar generator, renewable energy

Id: e76mtwX9SMQ

Length: 8min 22sec (502 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2022