Help Solar Panel EPC Band

[Berneray]

Looking for any help and advice I can get with this one....

Been given a contract for a 4kwp system with Immersun on a south facing roof.

House is only three years old and has been built to the highest spec.

However it has a wet electric heating system and the chap that does our EPC's has said there is no chance of it getting a Band D....

When our customer bought it...it came with an EPC from the builder which show a total of 37 marks...

Has anyone come across this type of situation....jobs are so hard to come by I don't want to walk away from it.....Can the immersun unit be included as it will effectively heat the water during the summer months...

 

[whinmoor]

Is it off the mains gas grid?

 

[Berneray]

Yes...its on a Scottish Island

 

[FB.]

To be as low as 37pts it must have a lot of very energy-inefficient features. Are there any "quick fix" cheap-ish options for improving energy efficiency - such as a jacket on the hot water cylinder, low-energy bulbs where possible, extra loft insulation, wall insulation?

I know of someone with a 1980's house which has no mains gas. They heat with storage heaters and have some extra insulation and about two-thirds of the light fittings with energy-efficient bulbs.

The house was EPC'd as a mid-E (48pts) in 2011.
Addition of 4kWp solar in 2012 took it to a mid-C (76pts) and they therefore qualified for the then-21p FiT.

The 4kWp amounting to a 28pt jump in the EPC score as I really don't think anything the owners did from 2011-2012 would have added much to the EPC score.

If your 37pt house gained 28pts from solar PV in the same way as the person I know, it would reach 65pts, which is a mid-D and would qualify for the full 14p FiT rate.

 

[Eco Deal]

best way forward would be get a new EPC then ask the DEA to do a scernario with a 4 kwp system on then see what it gets ?

easy

 

[Gavin A]

If it's well insulated I don't see why it necessarily wouldn't get a D once you add in a 4kWp PV system - we had one recently with electric heating where the PV added 1.5 bands, taking it from a high F to a low D.

Then again, if it's wet and electric, then that means an electric boiler, which is probably too high powered to run from an Immersun, or for the PV to cover much of it when it's on, vs independent electric rads which will be switching off and on at different times, so will work better with the PV... don't know if the EPC calculators are clever enough to factor this in or not.

Has the assessor actually worked up an EPC and then tried adding in the solar PV to see what happens (without lodging it)? If not I'd think it'd be worth a try myself - ensure low energy lights throughout etc.

 

[whinmoor]

Do you need to limit it to 4kWp? Could you go for a bigger system as that may send it into the D-rating?

 

[babba]

I have done one with an electric wet system and it had a D before the pv was put in, so it can't be the electric wet system giving the 37 rating.

 

[moggy1968]

The EPC should show you what effect various additions would make to the rating (adding energy efficient bulbs, cykinder jkt etc). you can then make the most efficient and cost effective alterations needed.

One we did on a 4kW went from 44 to 58 with 4kW