Solar Panels and Immersion Heater size

[sparky1966]

Hiya,

Can any one help with this please:-

I have a friend who is thinking of installing solar panels in his outside building. He will be having 20 solar panels and is wondering what size emersion heater he can run from that? He has a consumer unit in the out building proving power to a lighting circuit and 2 socket circuits. He said the panels would provide 4Kw.

Not knowing anything about solar panels etc I said I would as the experts.

Is there any guidlines etc ??? or is it that a simple (or complicated) calc is needed?

Thank you

 

[Mark.W]

Hi

If your friend is having a 4KW system installed then realistically he would be generating around +/- 3.5KW give or take (allowing for losses etc).

He could then realistically run a 3.5KW immersion heater, if nothing else in the property is on at the same time and the sun is at it's highest.

It will change drastically now in the winter, but we advise our customers to put their immersion heaters on a timer and have it come on during daylight hours.

Hope this helps