Paphos Life

Our heating panels on the roof for the hot water system are probably at somewhere around 25 to 30 degrees. But we have not needed to use any outside source like an immersion heater up to now this Autumn

The Pool Heater / Cover combo means you will be able to swim for longer in the year, for sure. The main factor is how bloody cold it is once you get out of the pool.

The inclination (tilt) average in Cyprus is between 26 and 28 degree for maximum result on photo-voltaic installations, however much difference to solar thermic, were you want the best result in Dec/Jan/Feb, so 45-60% is optimal.

Here one of my many studies about that in order to find out what is the best tilt for my 20 KWp installation with variable inclination mounting.
(1)= January. So one can see that in May,June and July the best tilt would be near 0 degree.!! Numbers are KW/h for certain month. By the way: the efficiency of photo-voltaic modules does not matter that much, as long as you have enough space on your roof or garden.
You just put some more modules if you want higher electricity production.

However if you install high efficient modules they are normally from excellent producers, which is important, and on top of it you need less mounting materials (cables, connectors, aluminum,) and less work to install.

Green Air uses at the moment 325 Wp modules, means 3 of them give ca 1 KWp. Some years ago one needed 4 or 5 modules to get 1 KWp....

Max

Thank you, Max, that is a very interesting study and is worthy of publication. I note your remark regarding the angle versus the season, where it's perfectly true that the utility of a system is seasonally different, according to the type of solar collector. Is it not true that some manufacturers of photovoltaic panels have increased the size of their modules to give more power per square metre because of fewer square centimetres round the edges, relatively speaking?

nholleran wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 8:10 am Am i right i can only have a 3KW system as i am one a one phase connection.

EAC does accept 4 kWp installation maximum. However if you install optimizer and have a good south position you can harvest ca 7500 kW/h per year.

Max

cyprusmax47 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 8:36 am EAC does accept 4 kWp installation maximum.

Are you sure? This is from an email EAC sent me in the uprun to me buying a plot in Polemi:

Do not worry we can connect any net metering photovoltaic system from 0.1KW to 10KW anywhere.

jeba wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 9:20 am

cyprusmax47 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 8:36 am EAC does accept 4 kWp installation maximum.

Are you sure? This is from an email EAC sent me in the uprun to me buying a plot in Polemi:

Do not worry we can connect any net metering photovoltaic system from 0.1KW to 10KW anywhere.

As we are talking in this case about 1-phase connection, yes I am sure. Different story if you have 3-phase in the house.

Max

With our solar cover, our pool temperature is still a warm 27c. When the water temperature gets down to 24c, we shall start using our Fairland Pool Heater, which is a Heat Pump. Very economical to use and uses between 1 and 3 kw per hour depending on outside temperature. Last year we started using it in the first week of November. We swam most days during the winter.

All of the work we have had done on our pool and solar panels has been done by Green Air. I did a blog on this site when the work was being carried out.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=9454&p=91473&hilit= ... els#p91473

We are still extremely pleased with all of the work Green Air have done for us. We also have a Lorenz pool pump, powered by 3 panels and a Quantum UV pool steriliser, which, as they run for all daylight hours, has considerably cut down our use of pool chemicals.

Due to covid, we were in Cyprus for the whole of the year. Last winter we used our new, LG aircon units for heating, plus a couple of oil filled radiators on the few days it was cold. This kept our house cosy and warm, but also dry. I reckon we saved around €1200 on our electric bills and at least €800 on heating oil during the year. Our neighbours had two oil deliveries during the winter and we have known them have 3.

At present, we have over 3000 kw of electric in our net metering bank, which we will be able to use during the winter at €0.051 per KWH as opposed to probably in excess of €0.21 without net metering.

Probably our next investment is a heat pump for our now reduntant underfloor heating.

Devil wrote: ↑Sun Oct 24, 2021 3:44 pm Thank you, Max, that is a very interesting study and is worthy of publication. I note your remark regarding the angle versus the season, where it's perfectly true that the utility of a system is seasonally different, according to the type of solar collector. Is it not true that some manufacturers of photovoltaic panels have increased the size of their modules to give more power per square metre because of fewer square centimetres round the edges, relatively speaking?

Not really, but the last few years they found methods (p.e. Heterojunction cells) to push efficiency up to around 22%, keeping nearly the same size of the modules. Good example are Sun Power and REC.
some explanation: https://www.recgroup.com/en/alpha

Max

cyprusmax47 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 9:36 am

jeba wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 9:20 am

cyprusmax47 wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 8:36 am EAC does accept 4 kWp installation maximum.

Are you sure? This is from an email EAC sent me in the uprun to me buying a plot in Polemi:

Do not worry we can connect any net metering photovoltaic system from 0.1KW to 10KW anywhere.

As we are talking in this case about 1-phase connection, yes I am sure. Different story if you have 3-phase in the house.

Max

Are there areas where you can't get 3-phase connections?

jeba wrote: ↑Tue Oct 26, 2021 4:36 pm Are there areas where you can't get 3-phase connections?

I think the answer to this question is yes and no. I believe that all the authorities' service areas are three phase but there are some rural areas which are single phase, because the connection is a private one. If you don't have three phase but want it for any reason, this is always possible but possibly at the exorbitant price. I have a friend who built the house about 500 m from the nearest electricity pole. The cost of installation was very well into four figures, including half a dozen or so poles, the cable, the terminations at both ends and the lightning protection.