Hi once again Gents
Sorry for the slow reply, I'm off on a bit of a trip on Sunday, Greece, Holland, UK and back and trying to get caught up with things before departure, it's not going to happen!
Thanks once more for further food for thought
Bruce,
A couple of points....
The Victron is a Multiplus 12v/3000va/120amp, it supplies a nominal 240v dc, not 120.
As for solar panels, I don't have any yet!
When I do I'll have to try and hide them from the Mayor, he refused my mate permission to have a pair of small arrays, about 8 feet long by 5 feet high in a field behind his house because the land is 'red zoned' for agricultural use only and anyway it would spoil the view, even though you can't see the site from anyone else's land. he's now got permission to mount them on the slate roof of his 300 year old farmhouse, clearly visible from the main road, the Mayor don't like that but has no power to stop it as the regs for that come from a higher level of administration, apparently....
My place is a barn conversion and it says in the conditions of conversion that PV panels on the (slate, has to be slate, nailed, like Grandaddy did, not clipped even though you can't tell the difference from the road, 300 yards away) roof and my land is also red zoned......
Bruce / Mi,
I like the idea of direct from the panels straight into an element, is that something that would be self regulating, ie under less than optimal cloudy conditions or at night, it would simply render the element less efficient, or 'off'? any links to the inverters would be appreciated.
I'm, hopefully, going to build a small shed for the hydro plant later in the summer so I guess I could put the CS in there with an automatic timed start stop on it and run it 3 hours a day, I've got loads of WVO......
Veggie,
As I clicked to post this reply your post came up.....
Looks very promising, I'll get onto it, thanks very much.
Cheers
Stef