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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
These two books are the perfect starting place to help you get to grips with one of the most vitally important aspects of our society - our homes and living environment.

PLEASE NOTE: A download link for Volume 1 will be sent to you by email and Volume 2 will be sent to you by post as a book.

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    • CommentAuthoran02ew
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2021
     
    ive recent had a PV array installed on a garage roof with the intention of using as much of the generated electric as possible, i keep a small meat room for processsing our own pork and chicken and am keen to add a chiller space.

    is it possible to run some kind of small chiller/refrigeration unit in the same way one might run an immersion heater from a solar diverter with peicemeal electricity being used as generated to power the unit?
    •  
      CommentAuthordjh
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2021
     
    Posted By: an02ewis it possible to run some kind of small chiller/refrigeration unit in the same way one might run an immersion heater from a solar diverter with peicemeal electricity being used as generated to power the unit?

    It's more difficult, because immersion heaters are just simple resistors and don't care what voltage they are fed with or how often the power supply is interrupted, so a diverter can just chop the waveform to supply any spare power to the immersion. Heat pumps like chillers by contrast generally need a fairly clean supply at rated voltage and current and continuously available whilst they operate. So you would need a much more sophisticated control system and would only be able to use generated power when averaged over some time (I.e. you would actually use imported power part of the time and 'pay it back' at other times). So generally, heat pumps aren't powered from diverted power.
    • CommentAuthorGareth J
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2021 edited
     
    Some of the diverters (immersun or Eddi springs to mind?) Allow you to set a relay to close if certain parameters are met; e.g. "if exporting over X amount; close relay for Y minutes; recheck or average over every Z minutes" or similar/better logic.

    Some inverters have a similar option to close a relay for a period if generation is over a set amount. Though unless it's clamp metering, it won't have any idea of your usage. Useful if on an otherwise not much used phase though
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2021
     
    If I were you I would run the chiller colder than you need it but above freezing whenever there is excess solar so that it uses less grid power at other times. Need a relay and two alternative thermostats, one for the solar and one for normal operation.
    • CommentAuthoran02ew
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2021
     
    Thanks for your comments.

    Posted By: tonyNeed a relay and two alternative thermostats, one for the solar and one for normal operation.
    are you suggesting a certain amount of automation? could you expand on this please?
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