I have a couple of days of experience now with the water heater diversion system.
Yesterday I installed a new GFCI 20amp breaker to feed the heater, since all the electrical stuff is right next to the sump pump and other watery things. $48 for that breaker, but if it keeps me (or someone else) alive, it is priceless
Here is the various stages I note on the charging system:
- PV panels are producing 6kw of power regularly in full sun
- House takes its share of around 1.2kw
- Battery is receiving some 4.8kw during BULK
- Battery reaches 99.4% full and diversion load comes on
- Battery receives .25kw of power
- PV panels are reporting 3.8kw
- assuming water heater is taking 2kw
- house is consuming the rest of 1.4kw
- leaving a PV power of 2.2kw which is UN-UTILIZED
So, I ran an experiment of using a 800watt wall heater to see what effect on the system it had:
The PV production increases 800 watts when the above heater is on (from 3.8kw to 4.6kw)
Turn it off, PV production falls to 3.8kw
And that, is what the expected behavior should be.
I have that heater behind my chair (my office is in the basement and cool) blowing in to the desk foot hold and I say: It is nice and toasty there. I think I will use this heater during excess power generation times for my personal benefit.
Comment on the "lost" energy that I am currently not using:
With NetMetering, that energy would be "pushed" into the grid battery for later credits.
Yet I don't want to do NetMetering and even if I did want to, I CANNOT. This section of the city is served by a utility circuit that is currently max'ed out. This same circuit connects the big 12megawatt hydro plant to our city system and transmission line is full, awaiting another circuit to be installed.
Jordanelle dam hydroelectric plant:
https://wwclyde.net/project/jordanelle-dam-hydroelectric-plant/
The dam is 5 miles north of me.
Therefore, at the moment, I have power to spare on sunny days which I produce myself
dougbert