Solar - Off topic - Arboleas forum - Costa de Almería forum in the Almeria province of Spain
Grupo Platinum Estates
Mini Digger Almera
Have Tools Will Travel
UK DIRECT REMOVALS
ASSSA Insurance

Join the Arboleas forum

Join the Arboleas forumMy name's Alex and this is my website all about Arboleas in Spain. Register now for free to talk about Off topic and much more!

Solar - Page 3

Michael 71

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 12:33pm

Michael 71

Original Poster

Posts: 25

9 helpful points

Location: Arboleas

Joined: 28 Nov 2022

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 12:33pm

NannieH wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 9:35am:

It was not up to ecocorp to sort out your tariff with Iberdrola!! Iberdjrola will send bills in English if required, so you could have seen and queried your tariff...... For all Ecocorp knew your bills were higher than normal because you had fires on all day, or running a compressor! They would j...

...ust tell you your savings on what you showed them. Our bill from Iberdrola incidentally, which is in English, did not say what tarriff we were on anyway. As I have said both we and are 3 immediate neighbours are very happy with them and the savings. We had trouble with the phone provider opening up a port so we could read oursolar app. Ecocorp sent someone out 3 times to sort it.

For your information, we DID NOT EXPECT  Ecocorp to sort out our Tarriff, or anything else for that matter, they offered to do this, when they came out to explain everything we gave them the bills, Vic saw what we were paying, but never mentioned that this was wrong. Of course we now know we should not have been on phase 3 power it was explained to us that builders do this at the beginning of a build they hook up one house and run next batch from this power untill they've completed the houses then disconnect it. This did not happen with our house, prior to living here, 3 other families have lived here before us and no one noticed the huge amount of power being supplied to the house. 

I really don't wish to get into an argument regarding this matter. 

I gave our experience in case something similar happened with others. 

M

Geordiemark

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 1:12pm

Geordiemark

Helpful member

Posts: 306

294 helpful points

Location: Arboleas

Joined: 22 Oct 2021

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 1:12pm

I can't understand how you had a 3 phase supply to a private residential property, that is very unusual. Maybe the previous owners were running some 3 phase equipment? Maybe a compressor or machining equipment and they had requested that sort of power supply.

Even if you did, none of you normal household appliances or electrical gadgets would use a  3 phase supply, you would effectively use a single phase, so unless you were paying a large fee/standing charge for the 3 phase supply, you were not physically able to use 3 phases. Think of your std 220v ac supply as a standing wave form the oscillates 50 to 60 times a second. That is the frequency i.e. 50hz - 60hz. When a second and 3rd phase are added there is effectively less time between the peaks and troughs, so electrical equipment that has a high start up current requirement and/or higher current draw can run.

The supply from your panels/inverter setup is single phase and assuming no huge power drains, will happily run all your electrical needs while the sun shines. Therefore "free power" which must equate into a savings?

The money you will be paid for feeding back into the grid is pretty poor compared to the price you buy it in at, so it's not a level playing field. I've just ordered a 5kw battery storage setup for my place (expandable to 15kw). The inverter will keep this charged before feeding anything left over to be returned to the grid, so at night or cloudy power will be pulled from the battery before using a grid feed.

Hope this helps and I'm sorry if I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs, but there seems to be a mis understanding of how it all works.

Crancrank

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 2:51pm

Crancrank

Helpful member

Posts: 549

363 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 8 Feb 2018

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 2:51pm

Geordiemark wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 1:12pm:

I can't understand how you had a 3 phase supply to a private residential property, that is very unusual. Maybe the previous owners were running some 3 phase equipment? Maybe a compressor or machining equipment and they had requested that sort of power supply.

Even if you did, none of you normal household appliances or electrical gadgets would use a  3 phase supply, you would effectively use a single phase, so unless you were paying a large fee/standing charge for the 3 phase supply, you were not physically able to use 3 phases. Think of your std ...

...220v ac supply as a standing wave form the oscillates 50 to 60 times a second. That is the frequency i.e. 50hz - 60hz. When a second and 3rd phase are added there is effectively less time between the peaks and troughs, so electrical equipment that has a high start up current requirement and/or higher current draw can run.

The supply from your panels/inverter setup is single phase and assuming no huge power drains, will happily run all your electrical needs while the sun shines. Therefore "free power" which must equate into a savings?

The money you will be paid for feeding back into the grid is pretty poor compared to the price you buy it in at, so it's not a level playing field. I've just ordered a 5kw battery storage setup for my place (expandable to 15kw). The inverter will keep this charged before feeding anything left over to be returned to the grid, so at night or cloudy power will be pulled from the battery before using a grid feed.

Hope this helps and I'm sorry if I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs, but there seems to be a mis understanding of how it all works.

The reason they had a 3 phase supply is that's how it works here sometimes when a quantity of new houses are built. They take the 3 phase into the first house and use that as a builder's supply for the whole site. At the end of the project this is then or should be reverted to a single phase supply in the 1st house, clearly in this case it didn't happen. However its is blatantly obvious to any electrician that a supply is either single or 3 phase  hence in my opinion this is where the solar company have let the customer down.

And just to confirm, I have had dealings with the same solar company and found them to be very helpful so I'm not knocking them just pointing out that on this occasion they made a mistake.

We are all human.

NannieH

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 3:28pm

NannieH

Helpful member

Posts: 521

295 helpful points

Location: Los Gallardos

Joined: 5 Nov 2019

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 3:28pm

Michael 71 wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 12:33pm:

For your information, we DID NOT EXPECT  Ecocorp to sort out our Tarriff, or anything else for that matter, they offered to do this, when they came out to explain everything we gave them the bills, Vic saw what we were paying, but never mentioned that this was wrong. Of course we now know we...

... should not have been on phase 3 power it was explained to us that builders do this at the beginning of a build they hook up one house and run next batch from this power untill they've completed the houses then disconnect it. This did not happen with our house, prior to living here, 3 other families have lived here before us and no one noticed the huge amount of power being supplied to the house. 

I really don't wish to get into an argument regarding this matter. 

I gave our experience in case something similar happened with others. 

M

Strange..... it did seem you were "warning" people off them in your comment!  Infact that is what you said...,"I am warning"...So no need to shout with capitals at me! We contacted 5 different companies before we had solar installed, 3 did not get better ack to us.... one said they would be in touch soon and never did....Ecocorp got back to us and 2 neighbours had them already.... The other neighbour had them installed with us...

Crancrank

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 4:40pm

Crancrank

Helpful member

Posts: 549

363 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 8 Feb 2018

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 4:40pm

NannieH wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 3:28pm:

Strange..... it did seem you were "warning" people off them in your comment!  Infact that is what you said...,"I am warning"...So no need to shout with capitals at me! We contacted 5 different companies before we had solar installed, 3 did not get better ack to us.... one said they would be ...

...in touch soon and never did....Ecocorp got back to us and 2 neighbours had them already.... The other neighbour had them installed with us...

Did you read my last post? Clearly not. He provided the solar company with a copy of his bill and they also surveyed the property. Either of these would clearly demonstrate to a company installing a solar system that he had a 3 phase supply for which the standing charges are much higher than a single phase supply hence installing solar panels would make no difference to the standing charge he pays.

I'm not surprised that he is unhappy and has taken the time to warn others of this rather unusual situation 

Advertisement - posts continue below

Jimh

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 6:17pm

Jimh

Very helpful member

Posts: 454

705 helpful points

Location: Huércal-Overa

Joined: 11 Oct 2019

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 6:17pm

3 phase would be the normal supply for industry and probably an agricultural system and is around 415 volt - I’m surprised your appliances were not destroyed. With a 3 phase supply you can connect any 2 of the 3 phases to provide standard 220/240 volt household supply. We had a quote from ecocotp and were not impressed by some of their suggestions as to where to locate the inverter. We got a quote from Fontalmonzora in Albox that we almost €2000 cheaper for 12 panels €6600 - they switched us to Iberdrola and worked to get us accepted by the grid. 3 months later we are now selling our surplus back. Our bills fell from €160 a month to €50 - we expect it to fall further now we are selling excess back. Couldn’t praise Fontalmonzora enough, they were extremely professional and helpful. Ours is a large 6 bedroom house (270 sq meters) with a pool and irrigation system so we are delighted with our bill. Currently we are producing 25-35 Kw per day

Crancrank

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 8:49pm

Crancrank

Helpful member

Posts: 549

363 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 8 Feb 2018

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 8:49pm

Jimh wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 6:17pm:

3 phase would be the normal supply for industry and probably an agricultural system and is around 415 volt - I’m surprised your appliances were not destroyed. With a 3 phase supply you can connect any 2 of the 3 phases to provide standard 220/240 volt household supply. We had a quote from ecoco...

...tp and were not impressed by some of their suggestions as to where to locate the inverter. We got a quote from Fontalmonzora in Albox that we almost €2000 cheaper for 12 panels €6600 - they switched us to Iberdrola and worked to get us accepted by the grid. 3 months later we are now selling our surplus back. Our bills fell from €160 a month to €50 - we expect it to fall further now we are selling excess back. Couldn’t praise Fontalmonzora enough, they were extremely professional and helpful. Ours is a large 6 bedroom house (270 sq meters) with a pool and irrigation system so we are delighted with our bill. Currently we are producing 25-35 Kw per day

I'm sorry but your understanding of 3 phase is wrong as there is 440 volts between 2 phases. You will only get 230 volts between 1 phase and neutral.

Also to clarify they were not running thier appliances or anything else on 3 phases hence this is why the appliances etc were not damaged.

All they had was a 3 phase supply to the house and the house was using 1 phase and neutral as I have described above.

NannieH

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 10:55pm

NannieH

Helpful member

Posts: 521

295 helpful points

Location: Los Gallardos

Joined: 5 Nov 2019

Posted: Mon Apr 3, 2023 10:55pm

Jimh wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 6:17pm:

3 phase would be the normal supply for industry and probably an agricultural system and is around 415 volt - I’m surprised your appliances were not destroyed. With a 3 phase supply you can connect any 2 of the 3 phases to provide standard 220/240 volt household supply. We had a quote from ecoco...

...tp and were not impressed by some of their suggestions as to where to locate the inverter. We got a quote from Fontalmonzora in Albox that we almost €2000 cheaper for 12 panels €6600 - they switched us to Iberdrola and worked to get us accepted by the grid. 3 months later we are now selling our surplus back. Our bills fell from €160 a month to €50 - we expect it to fall further now we are selling excess back. Couldn’t praise Fontalmonzora enough, they were extremely professional and helpful. Ours is a large 6 bedroom house (270 sq meters) with a pool and irrigation system so we are delighted with our bill. Currently we are producing 25-35 Kw per day

Yes Ecocorp did our transfer to Iberdrola and we were getting it stacked up within 4 weeks! Love watching on the app how much we are saving..... our 12 panels cost about the same from them..... they went to great pains to make sure we were happy with the way the cables/  inverter were placed..... They kept saying that we had to live with it..... You can see no panels or cables now.... its brilliant! .. Fontalmonzora was one of the ones we left a message on to say we were interested in solar, and they never returned our call...!!!

NannieH

Posted: Tue Apr 4, 2023 1:50am

NannieH

Helpful member

Posts: 521

295 helpful points

Location: Los Gallardos

Joined: 5 Nov 2019

Posted: Tue Apr 4, 2023 1:50am

Crancrank wrote on Mon Apr 3, 2023 4:40pm:

Did you read my last post? Clearly not. He provided the solar company with a copy of his bill and they also surveyed the property. Either of these would clearly demonstrate to a company installing a solar system that he had a 3 phase supply for which the standing charges are much higher than a si...

...ngle phase supply hence installing solar panels would make no difference to the standing charge he pays.

I'm not surprised that he is unhappy and has taken the time to warn others of this rather unusual situation 

It does not state on the bill what tariff you are on....We are with Iberdrola and have English bills.... my husband just checked and it does not say....

Crancrank

Posted: Tue Apr 4, 2023 8:27am

Crancrank

Helpful member

Posts: 549

363 helpful points

Location: Mojacar

Joined: 8 Feb 2018

Posted: Tue Apr 4, 2023 8:27am

NannieH wrote on Tue Apr 4, 2023 1:50am:

It does not state on the bill what tariff you are on....We are with Iberdrola and have English bills.... my husband just checked and it does not say....

I agree but a company that install solar should have recognised by analysing the bill that the standing charges were not as expected ie not single phase but 3 phase as there is a massive difference. 

Sign up for free or login to reply to this topic

Want to reply to this topic? Login or register for free to post your message:

Find more Off topic topics from a particular area:


Register for free!

Login to your account

Grupo Platinum Estates
Mini Digger Almera
Have Tools Will Travel
UK DIRECT REMOVALS
ASSSA Insurance
Advertise your business here
Advertise your property
Help with my computer