Are we exporting electricity today?

[Repeat]

Has anyone found a simple way of displaying if the farm is exporting electric at a given moment ?
We have 20 kw of solar and 10 kw wind on our dairy farm
i have asked installers and a couple of electricians if we could have a light or something which would come on when there was a surplus, so we could then turn on a few things eg water heater, ice builder, but they havent come up with anything.
i would be interested to know if anyone has managed to do something like this
thanks

 

[Exfarmer]

Yes there are plenty of such devices, check out Immersun. There are cheaper devices.

 

[e3120]

Your export meter (I assume you have one) should have the ability to provide export 'pulses' typically every 0.05 kWh exported. If you latch onto these, you could display when/how much you're exporting. There are also import pulses when the tide turns.

My system switches on a series of immersions to run the central heating/hot water. Well it did until it was better value to export it and burn oil!

If you don't want the faff, get an EMMA.

 

[Repeat]

thanks for the advice, no export meter although our smart meter does show the amps on each phase if you scroll through the menu.
the immersun device sound ok, would it show if we were exporting on a display ?
our solar installers were going to fit a device like this to our water heater but it would not work on 3 phase which all our gear is.

 

[roscoe erf]

Your export meter (I assume you have one) should have the ability to provide export 'pulses' typically every 0.05 kWh exported. If you latch onto these, you could display when/how much you're exporting. There are also import pulses when the tide turns.

My system switches on a series of immersions to run the central heating/hot water. Well it did until it was better value to export it and burn oil!

If you don't want the faff, get an EMMA.

we have a Eric not that he has been that reliable

 

[Princess Pooper]

We don't have a 'live feed' to tell us without checking the meter when we're exporting but we are seeing a clear pattern emerging with real dips at milking/water heating/tank wash times, when the wind is blowing. We're not going to alter water heating for the dairy or milking and we have a DX tank for cooling, but we know that other times our essential usage is pretty low, so we just take a judgement as to when we put on anything with a bit of flexibility; pump for dirty water sprinklers, feed auger (within reason obviously!), grain auger in barn, and then as it's off the same meter, electric heaters in house (going to get the storage heaters onto an automatic timing with a manual over-ride so we can boost them when exporting if necessary) and washing machine.
Aga is oil, but in summer we have a cheap elec cooker and elec water heater we use if we have put the Aga out so I can decide when to use them.

ERIC tells me we are generating at 28.3 kw/h at present so we will currently be exporting so I'm allowed to have the heater on as I type!

 

[Princess Pooper]

we have a Eric not that he has been that reliable

Has it got better since Mosscliff went bump? Ours has, admittedly the turbine had a an enforced shut down at New Year for a couple of days so hopefully it has been monitored a bit more closely.

 

[roscoe erf]

Has it got better since Mosscliff went bump? Ours has, admittedly the turbine had a an enforced shut down at New Year for a couple of days so hopefully it has been monitored a bit more closely.

no waiting for it to be fixed comms error

 

[Princess Pooper]

no waiting for it to be fixed comms error

 

[kill]

Has it got better since Mosscliff went bump? Ours has, admittedly the turbine had a an enforced shut down at New Year for a couple of days so hopefully it has been monitored a bit more closely.

Braking issue? Mine went down on boxing day and needed braking shims altered due to slow braking time.

 

[e3120]

I'm due to get the brakes re-shimmed as well but it's OK to run. I think it reckoned it didn't stop quick enough one very windy day before xmas and locked itself until endurance released it. More concerning is the brake compressor starting more than once per minute due to a leak somewhere. I've learnt that the brake counter only goes to 30 odd thousand before back to zero - I'm on my 4th lap of the clock!

 

[Princess Pooper]

Braking issue? Mine went down on boxing day and needed braking shims altered due to slow braking time.

Yeah, grid fault in high winds forced shut down and then got alarms for low brake torque and slow brake response. Thought it would need a visit for re-shimming but Endurance did some brake tests once wind dropped and assume they were happy as it was set up and running again without a site visit. Averaging a satisfying 78kw at present off wind speed of 15m/s.

 

[Courier]

Averaging a satisfying 78kw at present off wind speed of 15m/s.

Is that an E3120 rated at 50Kw ? And if so what is the rated capacity of the grid connection..

 

[Princess Pooper]

Is that an E3120 rated at 50Kw ? And if so what is the rated capacity of the grid connection..

80 Kw. The 50Kw rating is at 10m/s.