Solar Panel system

[wilber]

I'm not clued up on solar one bit but as always have been mulling over out of the box ideas to make/save some money. Here at home in mid wales we have 4 house's all with separate grid connection, then their is the farm buildings with a rented industrial unit (steel fabrication business and shop) with its own connection. I had the idea that maybe we could have the grid connection coming it at one single point with the main meter, then from their feed all the properties and have our own meters to charge the house holds our selves along with installing 50kw (or more) of solar on the roof of one of the sheds or a ground mounted array. I'm having the feeling that this just wouldn't be worth it and a non starter but if you dont ask the question you will never know.

additional info:

We have 3 phase
The steel fabrication business uses a couple of welders and other 3 phase machines, would the solar setup cope?
i think roughly 300m of cable would be needed to get power to all the individual properties and solar panels if shed mounted would need to add an additonal 100m to a suitable location for a ground array setup.

 

[Exfarmer]

it can certainly be done, however whether the cost would justify the install is another matter. Remember production is heavily weighted towards summer 75% between April - September. Also 75% occurs between the hours of 10-2pm.
if your welders are going to use a big chunk, remember nothing at weekends then I would suggest that you will be exporting a fair bit , which is obviously not the aim.
batteries would help, but are expensive.

 

[Doing it for the kids]

I did this for a village a few years back.

It’s surprising how much grid we still buy. The best bit is being able to bill out at the rate you are paying when the meter is stationary but sadly this doesn’t happen enough due to it being dark!

You need to be using a lot of power to make this viable with out grid I would say

We spent a lot of money installing cables and ducts for all of this but this was offset by adding water, fibre, heat and sewage into the trench too!

I suspect if you do this, in 2yrs time you will wish you invested cash elsewhere

 

[wilber]

Cheers both, i thought it may be a non starter and your replies haven't convinced me other wise. oh well back to the drawing board.... again

 

[upnortheast]

Only hope is a new gov bring in a new FIT scheme or other incentive. Without that the sums just don`t add up