What is Solar Photovoltaic (PV)?

Solar Photovoltaic, or Solar PV as it is known, is a system that enables you to use solar energy to generate green and cost effective electricity. The free electricity that you don't use is automatically sold to the National Grid in order to provide additional tax free income.

How it Works

How Solar PV Works

1: Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Panels collect irradiance from the sun and convert it into electricity.
2: The electricity is converted into a useable form by the inverter.
3: The electricity generated can be used to power your home.
4: Any surplus electricity is automatically sold back to the Grid for use by other consumers.
5: Carrino Eco’s sophisticated monitoring equipment and software allows continual assessment of the performance of your system, both on-site and remotely.

Benefits of a Solar Photovoltaic System

Tax free Income
Generally you are looking at a greater than 10% pa return on your investment. However, when you consider that the income you receive is tax free, Solar PV has an added advantage over other investments.

Index Linked to RPI
The Solar Feed-in Tariff is index linked to RPI, therefore the payment you receive tracks the cost of living year on year.

Guaranteed for 20 years
As part of a Government backed scheme to kick start the renewable energy sector the Feed-in Tariff has been guaranteed to be paid for 20 years. At the end of your 20 year period you still will be able to take advantage of the free electricity you generate.

Assignable
Should you decide to sell your property, the Feed-in Tariff income is assignable to the new owners of your property. Figures suggest that by having a Solar PV system installed it could add up to 8% to the value of your property.

Protects you from fuel inflation
With ever increasing energy costs, the amount you will save by generating your own electricity could well be not insubstantial in years to come. According to The Department of Energy & Climate Changes March 2011 report between 2005 and 2010, on average electricity prices rose by just under 50%.

Installing Solar PV


1. Mounting Brackets are attached to roof timbers	2. Tiles are replaced back over brackets

3. Panel Fixing rail attached to brackets	4. Panels are clamped to fixing rail

External Install Process:

Mounting brackets are attached to roof timbers
Tiles are replaced back over brackets
Fixing rail is attached to brackets
Each panel is performance tested prior to mounting
Panels are clamped to fixing rail
DC cables are routed to inverter location

Internal Install Process:

Inverter, generation meter, isolators and system monitoring equipment are mounted in a suitable location.
Connection from inverter to existing AC installation is made via existing Consumer Unit or new secondary Consumer Unit.
Final system checks and tests performed
The new Solar PV system is commissioned

Paperwork

Our customer is supplied with an official MCS Certificate and system documentation
Local Building Control is notified of the installation
Our customer is assisted with filling in forms from Electricity Supplier to claim the Feed in Tariff (FIT).

Read about our Solar PV intalls in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire...

Solar Monitoring System

We can’t see electricity, but we can measure it. With every solar panel system we install, we recommend customers have "Solar Log" - a market leading monitoring system. Solar Log is an online tool that allows you to track your daily, monthly and annual yield, so you can check the performance of your system online from anywhere in the world. Graphs and tables display the live performance for your solar pv panels. The images below are from the Woods family case study and show the performance of their solar pv system.

Solar Log readings for the Wood's family Solar PV System

The Solar Log system also protects against unnoticed loss of yield - once it's lost you cannot get it back. This is why Carrino Eco continually monitors your system remotely. Should the performance of your pv panels drop, we will know about it and can rectify the problem immediately. Solar Log also monitors the inverter status and notifies us of any error messages.

Solar PV Equipment

Every customer's requirements are unique. In order to cater for this, we have solar products from a wide range of manufacturers. In order for a manufacturer to make our preferred supplier list, their product must be of a high quality and have a high performance rating.

The correct solar equipment is one of the most vital components in protecting your investment over the 20 year Feed-in Tariff period and beyond.

The choice of solar photovoltaic equipment is vast and sometimes quite confusing, especially when it comes to panels.

Consumers often make panel choices based on price, performance % and W/m2. Much over looked considerations are:

Quality of manufacture (performance is often confused for quality)
Financial stability of the company manufacturing the product (warranties are worthless if the company is no longer there to meet them).

At Carrino Eco we match product to individual customer requirements, and like to give you a choice of systems accordingly. However, we will not supply product from companies that we think may not be around to meet their potential warranty obligations in the future, nor do we supply cheap unknown brands, since quality and price tend to go hand in hand.

Some of the brands we can supply are listed below. This list is not exhaustive and is constantly being reviewed taking new innovation into account.

Panels	Inverters	Fixing Systems
	Power One	K2
	SMA	Hilti
	Fronius	Schuco

Read about the Solar PV sytsems that we have installed for our customers...