Seeking advice on existing system

[gadgetgeek]

Hello,

First thanks for taking the time to read my post. I've recently moved and my new home has a solar setup with a Samsung airsource heat pump. The solar system has 5.4Kw of panels although the roof means they are mostly west facing, I was told they have edge inverts although I don't know what I'd look for to know if that is true or not. The system has a 3k Growatt inverter which I've had to replace the wifi dongle on as the reset button was damaged inside it and I couldn't pair the one that came with the house to my broadband.

Having got it connected so I can look at the data it appears the airsource heat pump never takes power from either the battery or the panels and instead draws from the grid. I'm aware that the inverter would only allow 3Kw of draw from the battery so if other applicances were running that consumed that 3Kw then it would need to pull from the grid but thats not the case.

From where grid power enters the house it goes into the main fuse, to the smart meter, to what I think are isolator switches. From there it goes into a henley block which then has one feed go into the main consumer unit that has PV stickers on it and a breaker for PV labelled on it. There is another feed from the henley block that goes to a second smaller consumer unit that appears to be for the heat pump. There is a 3rd box that breaks off from the main consumer unit for the EV charger but I've switched that off as I don't have an EV.

Within the shine phone app it reports nothing on the consumption of electric by the heat pump. If I go into the solar edge app it does show ~1Kw of grid draw when the heat pump is active. I can charge the battery overnight on the cheap rate so I have power to run the heat pump when the sun is being less helpful but if the heat pump wont use it that's less helpful to me and so the system as it stands will cost more than I would expect it to.

My main question at this point is what can I do to get the heat pump to make use of my free/cheep electricity and cut my bills?

I've tried to do some reading up on the subject so have learned the proper names for a few things but I'll not be offended if you assume I know very little of what I'm talking about and ask verifying questions. If you use technical terms I may not know what they mean but I do know how to use google so should be able to quickly find out.

Any help and guidance greatly appreciated and I'm suspecting the answer will start "get a qualified electrician to..." especially if it ends up with changing things inside the consumer unit. Would be good to know what I'm approaching them about so I can understand what they are talking about and know it's all on the level.

Oh also there is 20Kwh of battery capacity.

Many thanks
GadgetGeek

 

[12VoltInstalls]

It sounds like the heat pump is not wired to use the inverter.

suspecting the answer will start "get a qualified electrician to..." especially if it ends up with changing things inside the consumer unit.

That is probably a good idea. Not just any electrician but someone who has installed solar. Pay him or her an hour to evaluate and report on what’s what and make recommendations. Then you can know the needs and capabilities of your solar. Depending on the heat pump and other loads the 3000W growatt may not be able to deliver everything you need plus the heat pump.

Otherwise it sounds like you’re doing good efforts to discover how you can use the system.

 

[gadgetgeek]

From what I can see on the app when more than 3Kw of load is put on the system it just pulls from the grid to make the difference, for example if I'm using the oven and then put on the kettle which create 5Kw between them.

Most of the time I'm using less than 500W of power and from what I see on usuage on the Solar edge app which is a unit that seems seperate from the Growatt inverter I pull in 1.5Kw at peak load from the grid when the heat pump is running (the battery has been covering all my other load which I then recharge from the grid at night in these dark days as electic is 60% off from midnight to 4am.

So would I be right in thinking the inverter puts power into the main consumer unit but it's only things fused from that which can use it and because of the spur from the henley block the 2nd consumer unit that serivces the heat pump can't see it. If so can that second consumer unit be set up to spur from the main one so that it will share the power from the inverter? That is ofcourse assuming that the main consumer unit has capacity to accommodate it.

Is there any reason they would have set it up to the heat pump wouldnt use the PV or battery?

 

[12VoltInstalls]

I’m sorry I don’t have more answers for you.

 

[gadgetgeek]

Consulted an electrician and they were able to solve it really quickly (it's easy when you know how), the CT clamp was attached to the feed from the henley block going to the main consumer unit. By moving it to the feed going into the henley block rather than one of the two feeds coming out of it the inverter became aware of the load requirements for the heat pump and started supplying them.

Thank you for the guidance and hope this helps someone else in the future too.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

hope this helps someone else in the future too

Nice to have trained people that are competent! Glad it worked out well for you.

The Henley Block sounds like a business-district building that probably has a great brunch cafe.