During 2023, Ian managed to get most of the infrastructure installed, electrical wiring wise. It was decided to install 4mm² single core cables in conduit, as this would allow a current capacity of up to 15-20 amps to be carried safely.
Thinking ahead of where we would like to position additional solar panels, we had British General CPRSD425 25A 4-Pole Rotary Isolator Switches installed for solar panels to be placed in the following locations:
Garden Shed – East facing Solar Panel
Above Dining room – Flat roof facing West
Above Study – Flat roof facing East
On roof of cat pen – Roof facing south
They installed an additional consumer unit while installing this cabling. 25mm² meter tail cables were used to connect the consumer units. In part 1 of this ‘blog’ we stated the consumer units weren’t connected; they connected them in late 2023.
The consumer unit for the additional solar panels primarily uses Schneider Electric Easy9 MCBs. The isolator switch / main circuit breaker is a 2 Pole 63A device. We chose to use the Schneider Easy9’s as they offer excellent value for money and are reliable.
As we chose to go the Enphase route, we purchased the following and had it installed:
Enphase Envoy-S Communication Gateway, 230VAC (WIFI ) – UK
Part Number: EN-S-WB-230-UK
Since the Enphase Envoy must be hard-wired, you must connect it to the new consumer via a 20 amp MCB. As the Envoy is hard-wired power wise, we decided that we wouldn’t rely on Wi-Fi, so had an ethernet cable installed from our routers to the Envoy, this made sense as the floorboards had to taken up to site the Envoy where we wanted it.
In late 2023 we managed to have a solar panel and Enphase inverter installed above the dining room, which has a flat roof. The solar panel above the dining room is a 420w module feeding into an Enphase IQ7PLUS.
For flat roof mounting solar panels, we used the following:
Renusol ConSole+ – Part No: REN-520075-K
Renusol Console + Elongation rails for ConSole 4.1, 4.2, 5.2, 6.2, CS+ – Part No: REN-460196
7 x Paving Slabs – 450 x 450 x 32mm @ 14.5 Kg each
Everything related to D.I.Y. came to a halt in February 2024, and the reason for this is explained here.
Continued in part 3
