EXPERIENCE WITH GROUND BREAKING DOMESTIC PV PLANTS IN THE UK, GERMANY AND BELGIUM

摘要

The paper presents results of several years of operation of 3 ground breaking domestic PV plants in the UK, Germany and Belgium. Towards the end of the year 2000, F.C. Treble installed a PV system on his house in Farnborough. He wanted to gain first-hand experience of living under a solar roof, monitor its performance and hopefully set an example for others to follow. The system consists of a 2.04 kW{sub}p PV array on the south-facing roof, two string inverters, dc circuit breakers, switchgear, meter and cabling. Surplus solar-generated power is fed into the grid under a net metering agreement. The system has worked faultlessly without cleaning or maintenance and has produced successive annual outputs of 1644, 1698 and 1927 kWh in the three years 2001-2003, equating to a mean of 861 kWh/kWp. The solar contribution to the domestic load has risen from 47%, through 61% to 77% in the exceptionally sunny year of 2003. The system on Dr. Scheer's house in the Rhine valley was one of the first to be built under the 100 000 PV roof regulation in Germany and is one of its pilot systems. It has worked without problems since more than 10 years. Brussels' first building integrated PV system was inaugurated on March the 23rd of 2000 to celebrate the first spring of the new century. The PV generator has several uncommon features. The system consists of 7 glass modules with polycrystalline silicon cells, most of them dark blue, some of them golden. The total cell area amounts 8 m{sup}2. The support structure is made of domestic larch without chemical treatment. All electricity is consumed in the house via an industrial lead-acid battery and an inverter with back-up from the grid. The rational for building the generator, which has been entirely financed by the house owner, was the natural beauty of photovoltaics. The initially installed charge controllers, showing problems in distributing the current flows, have been replaced in 2004. Since then the system has operated correctly showing annual production of about 650 kWh.