I'm becoming more and more convinced we all have been fooled. The more I proceed into the current situation of energy costs and Green Deals, the more I'm terrified about the direction we're heading to.
Pay Your Offering to the God of Weather
I understand due to the climate change we need to focus on using renewable sources of energy. In accordance with above, we are being told we need to change the source of energy by which we heat our homes.
However, since people of Poland know the biggest polluters are China, US&A and India, some changes are harder to implement than others.
The Polish authorities have been selling the rights to CO2 emissions and using the the funds to finance their social transfers. These funds should be used to fund energy transformation. They are not.
So in order to coax Poles into switching from fossil fuels, the authorities decided to make it unaffordable to use them.
I really believe it wasn't their goal, but what they achieved is called 'energy poverty'. This is a real issue, want an example? In Katowice in some buildings 1 cubic meter of warm water (from district heating) costs more than an open monthly ticket for swimming pool (where you can shower).
Testing phase
Currently, I am testing a twin photovoltaic instalation with heat pump and I think I need to readjust my initial plans.
The following images show statistics of the inverter. What they say is - no energy has been sent to the grid and it was auto-consumed, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, the production didn't even filled up the batteries and they were being charged with grid's electricity (I need to get to know why). There were 4 days during which the production exceeded 18 KWh. This may sound a lot but to tell you the truth, it would allow the heat pump to operate for 3 hours only. The consumption on 14th February reached 70 KWh and on 15th it even got higher to 75 KWh. I'm leaving the math for you. I know it's - 7 C. I just hope these costs are a result of warming up the house and the longer you heat the less energy you need. This system inertia is bigger than it used to be when fuelled by coal (high temperature burning, made the house warm not only through radiators/heaters but via chimneys as well). The inertia in my house is going to be even greater - underfloor heating requires lesser temperature medium (heat carrier). I don't know how it's possible, but the screen titled 'System Grid Power Month' shows the system imported from the grid only 6 KWh on 8th Feb and 3 KWh on 9th. This seems impossible to me, but if it really is the real thing, it's due to the fact that the house that we stay in isn't accommodated permanently. All in all the numbers don't seem to add up. I do not know how to verify it.
Transfer of knowledge
Armed with this knowledge I should address the issue. My house is being built 20 years later with the use of modern technologies. It's less energy-Intensive, but still needs tons of KWh.
My idea first idea was to install more batteries, but since they won't be charched with sun energy, they won't be able to store enough energy to cover my needs. You have to take into account that LiFePo4 batteries don't hold energy for longer periods of time efficiently and they're designed to use the energy in max few days from being charged. I've seen someone on YouTube talking about off-grid setups and the need to have batteries capacity 10x of your PV installation. Mine is only 1.5x. I don't have room nor funds to install 6 times more. The continuous energy consumption will exclude the situation I'm observing now with this house - little energy import.
The other solution would be installing another batch of PV panels, but as you see they're working at 15% of their nominal power in winter time, so you clearly can see that investment is never going to reach any return and you even won't get energy for your needs. addition, I don't have enough space to install new panels, not this much at least.
I'm waiting for pricing on Breeze EMS device, it will allow integration with Home Assistant server thus creating additional automation. Will write on it later.
