[carthick1000]

Originally Posted by Sankar

Has anyone migrated to electric cooking post solar? Is it worth it? Economical?

It depends on how much you are currently using for cooking. Here is a nice article to calculate it yourself. It is based on type and amount of gas used. Then you can compare it with the energy consumption of an electrical induction cookplate, based on the hours of usage per day.

In Netherlands where I live, we are currently using natural gas in our house for heating and cooking. Using natural gas for heating houses and cooking is the most common in NL. We will be moving to our new house end of this year, where due to the Government policies, there will be no gas connection anymore (news aricle). This means it only has an induction cook plate for cooking and electric heatpump for heating the house. So I had the same question as you and there was a Dutch forum which answered this question. Literally translated and here is the method to calculate the volume of gas used per hour.

Example of gas consumption calculation
Consider the consumption of a blue fuel heater Gefest PG 6500-03 0045 . The appliance has 4 burners on the worktop and a gas oven.

Fire power in kilowatts:

front right - 3.0;
front left - 1.75-1.8;
right rear - 1.0;
the back left - 1.75-1.8;
oven burner - 3.1;
grill burner - 1.9.
First round off the performance of medium power burners to 1.8 kW. We summarize the productivity of all six burners: 3.0 + 1.8 + 1.0 + 1.8 + 3.1 + 1.9. We get 12.6 kW.

Efficiency is taken at the level of 45%. We select the specific heat of combustion of domestic gas for two different cases: the usual - 9.3 kW · h / m³ and the maximum - 11 kW · h / m³. In the first calculation we use the standard.

Plate Gefest PG 6500-03 0045
In the picture - a Gefest PG 6500-03 0045 stove, designed for a nominal pressure of 13, 20 and 30 mbar, and with a useful furnace volume of 52 liters
We use the formula Q / (q × efficiency / 100%) = V hours. We get 12.6 kW / (9.3 kW · h / m³ × 45% / 100%) = 3.01 m³ / h.

For complete clarity of the calculation, we do it in 3 phases: 12.6 kW / (9.3 kW h / m³ × 45% / 100%) = 12.6 m³ / (9.3 hours × 0.45) = 12.6 m³ / 4,185 hours = 3.01 m³ / hour.

Calculation in steps and only with numbers:

12,6 / (9,3 × 45 / 100).
12,6 / (9,3 × 0,45).
12,6 / 4,185.
3,01.
Gefest ПГ 6500-03 0045 is not the most productive stove, but it does have 2 burners in the oven, so the marginal consumption turned out to be so great.

Hi-Light electric hob cooker
A hob of an electric heater of the Hi-Light type consumes as much as the average burner Gefest PG 6500-03 0045, but heats up in just 5 seconds and has a high efficiency
We calculate the fuel consumption with a maximum specific heat of combustion (11 kW h / m³):

12.6 kW / (11 kW · h / m³ × 45% / 100%) = 2.55 m³ / h.

To make calculations, it is enough to have burner power indicators and to know the average values ​​for other parameters.

As you can see, there is nothing complicated about calculating the gas flow rate of a stove. You just have to give it some time.

According to Dutch cooking, the value of 3m3/hour is a good value to assume and normally Dutch will have only one warm meal per day. Also this value calculated above is for all the cooking plates being used at the same time, which is also not realistic. So simplifying, 20minutes of cooking with 2 plates, then it is about 20minutes * 3m3/hours * 2 out of 6 plates used, gives about 0.3m3 per day. This is about 109m3 of gas per year, just for cooking. This gives you a good idea how you can adopt this to your own situation.

For induction cook plate, the efficiency is quite high and you dont have to deal with specific heat of combustion like in gas. So it is more straightforward. Time used per day * no. of cooking zones used * Electric power rating of the zone * 365 days.

Since cooking is less than 10% of the total gas consumption (90% heating the house) and our new house has 28 solar panels instead of roof tiles and no gas connection, I did not bother to do this calculation just for cooking. I did a calculation for the whole 100% consumption and it turned out to be very economical. In Dutch parlance, it is called nul-op-de-meter woning (zero on the meter house) and hence I won't be paying any bills for energy at all, compared to what I pay now.

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by Holyghost

There are retrofit products like this from different manufacturers. You can check it out.
https://www.luminousindia.com/shine-2420.html

Thanks for the link!

Would you know of any installers in B'lore, who can combine this with appropriate solar panels and do the installation?

[Sankar]

Originally Posted by carthick1000

Since cooking is less than 10% of the total gas consumption (90% heating the house) and our new house has 28 solar panels instead of roof tiles and no gas connection, I did not bother to do this calculation just for cooking. I did a calculation for the whole 100% consumption and it turned out to be very economical. In Dutch parlance, it is called nul-op-de-meter woning (zero on the meter house) and hence I won't be paying any bills for energy at all, compared to what I pay now.

Congratulations on your new earth friendly solar home and thank you for the detailed reply. I too aim for a nul-op-de-meter home but if we move all of the cooking to electric I think I will need a larger plant on the roof. So as a starter we will partially move to electric and see how it goes over a few months.
--

Testing is pending due to holidays and elections and the plant is yet to be commissioned, hope it gets grid tied before the end of this month.

[Holyghost]

Originally Posted by Sankar

Work is progressing and the actual plant installation should be over before this weekend. But the plant commisioning by the KSEB might take some time due to the oncoming elections. Anyway I expect the plant to be on-grid in April itself.

Hello Sankar, Could you please share the contact details of the Growatt inverter dealer?

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

A description of my existing solar set up is here.


https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/elect...ml#post4508354 (Using Solar / Wind Power in India (EV charging, home etc.))

It is a 2 kW installed capacity off grid system against a connected load of 3 kW. It generates average 3.2 units per day, on an annual average, and powers everything except the washing machinebfor 12 hours or less, not full time. And during the rains, and cloudy days, the backup goes down to 8 hours. As a part of general renovation of the house, I'm replacing the entire wiring and as a result, the connected load will go to 5 kW +. And I'm doing a three phase ready wiring, with provision for multiple air cons.


With laying off concealed wiring conduits nearing the final stage, the electrician asked me if anything will change in solar installation. And I'm stuck for an answer.

I would want to add another 1-1.5 kW panels. But not straight away. And I'm not sure if I'd actually add extra capacity. So my question is, if I want to go for an automatic change over, what should change? If it install an inverter with higher capacity right now, or can I add panels later? How to manage the existing 8 nos 150 Ah batteries? are the devices for changeover dependent on connected load? Means, if I change the manual selector to automatic changeover now, will I need replacement if I add solar panels later?

And if mains supply and internal wiring is 3 phase, how does it affect the solar inverter and allied devices.

[aim120]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

I would want to add another 1-1.5 kW panels. But not straight away. And I'm not sure if I'd actually add extra capacity. So my question is, if I want to go for an automatic change over, what should change? If it install an inverter with higher capacity right now, or can I add panels later? How to manage the existing 8 nos 150 Ah batteries? are the devices for changeover dependent on connected load? Means, if I change the manual selector to automatic changeover now, will I need replacement if I add solar panels later?

And if mains supply and internal wiring is 3 phase, how does it affect the solar inverter and allied devices.

Your existing inverter has a max mppt voltage of just 150V, so they have connected 2 panels in series x 4 parallel aka 2s4p.

Your batteries are 48v system which is good for expansion and is even number at 8 x 12v.

One way to expand your solar is to split the battery to 4 for existing inverter and add other 4 for the new inverter.

You can go for a 3kw inverter unit, which can take 1.5kw to 2kw of new panels and connect that to another phase. Assuming you do not have any 3 phase appliances and have a balanced the load in your house to each phases, with seperate live and neutral for each of the phase.

The other option depending on how close you can match todays new more efficient panels with your old panels. You could put a 5kw inverter and get rid of your old one. The new inverter can accept all the batteries you currently have in the exact same configuration. Advantage of using a single high powered inverter is that you can put some really high powered appliances or even a EV CHARGER.

Some off grid inverters of same model can be combined till 9 inverters of 5kw x 9 = 45kw of single phase or 15kw x 3 phase.

There are 2 types of off grid inverters one which accepts low voltage upto aroubd 150v or abour 3 in series and multiple strings in parallel. You will need thick solar cables which increase cost.

Or one which accepts high voltage upto 500v (mppt around 150v to 450v), this saves the cost of using thinner solar cables. These need minimum 4 panels to even start the inverter.

Both accept your existing battery in exact same configuration.

But adding panels again all depends on how close you can match your existing panels with the ones you buy new. If there is a large difference, the new panels will work exactly like the your old panels (weakest link). Hence you will waste all the efficiency of your new panels, if the specification gap is wider.