Sachina

The last time my waster was cut off unannounced was only a couple of weeks ago. When I got up at 7am I managed to fill the kettle with the trickles of water from various taps and clean my teeth and have an apology of a wash. After that nothing until it came back on at 4 pm!

In the 14 years I've lived here we've never had the gas cut off, for which I'm truly grateful.

Jack_Russells4ever

In Hungary Solar power is NOT worth it. They do NOT allow a system that is grid tied to be connected to batteries to provide power usage when the grid is down or at least they didn't when I looked into it a few years ago. Another factor to consider is the condition of your roof and the supporting timbers. That is a lot of weight to place upon your house and unless everything is in good shape up there your asking for trouble. It would be good to have a structural engineer evaluate any house that is a candidate for a roof mounted solar array. Placing them on the ground may be a better option for some if you have great sun exposure of the possible place you might want to install it.

As far as available power from the power company you will be hard pressed to get E.ON to provide you more than 32 amps 3 phase (3 X 32 amps) of grid power. I asked for 3 X 40 and was refused so if your consider a lot of electrical appliances you will need a healthy electrical system in the property and if you have issues with triping breakers you may need an electrician to rebalance the loads so your appliances cannot potential ask for more power than they are fed with.

In the end since E.ON refused my request for more power I kept a kombinalt cooker and my gas boiler in my house.

I actually do like solar and may install an offgrid system for my barn after I have the entire roof redone.

Around my village we experienced an unannounced water cut last week that lasted more than 8 hours, never known the gas to be off and the power company lets the entire village know if their is scheduled work planned to the system but the last power cut was due to an " Unscheduled" tree falling on a power line.

FenTiger

Some time ago we viewed some brand new houses being built and they were being advertised as "zero electricity bills". All electricity for appliances, including the boiler, supplied from the solar power system so there must be something out there that which won't need to be connected to the grid. So we should have continuous electricity when there's a power cut.
We will be getting someone in to check out if we can make use of the attic for storage and maybe an office and as it will need insulating get the timber frames checked out. The house was built in 1985 so not that old.
If the roof is not strong enough for the solar power panels we could always put them on the extension roof and covered terrace roof.

enter

Another idea...... get a worktop machine/cooker unit ( is advertising a product allowed?? not sure, so you could PM me) that is a cooker and can do many functions. Also get a 2 ring worktop electric cooker in addition, it's a small unit Reilly available. When we first came here before all the alterations a year later we used it to cook meals including curries etc on it ( inexpensive) we also had a microwave as usual, no probs for us.

Jerseygirl

You may mention the product…in your case it is not advertising but helping a fellow expat.

enter

Thanks admin. It is a Ninja Foodi max (biggest pot I think its 7 litres) but get the biggest, got mine from Amazon.de about £250 ish. On average the missus only uses our electric oven for yorkshire puds although there is info that you can doo those in i. It has many functions, pressure cooker, air fry etc etc. Read up on it. There is a load of recipes and help on tinternet, very happy with it. No I'm not on commission.

FenTiger

Ha ha ha ..... I ordered a Ninja Foodi max yesterday. Been looking into this past one week. And yes, ordered from Amazon.de. .

Peter_in_Hungary

You are not allowed battery to back up in the event of a power cut for a grid tied system in the UK either - same safety reasons.
The aim of solar power (PV) is not to make money but to reduce CO2 output from power stations by generating sustainable power. In the UK the feed in tariff (FIT) payments worked on an assumed generation amount (not measured) and paid out on this which was enough to pay for the PV plus a bit. Germany paid even mor than the UK. These payments are now being reduced.

Hungary's PV system works differently the PV output is measured with 'push-pull' meters so generated power is measured and Hungary never had FIT payments as is the UK and Germany so the profit element was never there although interest free loans were available to install PV.

You are right about roof loads but PV is not that heavy such that a roof in good nick won't support it. PV weighs a lot less that the tiles. Most installers shy away from installing PV on to the cement/asbestos tiles or old concrete tiles because they are too fragile.

The way the 'zero' electricity bills' works is that there is PV installed to match the estimates annual electricity consumption and an annual reconciliation is made which hopefully comes out to zero. During the summer there will be more PV generated electricity than used and in the winter less but annually = zero. At the end of this year the system changes and there will no longer be the option of an annual reconciliation but power will calculated on an as used/generated basis so over production in the summer will be paid for and under production (drawing from the grid) will be charged. The amount you get paid will be the generation price, the amount charged will be the generation price plus transmission price plus some other overheads so you get paid much less than what you are charged.
If you want an estimate of the amount of power you could generate for your roof look at PVGIS
https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/PVGIS/tools/pv-grid
select pvgis interface and select your location on the map (click on + and drag the map until you get enough definition to see your location) then select the parameters you want. I would start with a 4kWp installation as typical, Azimuth is the direction of the roof with south as zero, towards west as + degrees and towards east as - degrees. Click visualize results and you get a graph and data. Next to the graph there is a compass rose which you can drag around to get the azimuth degrees against compass points.

Jack_Russells4ever

Peter, Respectfully, I think the real reason is due to the cost of a automatic transfer switch which automatically cuts off the grid tied Single or 3 phases AND breaks the neutral connection which prevents a battery backed up system from backfeeding the grid thru the neutral conductor. If the proper ATS is installed that would never be an issue or for that matter even a proper manual transfer switch would work as long as the transfer switch also breaks the connection of the neutral wire. This equipment is available but E.ON in my opinion does not care about customer convenience during a power cut they just want someone to help them pay for solar power that ONLY benefits E.ON. And don't even mention about green energy and carbon emissions, they are nothing compared to the gift that nuclear power leaves the environment for thousands of years after a generation plant is decommissioned. I am talking about the PAKS nuclear power station that is due to have some more nuclear reactors constructed starting later this year. Don't get me wrong I am not against clean power generation but the truth of the matter is in most cases solar generation systems here in Hungary are not beneficial to anyone except E.ON. And since E.ON does not purchase excess power generated by consumers systems and give a credit to the consumer I fail to see any real reason to invest in solar except if it is an off grid system. To E.ONs credit I do see a number of solar panels owned by E.ON in the Kaposvar area that are used to generate power.

enter

Looked on Amazon.de today, BLIMEY the price has gone down by 100 Euro, bargain!, crystal ball and all that but we bought ours months ago.

Peter_in_Hungary

An automatic cutover could be quite a cheap option. A contactor with a suitable number of changeover contacts held on by the grid would do the job and a delay would be easy to do to avoid swap over on blips but for safety reasons it is not allowed. (failure could be lethal to a repair person). A manual transfer would requre someone to be on hand when the power outage happened and problems would be guaranteed when power returned.
I agree nuclear waste is a (big) problem but this a totally separate from the debates about sustainable energy (wind, sun and wave). E.ON do purchase PV power supplied the the grid. They pay the wholesale generation price (that is the amount I believe they pay) PV has never been the cash cow that happens in the UK and Germany and both of those countries are reducing their FIT payments.
You are right E.ON don't like domestic PV feeding into the grid, none of the power suppliers do, it causes them problems and they have to balance local power demands and supply with a variable uncontrollable input but they are forced to accept the PV surplus generated power.
E:ON do have some PV energy farms and in this area we also have some private PV energy farms built on very low grade land.
The domestic PV in Hungary is an investment by the householder with a system life in the order of 20 - 25 years and a ROI of about 10 years. And of course in Hungary people traditionally move house a lot less frequently than in the UK so an outlook of 20 years makes more sense here than in the UK.

However this debate is making rather a mess of Fentigers search for temporary cooking facilities (which search now appears to be resolved) - perhaps a thread on its own

FenTiger

I am breathing a huge sigh of relief because I thought I had ordered the wrong one but as you say the price has dropped by a hundred euros.

FenTiger

Don't worry as we already have a solution.
I'm sure there's a thread on solar power here somewhere. I must order 'A dummies guide to solar power' because I'm not familiar with the jargon and don't have a clue what P.V., three phase, etc means!

Peter_in_Hungary

There are two types of solar energy production, heat (hot water) and electricity. Heat is solar thermal abbreviated to ST and electricity which is photovoltaic ( = volts from light) abbreviated to PV.
Today PV is thought to be better than ST especially in Hungary with hotter summers, because if you have enough ST for your winter hot water you will have problems in the summer with over production whereas with PV you can still heat the hot water and when it is full you can use the electricity for something else. Another thing driving the change to PV is the higher efficiency and price reduction of the modern PV panels.
3 phase can be thought of as industrial power and generally not needed domestically (domestic is 1 phase (single phase)). 3 phase machines are 380 volts as opposed to 230 for domestic. e.g. commercial grade wood working machines would be 3 phase whereas hobby size will be single phase. You need 1 wire for each phase plus a 1 return plus 1 earth so a 3 phase machine needs 5 wires whereas a 1 phase machine needs 3 wires.
If you look at your electricity bill you can work out your annual electricity usage and then run the PVGIS I quoted earlier you will be able to see how a PV system could cope with your needs.
I'm happy to answer other questions.

FenTiger

My local deaf friend who is a carpenter has the 380volt system for his workshop.