With energy prices rising, it’s never been more important to reduce your reliance on fossil fuels. Solar power is a great way to do that, but it doesn’t solve the biggest problem of all this winter – hot water and heating.
Unless you have electric heating throughout your home, you’ll still need to pay to fire up the boiler whenever you need hot water. That’s a problem that solar power diverters can solve – here’s how…
Solar diverters – what & why?
Also known as a solar immersion diverter, a solar power diverter is a small piece of kit that’s fitted to your home’s electricity installation. As the name suggests, it diverts energy away from your home’s consumer unit after it has been sent there from your solar panels.
But why? In short, most homes don’t use all of the energy they generate from their own solar panels. That’s usually sent back into the national grid, for which you get a small payment as part of the Smart Export Guarantee.
Here’s the problem. The average cost of electricity per kWh is significantly more than what you’re paid for the energy you send back to the grid. From October 2022, electricity is capped at 34p per kWh, while the best Smart Export Guarantee is less than half of that at 15p per kWh.
So, it makes much more sense to keep the energy you’ve generated and use it in your home. That doesn’t mean switching on extra appliances to waste energy for the sake of it. Instead, using a solar immersion diverter, you can heat your hot water tank using any surplus energy from your solar panel system.
How it works
Solar power diverters work by monitoring the amount of electricity being generated by your solar panel system, compared to how much energy you’re using in your home. Normally, when your solar batteries are full, but your home isn’t using energy, you’d start exporting your energy to the grid.
With a solar diverter, that energy will be diverted to your hot water tank’s immersion heater. Essentially, it’s a way of using renewable energy for your heating and hot water – as well as your usual electricity usage.
If your home’s demand for energy increases, the diverter will automatically reduce its usage. That means there’s no impact on electricity for your home, as it’s still prioritised over solar diverter hot water.
Find out more about solar immersion diverters
Solar diverters are affordable, quick to install, and pay for themselves over time. They’re the perfect fit for any home with its own solar panels and a hot water tank (used for conventional and system boilers).
If you’d like to find out more about the options available or the installation process, Grants Electrical is on hand to help. Our experienced electricians in Taunton can answer any questions you may have and provide a free, no obligation quote for a solar power diverter at your home. Call us on 07775 447 404 or email [email protected].