©2014 FIRECRACKER™GUW ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Switch-over panel

(Click to enlarge photo)

It seems to me that batteries and inverters are an absolute must as part of a local energy system at the present time. There are many gadgets being developed by the big corps that might be a practical alternative within the next couple of decades but, for now, we are stuck with batteries and inverters.

I'm sure my systems have been much the same as many other experimenters', the batteries collect charge from whatever source is available and then the inverters convert it to mains power. That's great but then what? Nobody wants cables running through doors and windows into the house from outside. The only realistic solution to this is to install a permanent switch-over panel to switch the mains circuits over to inverters when the batteries are charged, where the aim is to be connected to the mains as little as possible. However, as we don't live in an ideal world, there will be occasions when the inverters are not in use so the house must automatically revert back to mains if the batteries run low or there is a fault.

The photo shows one of my switch-over panels. Although it looks rather complicated the operation is fairly simple with circuits repeated several times to make it look more complicated that it actually is. Obviously it makes sense to only use low-energy light-bulbs (LEDs are better still), and all appliances should be modern and as low-power as possible. In my opinion, electricity is for luxuries and should never be used for heating - that's what the heating-system is for!

A word of caution: Please don't just go hacking into your fuse-box to add a switch-over panel to get all of that lovely free power into your house. Thanks to those wonderful folk in the EU and our mostly non-electrically trained MPs who appear to foist any-old legislation onto us, ordinary people are no longer allowed to work on their own wiring and the house insurance may be invalid if you do. In any event, you would need a certificate afterwards to keep everything in order. I spent many years training in the electrical industry and I am now in the same position as most others. People who are allowed to work on wiring are called a "competent person", by definition that makes me, and many of you, incompetent person/s! Thanks-a-bunch, Brit government! So, like a lot of other things in the UK today, be prepared to pay a fortune to get your switch-over panel (assuming your electrician has ever seen one) installed. My advice is get the design absolutely right and test it fully before you go near the 'electrical elite' who must do the simple and overpaid job of installing it for you!