I’m wondering whether this can be used to control a 3 KW immersion heater.
My thought is for it to be on when my solar PV is exporting.
What is the model number and spec of the actual relay?
Is it DIN rail mounting?
Thx for any info or comments
You can switch up to 16A (± 3600W) with the 1ch version and it has a DIN rail mountable case.
Don’t know if it’s suited for your application. I remember the solar diverter topic(s) in the old forum. I think Robin Emley’s diverter was the most advanced one.
I certainly would not recommend using a mechanical relay to switch an immersion heater more than a few times an hour, you need to consider contact life. Both Robin’s and MartinR’s diverters use a triac switch.
Thanks for that info.
The immersion heater is existing. And a contract for a ground mounted 30 KWp 3 phase PV system will soon be let. So there will be plenty of generation over & above house needs.
Consequently my thinking was – no need for complexity to capture every bit of exported generation. I envisage monitoring the emonTx CT sensor on the phase with the immersion heater. Then switching the heater on if the cum export over a 5/10 minute period was above a defined level – this to prevent the heater cycling too frequently.
Longer term I foresee a ground source heat pump to use much more of the excess generation. And I thought any learning experience with the existing immersion heater might be valuable.
Any comments would be most welcome.