What are PV electricity power diverters?

Immersun; an Immersun system is an automatic power controller that’s connected to your photovoltaic (PV) panels and it calculates how much electricity your PV is generating. The Immersun also calculates how much energy the house is using and it can then divert any spare electricity into your hot water cylinder.

If you have generated 2 kilowatts of electricity on the roof and you are only using half a kilowatt of electricity for your lighting, fridge, etc, then the Immersun will divert the leftover power into your hot water cylinder to heat up your water, rather than exporting it to the grid.

Compatible with all renewable energy technologies…

Although the Immersun is compatible with all renewable energy technologies, for example solar PV, hydro systems and wind turbines, this post will focus on their use with solar PV.

How do Power Diverters work?

The Immersun constantly monitors the amount of electricity that’s being generated from the solar PV panels and is able to put the balancing amount of electricity into the hot water cylinder, regardless of how little energy that is.

If the PV panels are generating 2 kilowatts of electricity and the house is only using half a kilowatt, then the remaining amount will go back into the hot water cylinder. However, if someone puts the kettle on, which is going to use 2 kilowatts, the Immersun will immediately stop putting energy into the hot water cylinder, because there is no spare energy, and it will get the extra power needed from the grid.

On some occasions you will be bringing power into the house from the grid because the house is using more energy than it’s generating. You will get other occasions where the house is generating a lot more than it is using and will therefore export energy to the grid.

The aim is to use all the electricity generated within the house…

The main aim of the Immersun system is to ensure that the majority of the electricity that is generated by the house is used within the house, rather than being exported.

The Immersun system also allows you to monitor the energy flow on a control panel, which you can also access on the internet and through a mobile app, enabling you to see at any time how much energy you have generated, how much you have diverted into your hot water cylinder and how much has been exported into the grid.

How can you incorporate this into your home?

The first thing you have to have in your home is a solar PV system, or another renewable energy technology; once you have PV panels installed, the Immersun is a very easy technology to incorporate into an existing house as it just gets wired into your consumer board.

To make the Immersun work you must have a hot water cylinder with an immersion heater inside the hot water cylinder – it won’t work for people who have gas fired or combi boilers without hot water cylinders. The Immersun uses the hot water cylinder like a battery, it’s effectively saying that any spare electricity it has it will turn into hot water and will store the electrical energy in the water.

The ideal situation is that it heats up plenty of water throughout the day and that water is used overnight, then when the sun comes up in the morning it heats the hot water tank up again.