How do I find the right my-PV product?

Photovoltaic electricity is valuable! This is especially true today, with sharply rising energy costs putting pressure on household budgets. It raises the question of what to do with the PV electricity you don’t need and would otherwise feed into the grid (in a grid-connected system). It’s easy to weigh whether it makes more sense to use that electricity for heating purposes (hot water and/or space heating) rather than selling it to your electricity provider for a few cents per kilowatt-hour. Heating is often supplied by systems that have become more expensive due to rising energy prices, making self-consumption of PV energy for heat a much better option.

Getting more out of your PV system

If you want to use your PV energy at home for heating purposes, the first question is whether a heating element is already installed in your water or buffer storage. This element only needs to be continuously controllable or modulatable to be PV-compatible (to handle fluctuating surpluses).

If a suitable heating element is already present, our AC•THOR for smaller applications or the AC•THOR 9s for slightly larger applications is the right choice. Both products can communicate with existing heating elements – we like to work with what is already installed

If no heating element is present, or if the existing one is not suitable, our AC ELWA 2 is ideal. It allows PV energy to be converted to heat in a single device, combining the heating element and electronics in one solution.

In both cases, PV energy can be used for heating as well as for other applications such as household consumption, battery charging, or electric mobility – all in a grid-connected PV system.

All that’s required is knowing how much PV surplus is available for heat generation. This is measured at the household connection, either via the my-PV WiFi Meter or through one of our many compatible providers.

Off-grid applications for autonomy

For those who want to produce hot water independently from the grid, my-PV offers two cost-efficient retrofit solutions. Both the ELWA and SOL•THOR allow for autonomous and cost-effective hot water production with solar electricity. Both work without an inverter and use PV electricity purely for heating, not for household consumption (lights, appliances, etc.).

The ELWA is ideal for simple retrofits or cost-optimized solar use. A few PV modules on the roof can supply direct current, which the ELWA converts into hot water. If a heating system already has a heating element, the SOL•THOR offers an especially economical retrofit option. It can be connected directly to an existing heating element and regulates it according to PV output to heat the water in the storage tank. The SOL•THOR can also be connected to an electric boiler.

A small guide and the right questions to help with product selection can also be found in our my-PV Product Finder, which is easily accessible here.