750 Euro annual operating costs

A family from Upper Austria paid 750 Euro for their 150 m² home to cover annual operating costs for electricity, hot water and space heating. Photovoltaic power manager (AC•THOR) controls the house's own photovoltaic system (11 kWp) in order to use the electrical energy efficiently itself.

A comparable low-energy house with a heat pump would have annual operating costs around 100% higher. The building technology follows the solar-electrical concept, which works with today's standard thermal insulation. This means that low-energy houses of up to 150 m² can be supplied cheaply with photovoltaic energy by combining a PV system and a device for intelligent, linear controlled energy. The electricity produced during the day is stored in buffer storage tanks, such as in the hot water boiler or in the floor via electric heating mats. The "storage" and prioritization of the electricity from the photovoltaic system is controlled by AC•THOR, the intelligent linear power controller from my-PV.

"It's a dream! Thanks to my-PV, we can operate our house almost entirely solar-electrically and reduce our energy costs by 49 percent," the builder-owner said happily when he sent us a photo of his annual electricity bill.

Low electricity consumption

The family from Upper Austria had a very low grid consumption of 7,658 kWh, considering that the family not only supplies electricity for lighting and all household consumers, but they also use it for space heating and hot water. In addition, the family of three fed around 6,700 kWh into the public power grid during the billing period.

Official requirements

As required in Upper Austria, the family also has a non-electric heating system. In December and January 2020, a Swedish stove was used to heat a scarce solid cubic meter of beech wood worth 80 Euro for the purposes of coziness. These 80 Euro have been added to the annual electricity bill of 670 Euro.

More information about the reference project can be read here.