Solar panels and battery - any real world recommendations?

SpeedFreak said:
A turbine potentially causes flickering of light onto neighbouring properties so it is not entirely unwelcome that there is strict regulation.
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Have you seen the size of domestic turbines, they are tiny.
About a million things within planning that would be far more disruptive.

The issues are the legislation seems to be written with large pole mounted turbines in mind, where as most domestic ones are not.

So the legislation requires distances from boundaries that are simply daft in the real world and would make like 90%+ of the UK houses unable to have them (legally).
Its the same legislation that is rather daft in regards heat pumps (well the heat exchangers) as well.

Basically it was written when they were exceptional things that most people wouldn't want rather than the situation now where we need people to be adopting them.
 
I don't really see the point in domestic. Have you ever seen wind speed by elevation studies? In residential areas they produce very little (I was looking at options for my house build). I'll try and dig out what I had read.
 
I have as I looked into my area, also I have followed quite a few people who have installed them, usually illegally

They are far from ideal, but people forget they are 24/7 so even 200w is almost 5kwh a day. They are also fairly well counter cyclical to solar which from what I can tell are mainly the people who consider adding some wind generation.

Part of the reason why a lot of people are working on domestic designs that are not blades is because the wind is often disrupted so designs that work better with that as opposed to blades are the future.
Added benefit of that they tend to be more condensed designs with spirals and stuff as opposed to a large flat design like a bladed design.
 
I've seen a few videos where people have installed hydro, often 1 kWh units, people say what's the point, completely missing the fact that's it's 24 kWh a day.

Be interesting to see how well those cylinder wind turbines work.
 
Hydro is brilliant, my electrician did one in wales that produces 30 to 90kw a day depending on time of year, excellent addition to solar as winter is real earner.

Wind still has some development for domestic applications I think.
 
Ron-ski said:
I've seen a few videos where people have installed hydro, often 1 kWh units, people say what's the point, completely missing the fact that's it's 24 kWh a day.

Be interesting to see how well those cylinder wind turbines work.
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Nathan said:
Hydro is brilliant, my electrician did one in wales that produces 30 to 90kw a day depending on time of year, excellent addition to solar as winter is real earner.

Wind still has some development for domestic applications I think.
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Hydro is literally the best you can get. As said even 1kw is actually loads over 24 hours, add some decent battery capacity and your sorted with "just" 1kw

The cylinders are better for the typically disrupted air flows most of us get in urbanised areas.
If I could get one that consistently generated 200w average I would be starting to become interested.

They are fairly counter cyclical to solar, not fully of course but its generally windier in winter than summer. Although actually spring and autumn are when they would probably be most noticeable.
Days like yesterday, sunny but actually semi windy hence why Agile pricing was negative a lot of the day.

For me I know where I would put one/two. My south facing wall is one of the tall ones (gable end?) and is due to the positioning of the local houses in a bit of a wind tunnel.
But I am not allowed. Its my boundary thats about 15m away from the houses that are side on to my house, but only 1.5m or so from the boundary. Between me and those houses is my path, an access path for some of those houses and their back gardens.
But planning says nope its too close to a boundary.
IIRC you have to be 5m from any boundary no matter what is the other side or how far any properties are from that boundary.
 
There is a great Youtube channel with a hydro project:


He has a few more as well. Once dialled in they seem great, if you live by a stream of course!
 
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I am thinking of upgrading my fuse box soon. But knowing I want to go electric car charger and a load more solar panels in the future I wonder is it worth going 3 phase?

Right now I am thinking of going for new up to date fuse box with rcbo's. Looked into arc, but those cost like £100 a pop and i am not sure they are worth it yet as read some negative things also. Thoughts? :)
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
unless you live in a mansion or have a swimming pool, no.

You can pull 18.4kw on a 80A fuse or 23kw on a 100A, that’s plenty for car charging, batteries and a heat pump overnight.
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Thought as much. Any thoughts on AFDD?

Anyone here got it?
 
TNA said:
But knowing I want to go electric car charger and a load more solar panels in the future I wonder is it worth going 3 phase?
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There are some benefits of going three phase, one being that you'll likely have three times the export limit, whether this actually works in your favour depends how big the PV system is and how low you're export limit will be on single phase.

If you have an EV you'll be able to charge at 22kW, this may be of little benefit if you don't need to charge quickly though, or you may need more than one 7 kW charger (I think some do have that on single phase, but that won't leave a lot for house batteries etc).

DNO's do seem to be heading towards limiting the DNO fuse to 80 amp's, and suggesting 3 phase is required if you need more power. National Grid actually put out a change of policy document, implying a maximum size of 80a for domestic premises, but it seems plenty of DNO's will still install a 100a fuse.

The downsides are the DNO will likely charge a fortune to install 3 phase, you'll need a 3 phase consumer unit, you need a three phase inverter system etc etc.
 
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Ron-ski said:
There are some benefits of going three phase, one being that you'll likely have three times the export limit, whether this actually works in your favour depends how big the PV system is and how low you're export limit will be on single phase.

If you have an EV you'll be able to charge at 22kW, this may be of little benefit if you don't need to charge quickly though, or you may need more than one 7 kW charger (I think some do have that on single phase, but that won't leave a lot for house batteries etc).

DNO's do seem to be heading towards limiting the DNO fuse to 80 amp's, and suggesting 3 phase is required if you need more power. National Grid actually put out a change of policy document, implying a maximum size of 80a for domestic premises, but it seems plenty of DNO's will still install a 100a fuse.

The downsides are the DNO will likely charge a fortune to install 3 phase, you'll need a 3 phase consumer unit, you need a three phase inverter system etc etc.
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Cheers. I think for charging single phase 7kw is fine for the car tbh.

But for exporting if I am granted a high amount by the DNO, was hoping to just get a single inverter to deal with it. Not looked into it but I am guessing such an inverter would be expensive.

What is the highest inverter one can get? How do guys generating 1Mwh this month have their setup?

If all goes to plan I can have like 40 panels or more. How does the inverter situation look for that?
 
tamzzy said:
just piquing my interest, do you have a link so i can have a look?
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