Solar panels and battery - any real world recommendations?

Jon20 said:
Thanks. They’ve replied today saying that they can install it wherever I want it. Just waiting for a date to install now.
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Bit of a rant but further to this, still waiting for an install date which is annoying. I'm guessing they aren't really that interested in coming to fit an EV charger (in which case, why offer that as a service?), as the money is in fitting panels and batteries. Would just be nice to get either a yes or no. Which then leads me on to finding another local company/electrician but everyone seems to want you to do a remote survey. Just come and look at the job and quote :confused::rolleyes: Still, got plenty of time as I've no idea what is happening with the car other than the order being accepted. Doesn't appear to have gone in to production yet.
 
They do a remote survey because the jobs are usually not that different and they get so many leads that they don’t win, if they visited them all, they’ll never make any money doing chargeable work.
 
Dropping in here some interesting tippets (not sure if anyone watches this but I find it good)
Solar kill switch in chinese inverters?
Some stuff about council houses and council
But then interesting UKPN looking for a designer to design a voltage tester in effect to stop them having to visit when mains issues

 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Solar kill switch in chinese inverters?
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But no details as to what models or manufacturers or frankly any evidence what so ever and the source seems to be from the USA. I have to be that 'guy' but I am going to need some more evidence before I can draw any reasonable conclusion.

The units also need to have a live cellular connection so some sort of co-operation is needed with a domestic telecoms network to operate that hardware. Surely this stuff would be obvious to detect with even the most basic scanning equipment.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
But no details as to what models or manufacturers or frankly any evidence what so ever and the source seems to be from the USA. I have to be that 'guy' but I am going to need some more evidence before I can draw any reasonable conclusion.

The units also need to have a live cellular connection so some sort of co-operation is needed with a domestic telecoms network to operate that hardware. Surely this stuff would be obvious to detect with even the most basic scanning equipment.
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Totally agree and was my immediate thought as well.
Presenter even says it.

I probably trust china more than the US right now :)
 
With the upcoming install next month, who are doing good deals on Solar/Export/Off-peak charging tariffs currently? I'm with Octopus on their Tracker currently, but looking for options to switch too, even if it's not Octopus.
 
Gazanimal said:
With the upcoming install next month, who are doing good deals on Solar/Export/Off-peak charging tariffs currently? I'm with Octopus on their Tracker currently, but looking for options to switch too, even if it's not Octopus.
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You could change to Octopus Go for import and have Outgoing Octopus for the export tariff. Octopus Go gives you 8.5p/kWh between 00:30 and 5:30 so can charge batteries then. It’s 27.85p/kWh (at least in the Midlands, might be slightly different in other areas) outside of those times but hopefully you’d be running off the solar/batteries. The Outgoing Octopus gives you 15p/kWh for export. You’re supposed to have an EV to be on Octopus Go but they don’t check during sign up.

There’s also E.on Next Drive which is a bit cheaper and has a longer off peak period.
 
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Eon is the better tariff but its got a slight disadvantage vs octopus in regards getting credit for your export.
Octopus that happens by default each month onto your bill.
Eon you need to provide the data and will get (I believe) sent the cash when processed. (You may be able to get bill credit but you still need to do it as opposed to it being automatic)
I suspect Eon would not include in any calculations where as Octopus might, but again minor difference probably irrelevant.

One other advantage of Eon compared to Octopus right now is you can get a signup bonus to Eon (was £50 not sure if still so) so you will gain there.
Eon will put you onto a standard tariff then move you over to drive so you will see upto 14 days of higher bills (reality seems to be far less but thats the worst case), but that will be more than covered by the £50

I am probably going to move to Eon myself but I am waiting until my export falls off as there seems to be no hard commitment on the transfer here, you can't do it online from what I can tell.

The wildcard is Agile. So far this year it hasnt been great, but i was on it last summer by this point and it was lower cost than both the above would be.
It takes more effort to either integrate into your system (either directly or probably via home assistant) or manually minmax it.
 
eon next drive user here :)
can fully recommend

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Eon you need to provide the data and will get (I believe) sent the cash when processed. (You may be able to get bill credit but you still need to do it as opposed to it being automatic)
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you can ask for a bank deposit instead of cheque, which is what i do
maximum frequency of payout = every 3 months
if you haven't sent in a reading, they will ask you at the end of the 12 month "contract"

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
One other advantage of Eon compared to Octopus right now is you can get a signup bonus to Eon (was £50 not sure if still so) so you will gain there.
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yes this is still available

i have the referral codes for the £50 bonus if anyone wants :cry:

Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
The wildcard is Agile. So far this year it hasnt been great, but i was on it last summer by this point and it was lower cost than both the above would be.
It takes more effort to either integrate into your system (either directly or probably via home assistant) or manually minmax it.
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exactly this is the reason why i went with eon next drive, no hassle required, no other hardware/software required
practically the best in industry fixed pricing and SEG payout and longest off-peak hours is the bonus
 
I guess one other minor point is that Go will likely change again in a few weeks time.
In one of the previous drops Octopus increased the hours for go from 4 to 5.
I guess some will depend on if they see Eon as a threat and look to match/beat.

They have been slowly improving Go, the extra hours, paying the full export etc are changes improving it since I joined it 2.5 years ago.
Yes the rates are different but thats the market. With a 7% cap drop I would be hoping Octopus will lower the cheap part a chunk this time.

I suppose should also mention Tomato.
I wouldn't move to them personally, I honestly think they are going to go pop, but if your after the absolute lowest prices its there.*
They don't do export yet though iirc so you would be tied to a worse paying export elsewhere.
You would need to work out if the lower import is better than the loss of export which of course will be generation and usage dependant.

* You may not be able to join anyway as they were banned from taking on new customers for unpaid bills a little while ago.
Which just reinforced my views they are dodgy and will go pop. My view was taken from Companies house and also issues with the regulator before this recent issue.
 
Eon is trialling a system similar to Octopus so regarding export so it may change in the future. One other thing with Eon is brown export, if you export from your battery all the time and export more than your MCS certificate expected generation they have been querying it. Obviously people dumping batteries in the late evening and then topping up at cheap power just after is not good for them or the grid. I'd like to see a system reward us for exporting like that during the peak period but that's another story. One thing for the people who force export batteries to be aware of if considering the switch.
I signed up on V6 a few months ago and recently switched to V7, lower standing charges for me. The fixed rate and specifically allowing non EV people is a big plus over Octopus for me.
 
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200sols said:
Eon is trialling a system similar to Octopus so regarding export so it may change in the future.
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oh what is this?

200sols said:
One other thing with Eon is brown export, if you export from your battery all the time and export more than your MCS certificate expected generation they have been querying it. Obviously people dumping batteries in the late evening and then topping up at cheap power just after is not good for them or the grid.
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haha thanks for letting me know!
just checked my MCS cert, will definitely keep an eye now that i've started doing brown exports

200sols said:
The fixed rate and specifically allowing non EV people is a big plus over Octopus for me.
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eon never specifically checked/enforced re: EVs, i've had next drive since V2
they've now made it official though
 
Glad to see that improvement from Eon, anything that moves the competition forwards is great to my mind.
I really hope one of the others decides to get with it as well so it becomes a three way competition for these customers.

200sols said:
Eon is trialling a system similar to Octopus so regarding export so it may change in the future. One other thing with Eon is brown export, if you export from your battery all the time and export more than your MCS certificate expected generation they have been querying it. Obviously people dumping batteries in the late evening and then topping up at cheap power just after is not good for them or the grid. I'd like to see a system reward us for exporting like that during the peak period but that's another story. One thing for the people who force export batteries to be aware of if considering the switch.
I signed up on V6 a few months ago and recently switched to V7, lower standing charges for me. The fixed rate and specifically allowing non EV people is a big plus over Octopus for me.
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Yep TOU export payments reflecting the grid price would really help.
I mentioned before at the last round of bidding for supply the generators were including demand reduction / demand shaping as part of their combined bids.
 
I have 30x445W bifacials on my main roof, connected to a Powerwall 3, and have just self fitted 14x645W Aiko bifacial panels to the garage roof/wall between garage and house.

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Those are running on a 6kW Solax inverter, and all have optimisers.

I'm on IOG, about 99% of my import is at 7p, and exporting as much as possible for the 15p export.

Tempted by E.On but I'd need more battery to shift my usage to 6.7p, and as the garage is self install it doesn't have MCS, so they would accuse me of "brown export" and cut my payments.
 
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