Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

Well mine is in the porch which is unheated so pretty cold and I have no temperature related issues. As I said the fan is constantly ramping up in mine which indicates it’s trying to cool itself rather than heat itself up. Different systems though but it sounds like they too are fobbing you off. Mine tried to claim that it was software based and various software patches would “fix it”, software cannot fox hardware issues.
 
Doobedoo said:
Well mine is in the porch which is unheated so pretty cold and I have no temperature related issues. As I said the fan is constantly ramping up in mine which indicates it’s trying to cool itself rather than heat itself up. Different systems though but it sounds like they too are fobbing you off. Mine tried to claim that it was software based and various software patches would “fix it”, software cannot fox hardware issues.
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Mine are outside, but on south facing wall. In fact the worry was more about the summer sun than the winter cold. I had specifically asked in regards the batteries after accepting but pre install in regards the operating range being 0-50. I said hang on this means they wont work and was told they will be fine, one of the directors said his are on a north facing wall and work ok.
The spec changed though and I ended up with a "better" system for slightly more money. Means I can go off grid if needed.
I cannot get a straight answer on the batteries, it looks like there is a newer version with these heaters as well but whether I have them or the older version, no answer.

Mine are now semi insulated and its made a big difference. I haven't seen them in single figures since I nearly completed that a couple of weekends ago. They are sitting at 15 now.
If your getting active cooling needed that would seem odd in a cold porch surely? When I took the insulation off mine the the other day (website was down so I couldnt change a setting with app so had to force on inverter) the batteries were kind of cool to touch. Certainly not cold, which would make sense at around 15 degrees.

I will finish the insulation with the next couple of weekends. Want to tweak the design now after having to take it off to tweak a setting. Need to either make the whole thing "quick release" or add a door in front of the inverter. Probably door.
I will then stuff some extra insulation into the ground level gaps I left to act as vents for the summer. The batteries heat generation is clearly very low due to very low resistance.

Yeah i had the software (firmware) one as well. After eventually getting them to take notice they claimed it was firmware issues. It did make a diff to be fair, they stopped exporting dribbles of energy and got much better at keeping the system in balance.
Did nothing to fix the lack of charging issue however.
 
Doobedoo said:
Soon as I put a load on the battery such as put the kettle on the fan will instantly spin up. If the sun come out and starts charging the battery the fans will instantly spin up.

The spec say ambient temperature requirement 0-35c, well ventilated.

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Interesting they dont list any specs for efficiency.
Also voltage, wonder if that makes a diff, mine are over 400v DC
I assume the top box is the inverter/BMS, so assume thats whats actually being cooled

My inverter as a pretty chunky heatsink on the top passively cooling

Wonder if all the specs have just moved on. Most batteries seem to be 80% at end of warranty, higher listed efficiency, higher number of discharges

This is mine, this inverter, BMS, mate box and 12kw battery system


Edit, actually just noticed yours lists Lithium Ion batteries, the new home ones are LifePo not sure they are the same
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Christ that looks bad.

I have an issue with mine at the mo, ongoing with installer so they are not charging to max.
On basically no/ultra low solar days I get around 8.4kwh and from what I can tell my input is 9.x kwh. the X I have come up with anything from 0 to 3 (ie 9.0 to 9.3)

My maths are great being an accountant.
Thats 90% worst case to 93% best case.

Is yours AC or via an inverter.
No fans in mine at all, my issue is the opposite in that even at 5.5kwh they aren't that warm, were recording 4c during cold spell which is why installer says they are not going to 100% charge.
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hi

if you are worried about 1 battery specifically.... I have 3x2.4kwh abd each one has 5 LEDs on the front of the battery indicating charge levels. if one of your batt3ries is faulty I would expect that to show on the display

mine only discharge to 20% so I only get 6kw/h out of mine .... the software lets me go as low as 5% however if I do I don't get the 5 year warranty on the battery, it goes down to 2 years so I have to keep as is.
my system is 18 months old and my battery health is already dropping. :(. (SOH 96%). not sure how low it can go before I claim on warranty.

my system is in the attic. the insulation is all on the floor in the attic so it gets some wild swings. the inverter is mostly passively cooled via a big heat sink but if it get hot it does have a cooling fan which comes on from time to time.

edit.... below is wrong... that is the inverter temps not battery.

right now internal battery temp is 19 degrees. it's max operating temp is 105 degrees. not sure what minimum is
 
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bigmike20vt said:
hi

if you are worried about 1 battery specifically.... I have 3x2.4kwh abd each one has 5 LEDs on the front of the battery indicating charge levels. if one of your batt3ries is faulty I would expect that to show on the display

mine only discharge to 20% so I only get 6kw/h out of mine .... the software lets me go as low as 5% however if I do I don't get the 5 year warranty on the battery, it goes down to 2 years so I have to keep as is.
my system is 18 months old and my battery health is already dropping. :(. (SOH 96%). not sure how low it can go before I claim on warranty.

my system is in the attic. the insulation is all on the floor in the attic so it gets some wild swings. the inverter is mostly passively cooled via a big heat sink but if it get hot it does have a cooling fan which comes on from time to time.

edit.... below is wrong... that is the inverter temps not battery.

right now internal battery temp is 19 degrees. it's max operating temp is 105 degrees. not sure what minimum is
Click to expand...

Lithium batteries have a sharp initial decline that levels off, so you will probably see that rate of decline slow
 
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bigmike20vt said:
hi

if you are worried about 1 battery specifically.... I have 3x2.4kwh abd each one has 5 LEDs on the front of the battery indicating charge levels. if one of your batt3ries is faulty I would expect that to show on the display

mine only discharge to 20% so I only get 6kw/h out of mine .... the software lets me go as low as 5% however if I do I don't get the 5 year warranty on the battery, it goes down to 2 years so I have to keep as is.
my system is 18 months old and my battery health is already dropping. :(. (SOH 96%). not sure how low it can go before I claim on warranty.

my system is in the attic. the insulation is all on the floor in the attic so it gets some wild swings. the inverter is mostly passively cooled via a big heat sink but if it get hot it does have a cooling fan which comes on from time to time.

edit.... below is wrong... that is the inverter temps not battery.

right now internal battery temp is 19 degrees. it's max operating temp is 105 degrees. not sure what minimum is
Click to expand...
Unfortunately for mine the batteries just have an LED the BMS manages them as one pack and that has a charge level, but the app/website are more accurate so I use that anyway
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Interesting they dont list any specs for efficiency.
Also voltage, wonder if that makes a diff, mine are over 400v DC
I assume the top box is the inverter/BMS, so assume thats whats actually being cooled

My inverter as a pretty chunky heatsink on the top passively cooling

Wonder if all the specs have just moved on. Most batteries seem to be 80% at end of warranty, higher listed efficiency, higher number of discharges

This is mine, this inverter, BMS, mate box and 12kw battery system


Edit, actually just noticed yours lists Lithium Ion batteries, the new home ones are LifePo not sure they are the same
Click to expand...
I haven't really been paying attention to the symptoms you've been having but possibly they might align with what I had with an array of 4 BYD 2.5kwh LiFePo units:
I would have very quick 25% SoC jumps across the whole battery bank, reported by the BMS. So when running on the batteries, the SOC would drop from 100 at an expected rate, and then at some point (normally around 40%) it would drop by 25% - so suddenly I'm left with 15%. Then when recharging, the SoC would go up as expected, and at some point jump by 25% again. The amount of energy going into and out of the battery did not correspond with the large jumps - but there was no indication of any form of error on any of the batteries or the BMS. With observation I could see that the SoC of one of them as indicated by the LEDs would drop and rise dramatically in accordance with the jumps I was seeing. I had that battery replaced under warranty after a BYD tech plugged in a comms cable and did a bunch of tests and checks.
 
Sinbad2000 said:
I haven't really been paying attention to the symptoms you've been having but possibly they might align with what I had with an array of 4 BYD 2.5kwh LiFePo units:
I would have very quick 25% SoC jumps across the whole battery bank, reported by the BMS. So when running on the batteries, the SOC would drop from 100 at an expected rate, and then at some point (normally around 40%) it would drop by 25% - so suddenly I'm left with 15%. Then when recharging, the SoC would go up as expected, and at some point jump by 25% again. The amount of energy going into and out of the battery did not correspond with the large jumps - but there was no indication of any form of error on any of the batteries or the BMS. With observation I could see that the SoC of one of them as indicated by the LEDs would drop and rise dramatically in accordance with the jumps I was seeing. I had that battery replaced under warranty after a BYD tech plugged in a comms cable and did a bunch of tests and checks.
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Thankyou very much for this comment its pretty much exactly the behaviour I am seeing.
I am holding out right now, but give me a few warmish nights (say 10c) and I am going to start hastling the installer again if it doesn't (and I don't believe it will) fix the issue
The SOC jumps around 73% and falls dramatically from around 30%. Sometimes going below the allowed 10% which I suspect means its over draining due to expecting to have more available.
 
Doesn't the idea of the time-of-use tariffs just concentrate huge spikes of energy? Like now my house will spike at 00:30 as the car charger and an electric radiator suddenly start pulling over 8kW. Won't the same happen - but an order of magnitude greater - if energy is 60p/kWh from 1600-1800 and everyone waits until 1801 to turn on their ovens and induction hobs etc?
 
squerble said:
Doesn't the idea of the time-of-use tariffs just concentrate huge spikes of energy? Like now my house will spike at 00:30 as the car charger and an electric radiator suddenly start pulling over 8kW. Won't the same happen - but an order of magnitude greater - if energy is 60p/kWh from 1600-1800 and everyone waits until 1801 to turn on their ovens and induction hobs etc?
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Yes its like the half time of a big match spike, everyone flicks the switch on the kettle

There are already some mitigations the grid do as they know its coming, such as creep up the voltage and frequency before as that will drop when the spike comes.

What might make more sense is that SMETS 1 can only be half hourly, but SMETS 2 can be minute by minute. So they can offset the eg 6pm spike by a minute or so across the UK regions / elec regions to smooth the trend.
Plus of course by then we expect to have lot more grid based storage so that will be able to kick in basically instantly to help smooth the spikes.

Other main mitigation is we don't all have to have the same profile, options in signing up for a deal could be a better price but with a wider expensive window for those most able to switch out, eg pensioners.
Its really a great option for many people if its enabled correctly.
 
squerble said:
Doesn't the idea of the time-of-use tariffs just concentrate huge spikes of energy? Like now my house will spike at 00:30 as the car charger and an electric radiator suddenly start pulling over 8kW. Won't the same happen - but an order of magnitude greater - if energy is 60p/kWh from 1600-1800 and everyone waits until 1801 to turn on their ovens and induction hobs etc?
Click to expand...

There has been legislation introduced last June for car chargers that states the software must be able to start/stop within ~5mins (could be 10) of the set time, to avoid a spike at a specific minute/point in time.
 
For those wondering, I don't think battery round trip is in the 80 % levels, at least in my case. I feel like I'm basically getting what I put in with a few small losses as going from AC to DC and back again for consumption.

I took my worst solar day, 18/12, where solar generated 0.1 kWh for the whole day, so I could remove it from the equation more or less.

Battery in 10.82 kWh with a starting charge of the day at 8% SOC.

bO4eQ1z.png

Battery out was 11.2 kWh, a little higher than the In value because 0.29 kWh at the first bar was from the existing charge, so that can be removed immediately if I only consider what went in on the same day.

rwmsaBW.png

Battery went from 8% at the start of the 00:30 time, to 4% by the end of the day, so that also accounts for a little more on the Out value.

uhsc8gv.png

In short, it does appear that I get almost my entire figure as usable here, anything I put in is roughly usable later at the same level.

Battery doesn't get cold though as it's inside.
 
Thought it would be interesting to see the impact of my solar/batter system on my unit costs for Dec.
I would have been on 34p units had I not had it installed.
As I knew I was getting it I switched to Go end of sept and my unit costs were just over 34p (around 34.7p) pre install. Due to not managing to switch quite enough into the cheap window to balance off the more expensive units.

Taking my generated solar, my total elec bill, and reducing the total a little to cover battery inefficiency my bill would have been £226 for my usage. It was £132.
It also enabled me to save some money on saving sessions without any impact to what I use when, another £12, so net saving was £106.
Effective unit costs 18p for the month.

December is pretty much the worst case month, lowest generation and hence I still have to draw full priced units from the grid. As we get more generation and the winter peak of unit consumption starts to fall that will switch down to fewer and fewer.
A simple ROI of saving over install costs based on purely Dec is just over 10 years, that will improve due to above factors.

Lots of factors can change this obviously over time. Unit pricing in April being the first on the horizon
 
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Got £12.67 in Octo points for the saving session on the 23rd. That was worth it then :eek:.

(1970s poorly insulated flat with electric heating - not storage heaters).
 
We're up to £198 for gas and electric so far this month. Our DD is set for £190 as I'd worked out we'd average that over a year so the fact we're matching that in the most expensive months leads me to think we could keep this DD until well into 2024, even with the upcoming price increases. The government help has also been building a large (over £500) buffer in our energy account which adds further credence that we'll be able to get away with that DD for a good while.
 
Of course the market price for gas at the moment is less than before Ukraine, and less than it was for numerous years on the trot in the early 2000s... Yet I bet in 3-6 months it'll still be at some ridiculous high price to the consumers...
 
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