Solar panel production figures

No idea on payback on mine, no idea what the total spend was on the additional system, still haven't added it up yet, but its well up there.

I'm still getting FITS payments for my 2015 system (that cost £6.6k), my electric bill since the start of April is -£575 plus the FITS payments.

PS. The SE system paid for itself early last year.
 
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Not sure why more people don't build their own batteries, the saving can be huge.

You can buy the 16X300aH cells plus a very good BMS from a UK seller for under a grand.(Fogstar)
That's 15kWh of battery power for under £1000.
 
Troop said:
Not sure why more people don't build their own batteries, the saving can be huge.

You can buy the 16X300aH cells plus a very good BMS from a UK seller for under a grand.(Fogstar)
That's 15kWh of battery power for under £1000.
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I'm simply not seeing any 300aH cells remotely close to £50 at Fogstar, the closest cell to that price is a 105aH cell.

16 Grade B EVE 305aH cells comes to £1729, plus the BMS will be £2k plus a multitude of other parts.
 
Its also more of a case if you can get smart payouts from export, but for me is being able to divert and use the energy your generating.

As I built my home and hope to live in it till the end, the 20+ years is a no brainer really of offsetting your use. We would have had more this year but the worst July for decades ruined a better month but still generated over 4000 kWh.

I have been credited back two DD payment now and it has brought down the monthly use by over 50%, when you add in the water tank diverter its saving about a tank full (1000l) heating oil a year also. I calculated near 7 year payoff but when the suppliers keep upping their unit costs and standing charges it only make more of a case and faster payback really.
 
Ron-ski said:
I'm simply not seeing any 300aH cells remotely close to £50 at Fogstar, the closest cell to that price is a 105aH cell.

16 Grade B EVE 305aH cells comes to £1729, plus the BMS will be £2k plus a multitude of other parts.
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Yes, my mistake I was working on 8 cells as I usually run 24v..... so 8kWh of cells = £800 + another £90 for the JK 200A BMS to go with them.

These cells. https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/lifepo4/products/envision-lifepo4-305ah-prismatic-cell-grade-a

16cells for £1600 plus the BMS cost, add the MuliyPlus 2 3000 and you're just under 3k for a very capable system with over 15kWh of battery power.
 
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Troop said:
Not sure why more people don't build their own batteries, the saving can be huge.

You can buy the 16X300aH cells plus a very good BMS from a UK seller for under a grand.(Fogstar)
That's 15kWh of battery power for under £1000.
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Don't have the confidence or knowledge to do so and troubleshoot any problems.
 
Today is yoyo day, up to 12.50 atm and battery up to 82%, hoping it gets to 100% before 4pm as currently sun is out and don't see any clouds that could interfere with it for a while.

Also since everyone is away for weekend so can't call them apparently its down to me to get an export MPAN, I have a standard MPAN on the MCS certificate but I can't find out what to do on UK Power Networks website, its got a FAQ for what you need to get SEG such as export MPAN but no info on what to do to get it and their faq is beyond useless.

I was under the assumption Octopus handled the export mpan process.
 
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alphaomega16 said:
Today is yoyo day, up to 12.50 atm and battery up to 82%, hoping it gets to 100% before 4pm as currently sun is out and don't see any clouds that could interfere with it for a while.

Also since everyone is away for weekend so can't call them apparently its down to me to get an export MPAN, I have a standard MPAN on the MCS certificate but I can't find out what to do on UK Power Networks website, its got a FAQ for what you need to get SEG such as export MPAN but no info on what to do to get it and their faq is beyond useless.

I was under the assumption Octopus handled the export mpan process.
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Octopus will apply for the export mpan, they did with my export connection….
 
Welshman said:
Octopus will apply for the export mpan, they did with my export connection….
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That is odd then, I thought they handled that due to this

image.png


But in the T&C when signing up to flux it says this.

image.png


Gonna give em a call tomorrow to see whats going on.
 
Dis86 said:
I just cannot get the maths to work on these, what kind of payback periods are you folks looking at for solar and battery systems?
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We have solar only and our payback will be around 8-10yrs last time I looked which was before the energy price hikes. We don't have gas, so have a relatively high electric demand.
We managed to get in just before the end of the FIT, which helps too.
I looked at batteries a year or so ago and I also couldn't get the costs to be justified. Might be different now with higher prices per unit?
The other problem we'd have is ideally we'd want quite a big battery system (+15kwh), inverter and a bigger PV array, so that our high demand from the heat pump during winter is more covered by free electricity. If I put a 5-8kwh battery in now, it wouldn't be big enough to make much difference in the winter when we can easily use 20-30kwh /day (sometimes 50kwh) and our PVs are only generating 5kwh.
 
The big advantage of batteries is the ability to go onto a cheap tariff, such as go, and buy in cheap units which you can use during the day.
So on go you get 4 hours low cost, which you can time dishwasher into as well, and use your cheap rate to charge the batteries.

The other advantage is smoothing, so as your demand and solar output go up and down they smooth that out. So your not for example exporting for 5 minutes then importing because the sun has gone in.

Flux has mixed it up a bit, but in winter your going to want a lot of battery storage or a massive solar array to make it work.

As ever all the ratios between usage, cheap rates, what you can load shift, actual tariffs and prices etc all mean you need to look at your usage. There is no "single best" for solar.

When I played with paybacks I got around 5-6 years for simple solar, or simple batteries. Combined they push they return out longer but they add a lot of flexibility and they are complimentary in effect.
They do not cross into the others payback that much, but they do a bit.

Solar will mainly payback in summer (March-Sept really). Batteries will mainly payback in winter (Sept-March really).
 
Troop said:
Yes, my mistake I was working on 8 cells as I usually run 24v..... so 8kWh of cells = £800 + another £90 for the JK 200A BMS to go with them.

These cells. https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/lifepo4/products/envision-lifepo4-305ah-prismatic-cell-grade-a

16cells for £1600 plus the BMS cost, add the MuliyPlus 2 3000 and you're just under 3k for a very capable system with over 15kWh of battery power.
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That's a bargain. Doing a DIY battery install is something I've been considering but I don't have the spare time to put into it at the moment. When I do I'll come here for tips and advice though!
 
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