Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Yes, that is correct but you are also stopping any solar being used, and it was bad wording on my part as I didn't mean just battery usage but solar as well in tandem, when the late spring/ early autumn means you are generating still at "dinner" time, so you are limited by the 3600w for a much longer period of the year. Even if you prioritise the PV first, battery second you are still limited so not making the most of what is there on offer. I hope this made more sense, I'm not feeling amazing today tbh. :(
That's no problem, yes I agree if combining solar. I've gone a different way with two inverters, one for East and one for West, giving a max discharge of 7.2kW - hope you feel better!
 
I have 4 solar panels which give me 800w max but I'd like to add batteries but dont know where to start.

Are they on an old FIT based tariff or something you had setup yourself? Do you know how much of your generation you use at the moment, and how much you generate over the year?

The next obvious question will be what is your electricity consumption over the year in total, solar generation included as the best place to start for will be the affordability and the payback time.
 
Are they on an old FIT based tariff or something you had setup yourself? Do you know how much of your generation you use at the moment, and how much you generate over the year?

The next obvious question will be what is your electricity consumption over the year in total, solar generation included as the best place to start for will be the affordability and the payback time.
I set it up myself. I reduce my consumption by around 2kw a day for 8 months of the year. The rest sent to the grid. It’s grid tied.

I might just end up getting a energy diverter either charging a portable battery bank or an electric radiator.
 
I used to use an electric storage heater with old eco 7 rate. It didnt have a timer for starters but generally it wasnt enough, I think a Battery leaks less energy and is more adaptable. Tech wasnt there like it is now.
 
A good evening for forced discharge on Agile Export!

p per kWh

18:00 - 18:3053.10
18:30 - 19:0053.65
19:00 - 19:3047.93
 
I’m sure you’ve mentioned it already but what did you go for?
This plus some more bits n bobs, but the main items are listed here

JA Solar 390 Black Frame solar panel x14

SolaX X1 High Voltage Hybrid 5.0T inverter x1

**NET** Emlite Bi-directional Meter ECA2.nv x1

iBoost + x1

Solax Meter Chint / Eastron SDM 230-Modbus x1

SolaX Triple 5.8kWh LFP Battery (Master Console) x1

SolaX Triple 5.8kWh LFP Battery (Slave Console) x1
 
Morning,

I've just signed up for getting a solar and batteries, which is due to be fitted over the next few weeks,

Set up will be
  • 8.5kw Solar PV
  • 8kw Hybrid Inverter
  • 5.2 kWh Batteries
I'm currently with Octopus on a fixed term till September 2023 (24p standard charge and 24p kWh) Which is seems to be a decent contract at the moment.

My question is - Should I keep the tariff till September 2023 or change to a Go/Agile tariff to take advantage of the cheap rate and fill the batteries up. Approx usage, 8500 kWh per year. Currently, don't have a EV, but will get one next year.

Should I just sit tight, but would be grateful for the forum comments...
 
You can't get onto GO without an EV, unless you're somehow very lucky and they don't check, it's not guaranteed at all though. They specifically asked me when I queried them about it.

Agile recently has been kind of rubbish, for imports at least.

I'd probably stick with what you have. I don't know if you can do agile export alongside your current tariff.
 
Got my smart meter fitted yesterday and requested Go. No EV proof yet but any idea how long go would take to setup. I guess a battery and inverter without panels need a lot of home consumption to save money ? Plus an inverter needs to be big to run a electric shower off a battery
 
You can't get onto GO without an EV, unless you're somehow very lucky and they don't check, it's not guaranteed at all though. They specifically asked me when I queried them about it.

Agile recently has been kind of rubbish, for imports at least.

I'd probably stick with what you have. I don't know if you can do agile export alongside your current tariff.
That was another question, can you run an export tariff alongside your current one? Not a big issue as i can't really see us exporting much from September>March
 
When I had my meter fitted they said it would be a couple of weeks before anything could be done about switching tariffs.

Not sure how GO would benefit if you don't have an EV. Unless you've got batteries that can use the cheap rate. There's a reason it's cheap at that time - not many people are using it.
 
Got my smart meter fitted yesterday and requested Go. No EV proof yet but any idea how long go would take to setup. I guess a battery and inverter without panels need a lot of home consumption to save money ? Plus an inverter needs to be big to run a electric shower off a battery

it's in their T&C's that you have an EV either leased or owned or similar. They may ask you for proof before they accept the switch, they could also check at any point during your contract.

Buying a battery and inverter for this purpose is risky, because without an EV they can undo your tariff and put you back on the cap rates at any time.
 
Weird one, but spotted the last few days that my battery will charge up to like 85-90% then just stop and then about 15 minutes later jump to 100%, any ideas whats going on there or is it just a nuance of the givenergy dashboard?
Looks like a known issue as apparently fixed in the latest release.

  • Optimised the battery SOC/power calculation logic to fix the problem where the battery SOC jumps significantly between 2 data points
 
Mine was never that bad, maybe 90-100% jump. they fixed the issue I had with the graph not showing the actual data when you hovered over it, but that was fixed within days.
 
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