Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

SoliD said:
We've had a couple of challenging few days in a row, but i've hit the 4% battery threshold once, had it down to 5,6,7% a couple of times.slowly going up to 1kwh now after a morning of 500wh.
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Wow you're really stretching that depth of discharge aren't you? I've set my floor at 10% even though the Pylons will alow 95% DoD.
 
Reserve value by default on Givenergy seems to be 4%. Must be a reason they picked it I guess?

Can see generation today hasn't kept up with the usage so battery is just slowly slipping:

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SBo said:
Wow you're really stretching that depth of discharge aren't you? I've set my floor at 10% even though the Pylons will alow 95% DoD.
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Just left it at the standard setting. As above they have unlimited charge cycles and 100% DOD on the 8.2kwh - of which I have 2 @HungryHippos think end of the day you'll learn and as you have the cheaper overnight rate you may lose out on a couple of pence but it's hardly breaking the bank.
 
Journey said:
It's 100% on the 8.2kWh and 9.5kWh - the smaller ones have a 95% or less DoD.
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That was what I thought, so wonder why Hippo seems to be seeing 4% on the 8.2
Like I said i suspect some overprovisioning in there

Mine (not installed yet) quote 10% retained, so 90% DOD, will be interesting to see if they are hard fixed at that or if its possible to go below. Not that I plan to.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
That was what I thought, so wonder why Hippo seems to be seeing 4% on the 8.2
Like I said i suspect some overprovisioning in there

Mine (not installed yet) quote 10% retained, so 90% DOD, will be interesting to see if they are hard fixed at that or if its possible to go below. Not that I plan to.
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It's in the settings of the inverter for the battery. Actually can't edit it below 4%.

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HungryHippos said:
Would worry me if I had cricket balls hitting my roof, panels are effectively sort of tough glass covered.

Not got a side of your roof that doesn't face the wrath of the cricket balls?
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Unfortunately the side that faces the cricket field is south facing, so panels would have to go on the north side which probably wouldn't make them very efficient.

SoliD said:
How many times has a cricket ball hit your roof in the past? Vaguely remember a post on pistonheads about golf ball smashing a window and they paid for it as they didn't have nets in that particular part so accepted liability.
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I reckon we've had 2 hit the roof. We've been here 3 years and had about 12 in the garden so far. We do have a net - probably about 12-15 feet high, but unfortunately not high enough.

Neighbours have mostly had a few damaged tiles which the club has paid for replacement. There was also an incident with a smashed window years ago which they paid for, so they are accepting some liability.

I suspect my only course of action is to try and push for a higher net to be installed.
 
TBH if they are damaging other peoples property on a semi regular basis they really need to fix their netting.
The odd freak hit sure, but if they are damaging tiles, breaking a window then thats not really on.

The fact the cricket ground are not containing their activity shouldnt stop you getting a system installed.
Its not an act of god excuse they can pull here.

There was a vid on youtube I watched that showed a damaged panel (he wacked it with a cricket bat) and of course that panel suffered but the rest carried on ok.
I would probably tempted to get micro inverters in your scenario so worst possible case, a completely trashed panel could not affect all the others.
 
SoliD said:
@HungryHippos not sure what you're getting now but its decidely cloudy still but my generation is up to 2kwh.
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Bumped to about 700 just now, generation today has been a little meh, but weather and panel positions can play into things I suppose.

I truncated this a bit to remove 00 - 06:00 as it was all zeroes. Two strings so double up on left hand side to get actual.

Edit - gone above 1KW so the brightness must be coming in :)

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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Kind of

What your really doing in that case is saying I got the decision wrong so to avoid exporting I will use more energy to make it look like the decision was correct after all ;)

I suspect most of the time Hippo (who has AC as well) would be expecting higher elec demand as well as higher generation in hot (assumed sunny) weather
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What's wrong with using more energy you technically get from the sun? Infact if everyone did this, then during the summer, the energy usage from the grid form households would be almost net zero for like 3/4 months of the year

Its a win win.

If I can for instance leave my pc on 24/7, run servers and also have ac on with the energy coming from the sun. It is all good my buddy
 
jonneymendoza said:
What's wrong with using more energy you technically get from the sun? Infact if everyone did this, then during the summer, the energy usage from the grid form households would be almost net zero for like 3/4 months of the year

Its a win win.

If I can for instance leave my pc on 24/7, run servers and also have ac on with the energy coming from the sun. It is all good my buddy
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Nothing wrong at all :)

It was just in the context of the conversation on best battery recharging schedule ie to do or not to do, increasing usage is not a solution to the question.
 
Out of interest what batteries are people recommending other than the Tesla Powerwall? Currently waiting for G99 sign-off (or G100 export limitation depending on whats the DNO will allow!) for a 10kw SolarEdge Single Phase PV install (with about 14-15kw of panels) together with a Powerwall 2, but we are just looking at other options for batteries given the current long lead times for the Powerwall. Ideally we'd like to match or exceed the capacity of the Powerwall as well as have the Islanding potential that the Gateway 2 offers. It would also be good to match or exceed the 5kw output that the Powerwall offers.
 
Don't think any one in here has recommended a Powerwall due to the extortionate pricing. Think majority in here have Givenergy. Most batteries can offer islanding with a simple island switch but these cost approx £1k from most installers it seems.

You're getting 14-15kw of panels ? or 14/15 panels? if the former, wow that is one huge array.
 
I have a AlphaESS, it’s modular so you can expand the capacity and can do backup but not sure at what level. Not as configurable as a givenergy but we’re quite happy with it as it’s also has a 5kw inverter so powers everything at the night
 
SoliD said:
Don't think any one in here has recommended a Powerwall due to the extortionate pricing. Think majority in here have Givenergy. Most batteries can offer islanding with a simple island switch but these cost approx £1k from most installers it seems.

You're getting 14-15kw of panels ? or 14/15 panels? if the former, wow that is one huge array.
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The former, but we're also massive energy users with two EVs (and two EV chargers!) with a large roof on the south coast so we decided to take the plunge. For us we've already got whole-house AC, multiple electric ovens/hobs, electric towel radiators and plenty of electrical devices so decided we'd go for as big array as possible while we were doing it.
 
Fair enough, it's massive! Obviously you're not struggling for money, so couple of givenergy 9.5 and an isolation switch should sort you out.
 
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