Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Hey, I've set my batteries to charge at max inverter rate (2.6kw) between 00:30-04:30 to get cheap electric.

Can anyone help me understand what's happening here as the chart is weird!

Batteries weren't entirely full this morning (80%), so no capacity reason for it to slow down.

Is this a normal profile and is the battery itself slowing the charge or something?


neS48Zr_d.webp
 
If you go to the website and check the General page on My Inverter bit, how does this look to you?

Can see my single battery charging this morning until full very consistently.

pOYwezc.png
 
Werewolf said:
We hit our lowest production day on Friday with our 12 SSE facing ones (4.7kw array), about 7kw produced.

On a good day we've been hitting 30 with ease, the average has been 20-25ish over the last month. Apparently we've got something like 700kw since the end of July.
Click to expand...

Sun popping out seems to do wonders for the generation, which is obvious, but I didn't realise quite how much difference it made.

Background ambient generation is always ticking over though, which is nice to see, so even on a dreary day it will be helping with some of the base load at least.
 
HungryHippos said:
If you go to the website and check the General page on My Inverter bit, how does this look to you?

Can see my single battery charging this morning until full very consistently.

pOYwezc.png
Click to expand...
Ah yes, I have the same - stupid question, why does that chart show 2500w consistently and the other show around 1000w per hour of charge?
 
The energy graph is the current usage only to the home demand, so on yours it's showing the grid is supplying to the house in that 4 hour window instead of the battery (mostly) which makes sense, because it's charging the battery.

Like mine in the pic, you probably see the grid "below" the battery charge negative figure as it's both charging battery and supplying to home. In my case is 2.6kw charging and 500w~ for home supply at the time.
 
Ah gotcha, sorry obvious now - agree, that's inline with normal latent demand. That makes total sense. Definitely could see a second inverter being cool during winter time to max cheap energy charge!
 
You have 1 inverter and 2 batteries right?

Does it charge both batteries at 2.6kw each, or is it splitting 2.6kw between them both? I'm guessing potentially the latter which is why you want another inverter?
 
Good stuff, in theory the 4 hour charging window can get you from 0% on one battery to basically 100%, but yeah don't think it will do both batteries to 100% if they're drained enough.

What has your generation been like for the last few days? I posted a pic of mine in here last night, to get to the stats if you go to dashboard on the website, click the 4 arrows on the Energy Graph box, and then change the top right drop down to Generation, leave middle one on Daily, and date range use the quick select for Last 7 Days.
 
My garden is pretty big with a lot of wasted space. I first thought standard roof panels would have been our route to solar but now I'm drawn to idea of ground mounted ones in garden. Easier to install and clean etc.

Anyone got experience with this solution?
 
HungryHippos said:
Good stuff, in theory the 4 hour charging window can get you from 0% on one battery to basically 100%, but yeah don't think it will do both batteries to 100% if they're drained enough.

What has your generation been like for the last few days? I posted a pic of mine in here last night, to get to the stats if you go to dashboard on the website, click the 4 arrows on the Energy Graph box, and then change the top right drop down to Generation, leave middle one on Daily, and date range use the quick select for Last 7 Days.
Click to expand...

Yeah - although with 19.5kw I don't 'think' I'll be able to do that (ie should be able to charge about 10kw in four hours @ 2.5kw) - hence second inverter will unlock the magic...!


Here's my energy chart!

Think 31st was duff as configuring inverter, batteries etc.

You can see those big red blocks I want to remove on reasonably sunny days!

WlO02V1_d.webp
 
Wow that is a wild swing, from doing 30+ kwh down to only 5, was it just a really nice couple of sunny days then yesterday was a bad weather day?

If it's doing 30-35kwh now, I wonder how high it would go on a really good mid-summer day? would be pushing 60 or so I reckon.

I noticed the same with regards to export, when generation goes above what the battery can accept charge at, you default to grid export. The only solution to that would be more capability to charge more at once, which is the dual inverter thing you mentioned. Looks like in the right conditions you could use it all.
 
Yes those two days were fairly middling actually - spots of sun, but generally a bit cloudy. First day was foggy until about 11am too. Yesterday was very wet and rainy, so pretty grey all day.

Very interesting starting to build a sense of how weather patterns affect it!

Agree, can imagine those super sunny days a few weeks ago would have produced enormous excess!

I'm quite curious to see how cold, sunny December days do on this - we get loads of blue skies through winter in this part of Scotland, so will be interesting to see how much this generates during colder months and shorter days!

Definitely need that extra inverter if Givenergy will hurry up with their add-on!
 
Think this is where home assistant should come in useful, when I can eventually get a rpi from my mate. But balancing the needs of charging so if you know you'll be out in your car from 10am to 6pm you can charge it from. Your early morning solar and evening solar and say don't charge my battery until this time, same with your overnight charging saying I only want to charge it if its below a certain percentage and then just put in x amount based upon what you know is due to be solar generated the next day.
 
That same chart I mentioned earlier can also show generation stats from just the 1 day if selected, my best day was August 31st, but the weather that day I think was a mixed bag, with a good bit of sun near the middle.

Great system for messing about with, a lot of data there as well.

o0Dfjj2.png
 
HungryHippos said:
Wow that is a wild swing, from doing 30+ kwh down to only 5, was it just a really nice couple of sunny days then yesterday was a bad weather day?
Click to expand...

katie279 said:
Yesterday was very wet and rainy, so pretty grey all day.
Click to expand...

Yesterday was my worst on record so far, rained all day and miserable. Just under 3kwh, a stinker!
 
gpuerrilla said:
It was that bad (wonder if you new solar peeps doing same?) I was annoyed that only 80w or something was being produced. :cry:
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Yep I don't have enough data yet to really say what is within normal limits or not, so I'm hoping it's all working as it should do!

The other day had a grey/horrible morning and the system only generated 1kwh by 13:00, but after that, sun came out and it did a further 9kwh in the afternoon, so it seems to have a wide range of production depending upon conditions.
 
Think thats the difference between where we are and @katie279 is that even on gloomy days the sun still has a chunk of strength whereas up in Scotland its much much weakened. My worst day so far is 9.64kwh(22/8) on a day that was deep cloud and rain. Always surprises me with the generation as i just loaded mine up and saw it was going along at 3.5kwh despite looking quite gloomy. Yesterday I genersted 15kwh.

Be interesting to compare our two systems @HungryHippos showing the difference in the South vs multiple directional set up.
 
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