I’m in France at the moment and you can get a “virtual battery” here essentially what you export one of the utility companies will give you back off-peak for the same price. 100kwh for €15/mo. Really nice idea I thought albeit you will still have a squeeze for the evening peak.
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
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Interesting. Would be nice not needing to at all in the first place though. Like say import is 34p then export should be 30p. That would be fair imo and make it a lot more attractive.
But in the absence of that virtual battery does sound like the next best thing. So you get a little over 3kw per day. Not much come to think about it. I mean roughly £30 worth of electricity a month and you have to pay half that in fees. Unless you meant 100kw storage a day?
So I presume (I am not sure I was wondering this myself) the 100kwh is a maximum storage amount at a single point in time rather than total capacity per month. Ie you couldn’t bank all your summer excess for winter but you could bank a few good days for a few bad weather days.
Downside is obviously no EPS/UPS.
But 100kwh is massive and presumably the utility could build a battery farm at scale if they wanted to much more efficiently than home storage but in reality are probably just using this to load-shift customers.
Another observation from here, they’re also only just starting to roll out smart meters, and all the same moaning about them is going on.
Apparently price is about 20c kwh here at the moment. Obviously they have the nuclear fleet and EDF/French govt price capping them.
That would be a lot more attractive if 100kw was the max storage. Would make it worth it due to how expensive batteries are right now.
If I knew this cheap 7.5p or there abouts rate was to around always I would consider going down the battery only route and charge up during the night offpeak hours. But imagine going down that route and then over the next few years the night rates start to increase and the gap between night and day becomes much smaller. Would never pay back the battery cost.
Trouble is everything right now due to supply and demand is way over priced and mainly makes sense for people with very high usage.
Has anyone else messed around with solar assistant? - SITE HERE
The inverter app is all nice and fancy but I wanted to keep the data local as well, extra touch is that the dashboard updates are in real time (unlike the Growatt app) so can see exactly what is happening.
All in all it seems to work quite well and was easy to get up and running with a Pi3 and an RS485 adaptor
The inverter app is all nice and fancy but I wanted to keep the data local as well, extra touch is that the dashboard updates are in real time (unlike the Growatt app) so can see exactly what is happening.
All in all it seems to work quite well and was easy to get up and running with a Pi3 and an RS485 adaptor
Associate
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COOL!!! It doesn't appear to currently work with Givenergy unless I'm missing something? Hope they add support in future!Has anyone else messed around with solar assistant? - SITE HERE
The inverter app is all nice and fancy but I wanted to keep the data local as well, extra touch is that the dashboard updates are in real time (unlike the Growatt app) so can see exactly what is happening.
All in all it seems to work quite well and was easy to get up and running with a Pi3 and an RS485 adaptor
just paid £2,700 for 2 PylonTech US3000C and managed to get hold of a new Solis AC Coupled inverter for £450. I'll need to add another £100 or so for cables and a DC fuse disconnector. Got a sparky lined up who is going to install it all for me and supply the additional AC side components required for £25 an hour plus cost of parts, so should get 7kWh of battery for about £3.5k which is the target of £500 per kWh I was looking for. As it's easily expandable then I'll add to it in the future as funds permit but based on my usage in the last 3 months I'll get a lot of value from the batteries and should get payback before the batteries degrade significantly, just need to see what's happening with off peak charging opportunities in the future to try and increase the ROI period as well.
Soldato
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How are you getting around the need for an MCS certificate for the DNO? or are you just not informing them?
Soldato
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If you don't discharge the battery you may not need one. Effectively it's storing imported energy locally.
Not sure though.
Not sure though.
MCS has nothing to do with the DNO, the exact opposite in fact, you need the DNO to grant you a G98/99/100 approval in order to gain an MCS certificate for exporting power.
Soldato
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Thanks for that, I thought the dno needed the mcs certificate as part of the application and that stopped me in my tracks for doing my own battery install. I've already got a 4.2kW panel setup on the FiT setup. I'll probably look at the G99 fast track.
Edited: Actually I think fast track may vary by DNO.
I originally posted the fast track only covers up to 3.68kw, above that you need a G99, but then I thought whats the point of a fast track, as if 3.68kw and below then you only need to inform the DNO once installed.
I originally posted the fast track only covers up to 3.68kw, above that you need a G99, but then I thought whats the point of a fast track, as if 3.68kw and below then you only need to inform the DNO once installed.
The fast track will limit your export ability to 3.86KW, best go with a full G99 application if you can.
I've already got a G98 (and MCS for SEG) for my Solar, this AC Coupled setup will get a G99 fast track or G100 as I plan on export limiting the batteries to 0. By the time I get the batteries and the installer to get around to it then hopefully the admin will all be done.
DNO just needs a competent person to do it although I'll submit the G99/G100 myself but get the installer to put his name to it and provide the schematics.
Soldato
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Hi folks. Interested in purchasing solar panels for our south facing, 3 bed semi. I've contacted a couple of local installers and have received a quote back.
My brief to them was a system with battery storage, so I can store what we generate and don't use or charge during economy 7 times.
Have been quoted the below for £6950. Not sure if this is reasonable or if there are things missing that I should be asking for:
My brief to them was a system with battery storage, so I can store what we generate and don't use or charge during economy 7 times.
Have been quoted the below for £6950. Not sure if this is reasonable or if there are things missing that I should be asking for:
Soldato
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How much elec do you use, in KWh and roughly where are you in the UK (assuming you are)
Regardless of what you use, I think that’s a very good price. I’d personally double the number of batteries though.