Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Freefaller said:
That's actually a garden waste bag and some red gloves! :D The nearest McDonalds (I had to look it up) is over 25 miles away! :eek:
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Funny you should say that. I live in the country probably 12 miles from the nearest one and you would be amazed how the rubbish seems to get near. Generally its the scumbag's tossing it out of their cars but I wont go there off topic.
 
I'm not having scaff so no opportunity to do that for sure, will be some luck involved...
I do intend to try to get the guys to let me go up in the tower type thingy they use but expect there is a chance they say no due to insewerants

I plan to try to butter them up with a bacon/sausage sarnie mid morning ;)

I am still wondering how they will manage in one day, mid nov so will be an 8-4 job basically I guess. Seems quite a lot of work so expecting a fairly large crew, maybe 4.
They need to fit 14 panels, two batteries, all the cabling and a solar diverter

I will taking the day off work to "help" with "help" being defined as being about for anything they need whilst trying to avoid being one of them get in the way types.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I'm not having scaff so no opportunity to do that for sure, will be some luck involved...
I do intend to try to get the guys to let me go up in the tower type thingy they use but expect there is a chance they say no due to insewerants

I plan to try to butter them up with a bacon/sausage sarnie mid morning ;)

I am still wondering how they will manage in one day, mid nov so will be an 8-4 job basically I guess. Seems quite a lot of work so expecting a fairly large crew, maybe 4.
They need to fit 14 panels, two batteries, all the cabling and a solar diverter

I will taking the day off work to "help" with "help" being defined as being about for anything they need whilst trying to avoid being one of them get in the way types.
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Mine took 2 days but I have quite a few panels - the running of theh wires into the house was also a little more complex owing to the set up of our house.

The bird protection took 1hr though.
 
I'm now looking at getting solar installed again after having smart meters installed and getting a better handle on my daily/weekly/monthly usage.

I was wondering if anyone within the central belt of Scotland has had an install done recently and could recommend a company? I have one company via this thread from earlier in the year when I last looked into this.
I realise times have changed since I last looked into this and some companies and quotes can be a bit ridiculous now.

Are there any manufactures of panels and inverters I should be looking to avoid?
 
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Valo said:
I'm now looking at getting solar installed again after having smart meters installed and getting a better handle on my daily/weekly/monthly usage.

I was wondering if anyone within the central belt of Scotland has had an install done recently and could recommend a company? I have one company via this thread from earlier in the year when I last looked into this.
I realise times have changed since I last looked into this and some companies and quotes can be a bit ridiculous now.

Are there any manufactures of panels and inverters I should be looking to avoid?
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EVI in Dunfermline - absolutely brilliant crew, bizarrely good given the general industry. Installed mine, my mum and dad's, friends at work - all very good. PM if you want more details!
 
Has anyone looked into this new "Saving Sessions" scheme, where you get paid for not using electricity? Got an e-mail from Octopus about it over the weekend and decided I might as well sign up. Basically, at some points over the winter (up to 12) they will announce a 3 hour saving session (you should get a day's notice) and if you use less electricity in that time than your average in that time period over the last 10 days then you get a payment for the reduction.

Sounds like the periods are most likely to be 4pm-7pm, so what I'm considering is that now I'm not normally generating enough solar to get me right through the night, that rather than just letting my battery run until it goes flat, I will instead turn it off between 4 and 7 and use the grid, before switching it back on to get me through the night. This will obviously push my average usage up across those hours. Then when there's a saving session I can switch back to using the battery at that time and reduce my usage to basically zero (charging from the grid beforehand if needed).

Admittedly, by forcing my grid usage into the 4-7 period on most days, it's very much going against the intention of the scheme, but cash!
 
Does anyone here use SolCast?



Came across it the other day and it's now integrated into my givenergy dashboard:



I thought that was quite cool - shame you can't see it on the app and that you have to log into the solcast website to access the graph - but useful for planning energy usage / battery charging etc... It might help with @Tavis75 point that you can plan your cheap night rate charging for poor weather days meaning you can use battery power when you get the bonus scheme going?
 
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Tavis75 said:
Has anyone looked into this new "Saving Sessions" scheme, where you get paid for not using electricity? Got an e-mail from Octopus about it over the weekend and decided I might as well sign up. Basically, at some points over the winter (up to 12) they will announce a 3 hour saving session (you should get a day's notice) and if you use less electricity in that time than your average in that time period over the last 10 days then you get a payment for the reduction.

Sounds like the periods are most likely to be 4pm-7pm, so what I'm considering is that now I'm not normally generating enough solar to get me right through the night, that rather than just letting my battery run until it goes flat, I will instead turn it off between 4 and 7 and use the grid, before switching it back on to get me through the night. This will obviously push my average usage up across those hours. Then when there's a saving session I can switch back to using the battery at that time and reduce my usage to basically zero (charging from the grid beforehand if needed).

Admittedly, by forcing my grid usage into the 4-7 period on most days, it's very much going against the intention of the scheme, but cash!
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Your taking a hell of a gamble there to try to game the system.
It may work but it might backfire on you.

I believe it will pay £3 per unit saved although thats not yet clarified. If your on 34p units then its just under 9 units at 34p vs 1 unit at £3. Lets call it 9.

So lets assume for 9 days you take in 10 extra units at 34p, and on day 10 the window comes and you can export 10 extra units. Your basically level.

They said iirc its 12 minimum so assuming its over 5 months thats 150 days approx, which /12 is 12.5 days on average so your going to be down. You would need 15 sessions minimum to get the 10 day average you would need.

If your on go then your saving more that this anyway so seems an equation right now that wont guarantee any savings.
 
Freefaller said:
Does anyone here use SolCast?



Came across it the other day and it's now integrated into my givenergy dashboard:



I thought that was quite cool - shame you can't see it on the app and that you have to log into the solcast website to access the graph - but useful for planning energy usage / battery charging etc... It might help with @Tavis75 point that you can plan your cheap night rate charging for poor weather days meaning you can use battery power when you get the bonus scheme going?
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I think @HungryHippos was using it, if not that, something similar.
It was great forecasts some days but not all when he last showed me
 
Freefaller said:
As with all forecasts it's all a bit of guess work to a certain degree - but it's probably a bit more accurate than making a guess! :D
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For sure.

Issue is at low generation times of year (assuming you are on Go) if you don't charge batteries because of a forecasted good day that doesn't happen then its going to cost you a lot.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
For sure.

Issue is at low generation times of year (assuming you are on Go) if you don't charge batteries because of a forecasted good day that doesn't happen then its going to cost you a lot.
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I think generally it makes sense to charge the batteries on a cheap tarrif at night regardless? If the days ends up being good you just export, or do LOTS of washing! :D It'll still work out cheaper than not having solar at all in either case - unless you're being particularly careless.
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Your taking a hell of a gamble there to try to game the system.
It may work but it might backfire on you.

I believe it will pay £3 per unit saved although thats not yet clarified. If your on 34p units then its just under 9 units at 34p vs 1 unit at £3. Lets call it 9.

So lets assume for 9 days you take in 10 extra units at 34p, and on day 10 the window comes and you can export 10 extra units. Your basically level.

They said iirc its 12 minimum so assuming its over 5 months thats 150 days approx, which /12 is 12.5 days on average so your going to be down. You would need 15 sessions minimum to get the 10 day average you would need.

If your on go then your saving more that this anyway so seems an equation right now that wont guarantee any savings.
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The grid electricity I will be using is not extra electricity, the idea is that if I don't have enough power to make it through the night, I turn the battery off between 4 and 7 and use grid units then, rather than leaving the battery to go flat later and use the grid overnight. So should be the same number of units imported, just that it happens between 4 and 7 rather than from the early hours of the morning through till sunrise.

I'm not on Go or similar so paying a fixed 34p per unit at all times.
 
Freefaller said:
Does anyone here use SolCast?



Came across it the other day and it's now integrated into my givenergy dashboard:



I thought that was quite cool - shame you can't see it on the app and that you have to log into the solcast website to access the graph - but useful for planning energy usage / battery charging etc... It might help with @Tavis75 point that you can plan your cheap night rate charging for poor weather days meaning you can use battery power when you get the bonus scheme going?
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Yeah use this - although tend to view through home assistant app as have custom views set up.

Relatively accurate actually - although like most forecasts they change to suit the actual weather as it gets nearer, so keen to do some tests where I 'lock' the forecast one week ahead, two days ahead etc and then see what actually happens.

Had a plan to build predictive charging using this data, but believe Givenergy releasing something in due course to do this - will see how theirs works and can develop my own if not good enough!
 
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