Soldato
seems like Lincs is the place to be!
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Associate
Mid Wales 5 miles from the coast, 3.5kw solar. it's been raining a lot last 5 days. (South facing array no shading issues)
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Man of Honour
Ah well that explains it have double the system hence double the generation. Sounds like your system is doing you proud! Hope you're enjoying it
Yeah we've had a bad start to November it's been peeing down for the whole week.
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Soldato
Yeah its been bad weather here. Today was a monsoon for half the day. Low sun and shorter days can even see difference compared to September was quite a lot.
Man of Honour
Come 22nd Dec the days will be getting longer and sun will be getting higher!
I'm ever the glass half full type! 
It's only really Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb that struggle I think.
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Soldato
I missed out on April-middle of July so I think the better days were past when we had ours fitted.
Man of Honour
Also depends on the pitch of your roof and azimuth but let's not kid ourselves.... Winter in the UK is often grey and grim!
Soldato
Azimuth? *googles*
Associate
On my other small system on my house 1.5kw garden mounted, going into 14.4KW of batteries, only producing under 1kWh daily last 3 days.
Using cheap rate now to charge up the batteries, need this rain to go to the Southeast
Using cheap rate now to charge up the batteries, need this rain to go to the Southeast
Soldato
Yes a cloud sucker near Kent would be only fair after having the best of the weather this year.
Associate
Weather had been really good here all summer in mid Wales, June was a bit iffy, rest was spot on.
Just the heat wave around the 20th of July killed off my inverter after just under 9 and a half years, 3 months to replace= 3 good months production lost (800+KW lost)
Just could not get the correct inverter, such a wind up.
Soldato
But what you really need to go by is per kw of panels, 289/4 = 72.25kWh per Kw of panels
Associate
412 in October for me, reasonably pleased with that overall.
Also, now signed up to Octopus's Eco 7 tariff (should have done it a while back, but somehow thought the overnight price was far higher than it actually is, wondering if I accidentally saw the business rate or something), so just waiting for that to become active and can then work on trying to get the battery to charge to an appropriate level each night. Going to have a go at automating it using the Solcast forecast, so will see how that goes...
Also, now signed up to Octopus's Eco 7 tariff (should have done it a while back, but somehow thought the overnight price was far higher than it actually is, wondering if I accidentally saw the business rate or something), so just waiting for that to become active and can then work on trying to get the battery to charge to an appropriate level each night. Going to have a go at automating it using the Solcast forecast, so will see how that goes...
Soldato
More or less may as well just leave it at 100% to charge for now, adjusting it will be more important when generation kicks back in with greater numbers which won't be until around March next year probably.
Associate
Blue skies and sun here , peeing it down in the Southeast, someone was listening
, peeing it down in the Southeast, someone was listening
Soldato
Boys boys boys....
393kwh in October - the location stays....
393/7.5 = 52.4 per Kw, wasn't I in the 70's
Blue skies and sun here
It certainly is, barely stopped all morning.
Soldato
The night rate was 23p. Quite bizarrely, it went down quite a lot in the October 'price increase'.
I'm thinking I might put the heated floors on for an hour before the night rate turns off. Warm the house a bit using the lower unit cost energy before we start burning gas.
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Soldato
Eugh, just checked this. The damn 7 hour period changes throughout the year.
octopus.energy
I just naturally assumed it was 00:00 till 07:00. So, currently it's 0:30 to 7:30. During summer it was 01:30 to 8:30. I expect I've been paying a few months of the day rate for the first hour of charging before the clocks went back.
Octopus Energy FAQs
What happens to my Economy Seven (E7) tariff when I have a smart meter installed?
octopus.energy
I just naturally assumed it was 00:00 till 07:00. So, currently it's 0:30 to 7:30. During summer it was 01:30 to 8:30. I expect I've been paying a few months of the day rate for the first hour of charging before the clocks went back.