Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

bazzabear said:
Cheers guys, very good point about the inverter.
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Having spoken to them, fitting a hybrid inverter but no batteries is exactly what we intend to do. This will add about £500 to the cost for the different inverter, but mean we can judge the electricity use versus electricity generation for a while and make a better informed decision on whether to add batteries.
I will ask them about the bird blockers when they do a site visit. I've only ever seen one or two pigeons on our roof, and there's plenty of trees around that I'd assume they'd prefer.
 
bazzabear said:
Having spoken to them, fitting a hybrid inverter but no batteries is exactly what we intend to do. This will add about £500 to the cost for the different inverter, but mean we can judge the electricity use versus electricity generation for a while and make a better informed decision on whether to add batteries.
I will ask them about the bird blockers when they do a site visit. I've only ever seen one or two pigeons on our roof, and there's plenty of trees around that I'd assume they'd prefer.
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Wood pigeons are a nightmare, they will nest anywhere. Your nice panels will make an excellent home ontop your nice warm roof.
That being said for £1200 or whatever they quoted you for some mesh you should just get a cat.

Good call on the inverter.
 
bazzabear said:
Having spoken to them, fitting a hybrid inverter but no batteries is exactly what we intend to do. This will add about £500 to the cost for the different inverter, but mean we can judge the electricity use versus electricity generation for a while and make a better informed decision on whether to add batteries
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I'm surprised they didn't counter your offer with a cheaper quote to add the batteries, after all at circa £7k for the batteries and inverter they are charging nearly £6.5k (no VAT) for two 5kWh batteries so are making a killing. I guess like the GPU scalping, battery scalping has become a thing now, maybe you could ask for the cost to supply only with no VAT and see what they say.
 
SBo said:
There is a new G99 fast track process available - A3-3

Essentially you can connect and notify for larger than 3.68kw inverters provided that they are G99 approved and limited to 16amps at that time. This is useful for use while awaiting full G99 approval, or in my case leaving at 3.68kw since the DNO want an unreasonable sum to approve 5kw connection and G100 fast track can only be achieved with G98 inverters (it is designed for multiple G98 devices).
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Where did you find that out of interest? I can only google fu up such a form on Northern electric and can't find any others - is this something that applies nationwide or does one need to wait for individual DNOs (such as SSE in my case) to supply it?

edit - found a form at SSEN, doesn't seem to be around at SSE yet but I assume it should apply to all DNOs?
 
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Zeeflyboy said:
Where did you find that out of interest? I can only google fu up such a form on Northern electric and can't find any others - is this something that applies nationwide or does one need to wait for individual DNOs (such as SSE in my case) to supply it?

edit - found a form at SSEN, doesn't seem to be around at SSE yet but I assume it should apply to all DNOs?
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SSEN and SSE are the same DNO I believe. Note the fast track email address on that SSEN page is to an SSE email…
www.ssen.co.uk

G99 Fast track process

This process is for Small Generator Installations whereby the Generator’s Installation is comprised of one or more Low Voltage Power Generating Modules each with an Intrinsic Design Capacity of no more than 32 A and where the aggregate Registered Capacity of all the Power Generating Modules is...
www.ssen.co.uk www.ssen.co.uk

I’ll also let you know in a few days when I hear back.
 
Thanks @ SBo

So I asked my installer and he says he's already attempted to use it before and in practice it hasn't worked for him - thinks that the potential need for a witness to verify that it's been correctly restricted puts a strain on their resources.

Good news for me is that I'm actually GTC not SSE which was expected for my general location, and apparently they have been much much quicker in approving the G99 anyway. His last one to them had a reply within a week so fingers crossed!
 
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Zeeflyboy said:
Thanks @ SBo

So I asked my installer and he says he's already attempted to use it before and in practice it hasn't worked for him - thinks that the potential need for a witness to verify that it's been correctly restricted puts a strain on their resources.

Good news for me is that I'm actually GTC not SSE which was expected for my general location, and apparently they have been much much quicker in approving the G99 anyway. His last one to them had a reply within a week so fingers crossed!
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SSE have been a nightmare.
Your installer is wrong though; it’s a connect and notify only process. He is probably thinking of G99 with a G100 limitation scheme. Witness testing occurs when you want to install over 16amps and your installer is not already on their approved list in the case of SSE. Turns out my installer isn’t despite his claims to the contrary.
 
gpuerrilla said:
Remember to tell your local authority that they need to store it so there are no hosepipe bans in the summer! ;)
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Hah! Actually we didn't have a hosepipe ban this year despite the lovely weather! We live in what used to be a flood plain albeit it doesn't "flood" per se these days (river dredging etc...) And we live far enough away from the river to be safe!

That said the sun has come out! :cool:
 
Unless something drastically changes in the next couple of hours this will be the first day of 0 generation! Just started up in the last hour but sitting at a max of 0.2kw. At least the base load is covered for now I suppose
 
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Been OK here today for a change. 6.60 kwh today.

I'm getting more shading now from the nearby houses, I think November for me seems to be where sun gets low enough for that to matter. Most of October was decent generation still.

Because of the shorter days looks like my peak is the 09:00 - 15:00 currently, anything much outside of that won't do a lot.

pD7Yrf6.png
 
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Decent here as well, 8.5KWh and currently still generating over 1KW, next 3 day's forecast on Solcast is currently looking very good as well, with 17KWh, 17KWh, 14KWh, though of course, the reality may be different.
 
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