Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

If thats really your usage, with that battery if you have it programmable to top up from the grid, get on the cheapest E7 tariff you can find (I think its UW atm?) top up over the night and use it to fill in the blanks in the day when the sun isnt shining enough and youre going to be having a very cheap bill.
That's what I'm trying to do. No way I want to be paying 47p a unit ever.
 
Funnily enough, they came out to change my meter quite promptly (yes, I informed them straight away - tempting as it was to be a *****. :p )

MeterTurn.gif
 
Noted, will do. I've just mailed them about that and the solar diverter too. That's definitely something I'd want to take advantage of. Thanks!

This week has been the first time my diverter has had a proper workout.
But it has managed to divert around 8kwh this week into the hot water tank.
If the summer is half decent I am seriously considering completely turning off the gas boiler.
Can always fire it back up if we get say 3 days without enough sun to get decent energy into the tank. Although can also just use Octopus go cheap units into the water overnight.

Its quite nice seeing the batteries charged to 100% and the upto 2kwh going into the tank in February!
I expect within a couple of months it will probably max out the element as opposed to not generating enough to do so.
 
I have a simple 16 panel system that seems to generate about 1370w on a sunny day.

Is there anything i could add to it that does not cost too much, the batteries seem to be several thousand but i see mention here of "diverters" and they seem to be cheaper.

I feel like we are not making the most of the solar panels.
 
I have a simple 16 panel system that seems to generate about 1370w on a sunny day.

Is there anything i could add to it that does not cost too much, the batteries seem to be several thousand but i see mention here of "diverters" and they seem to be cheaper.

I feel like we are not making the most of the solar panels.

Diverters are cheaper (£300-500 fitted) but you need a hot water tank.
They simply scan the main tail and if they detect outgoing current they attempt to match that to energy pushed into the tank element.
They are not 100% perfect, but seem to be pretty good at diverting most excess.

A battery is deffo better, but for a relatively small amount a diverter can send excess into your tank.

Ive got the iboost

Example https://www.gregorheating.co.uk/renewable/solar-diverters/
 
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Hello,

We're in the process of obtaining quotes, and was wonder if those more in the know would be able to cast their eye over this:

LUXZufu.png

It's the first quote we've had, so would be good to use it as a baseline if it's a reasonable figure. They've recommended Optimisers at £40/panel on top of that figure also.


Thanks in advance. :D
Same system as I have (although only 16 panles) - bar the eddi hotwater diverter. I'd make sure they add bird protection too.

That's nearly the same price I paid 8 months ago (mine was just a smidge over £12k.

My electricity usage has more than halved, it's been a boon. You'll be very happy with that.
 
Good call, I shall look into that as well. The prospect of getting shot of EDF is also very appealing.

If you do move to Octopus you can get paid 15p per kW exported if you're not on their Go tariff, whilst you shouldn't be looking to export by proxy, if you're outproducing what you can use, you might as well export and get paid for it.

With the size of your panels and battery an eco 7 tariff probably doesn't make sense. Get the export tariff, and either the tracker or flexible tariff and that should be more than enough IMO. With the amount of production you're likely to get (if you're south facing, and no shade) depending on where you are in the country, 20-30kWh in the summer is probably likely.

Your energy usage is pretty low - or at least average I'd have said. In summer you'll probably spend next to nothing on import. So if you average that over a year, you'll end up with a very small yearly bill really.
 
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Also MKW just linked me to this, Octopus are doing a solar no EV tariff with a generous 10 hour off-peak window, higher rates but way more functional than Go!

Need details yet but this may also be compatible with the superior export rate SEG you can get.

 
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Hello,

We're in the process of obtaining quotes, and was wonder if those more in the know would be able to cast their eye over this:

LUXZufu.png

It's the first quote we've had, so would be good to use it as a baseline if it's a reasonable figure. They've recommended Optimisers at £40/panel on top of that figure also.


Thanks in advance. :D
That's also a 7.2kW system not 7.02kW as stated on the top of the quote!
 
Funnily enough, they came out to change my meter quite promptly (yes, I informed them straight away - tempting as it was to be a *****. :p )

MeterTurn.gif
Did the numbers actually go backwards though?

Our meter is very similar to that, and like yours it has the little rotation disc indicator, and like yours ours does go backwards, but the actual numbers don't go backwards, so the actual reading is unaffected.
 
Does anyone know if you need a G99 done in all cases, regardless of whether you have an export tarrif setup?

Assuming your system is capable of more then 3.68kw or whatever is it.

Does anyone know if there is some form of register of approvals or any other way you could independently check if your premises has one?
 
Did the numbers actually go backwards though?
Yes, they did.

Does anyone know if you need a G99 done in all cases, regardless of whether you have an export tarrif setup?

Assuming your system is capable of more then 3.68kw or whatever is it.

Does anyone know if there is some form of register of approvals or any other way you could independently check if your premises has one?
Contact your DNO.
 
Does anyone know if you need a G99 done in all cases, regardless of whether you have an export tarrif setup?

Assuming your system is capable of more then 3.68kw or whatever is it.

Does anyone know if there is some form of register of approvals or any other way you could independently check if your premises has one?

Yes it will need a DNO thing, your system will export to the grid when setup, the DNO application is the paperwork to support that it's legitimately setup and what it is to the DNO.

If everyone started just randomly exporting it could cause issues.
 
Riddle me this, put my battery on charge yesterday morning as it had somehow fallen to 2%, then stopped it from the app last night when I remembered, only wanted to add 10% but added 70% by the time I stopped it, when I did the givenergy app seemed to have put the battery to 0w charge/discharge, so imported from grid since last night, but the battery dropped steadily by 1% every 3 or 4 hours down to 66% when I went on to the webui earlier today. Any idea or should I just report to givenergy as yet another issue with their battery monitoring.
 
Riddle me this, put my battery on charge yesterday morning as it had somehow fallen to 2%, then stopped it from the app last night when I remembered, only wanted to add 10% but added 70% by the time I stopped it, when I did the givenergy app seemed to have put the battery to 0w charge/discharge, so imported from grid since last night, but the battery dropped steadily by 1% every 3 or 4 hours down to 66% when I went on to the webui earlier today. Any idea or should I just report to givenergy as yet another issue with their battery monitoring.

Mine do it as well when very low. My SOC minimum is 10%, but when sitting at 10% for hours when its cold they will suddenly drop as low as 5%. At 5% they trickle charge back to 10%.

I think its just the chemistry. They maybe have say 10% at 15 degrees but when they drop to say 10 degrees they lose the ability to provide the same power.
From what i can tell the management systems work off current and as such extrapolate charge level rather than it being an exact thing.
 
Mine do it as well when very low. My SOC minimum is 10%, but when sitting at 10% for hours when its cold they will suddenly drop as low as 5%. At 5% they trickle charge back to 10%.

I think its just the chemistry. They maybe have say 10% at 15 degrees but when they drop to say 10 degrees they lose the ability to provide the same power.
From what i can tell the management systems work off current and as such extrapolate charge level rather than it being an exact thing.
Can get that if they were low state of charge, but to drop when they're warm (18c) and from 72 to 65 over the course of maybe 12 hours is a little frustrating, will keep an eye on it.
 
Octopus gave me a call earlier to provide a quote on solar installation. 5 panels with battery prices.
2.6kWh £8800
5.2kWh £9500
9.5kWh £11700

South West facing roof and London location so good levels of Sun through the year. I’m using about 12 kW a day. Any idea what the payback is?
 
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