Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Who is going to certify it?
@Ron-ski , thanks for the reply, i am too tight i think to get 3 rows , which cuts the panels by 1/3 ie 16 (6.4) vs 24 (9.2 as slightly lower W on narrower panels ) . If i went with 3 rows i calculate 319 cm needed (QCell panels at 104.5cm) including gaps for the panels and with roof at 350 it only leaves 31cm , ie 15 cm top and bottom . are there any big issues this would cause , or do installers just like bigger margins (no pun intended!)
Soldato
What condition is the roof in?
It's more costly but the tiles can come off, and the roof can in effect become in-roof panels.
Pros:
Looks cleaner
Can probably go closer to the edge top/bottom
Weight on roof is less, as no tiles under them. Panels weigh a fair bit.
Cons:
Panels will get warmer and may produce a little less
Costs more to do
If roof is not in great condition and you're practically doing the whole side, then it's worth adding an option to the sorting hat for it.
It's more costly but the tiles can come off, and the roof can in effect become in-roof panels.
Pros:
Looks cleaner
Can probably go closer to the edge top/bottom
Weight on roof is less, as no tiles under them. Panels weigh a fair bit.
Cons:
Panels will get warmer and may produce a little less
Costs more to do
If roof is not in great condition and you're practically doing the whole side, then it's worth adding an option to the sorting hat for it.
Associate
One set of my panels is really close to the edge of the roof (but set back from the gutter). 30-50mm is my guess. At the top you could go right to the ridge if needed, but not allowed over. I would go for as high as poss and more gap at the bottom, then the rainwater will fall in the gutter at the bottom. To bypass planning no panels should "stick out" from the roof. Max out on your one opportunity with the panels.
That’s great info, now I just need to get into attic to measure roof length ether by angle and Calc, or ideally physically. The 3 that quoted did measurements roughly and used their std Panels to tell me 3 rows not advised. I think if i use narrow panels albeit with slightly lower W then i can fit 24 , with good gap at ends and very tight fit on top, leaving hopefully 25+cm at bottom
Soldato
Issues, possibly, but probably not. Some of the reasons for spacing panels from the edge are saftey whilst installing, the space gives the installer some where to work from, although they may have scaffold. Access after the scaffolding has been taken down, the space would mean a roof ladder could still be used. Then we come to structural considerations due to wind loading, when the wind comes over the ridge of a roof, or even the edge of the roof, it can literally suck the panels off the roof, due to low pressure above the panels, similar way that wings on an air craft work. So it's not straight forward.
My understanding is there should be about 300 to 400mm gap, but ultimately its down to your installer, some as in Peter's case will go a lot closer to the edge, some will actually over lap the hip on a roof like the one just down the road from me, others will prefer a larger gap.
Can confirm the panel spacing is 20mm set by the brackets which hold them down.
Have you considered large format panels? You can get 600w panels which are 2172 x 1303, might fit better, but system would need careful consideration.
Also take a look at the below video, its free to use.
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Associate
I measured my roof by throwing a dog toy ( I did remove the dog first) over the roof attached to a piece of string. The domestic goddess told me when the toy was at the start of the roof on the other side and I marked off the string. No pets were harmed during this experiment.
Bit of a warning\question about the GivEnergy Wi-Fi dongle.
I discovered recently that mine seemed to provide a wi-fi network, I assume to allow connection for setting up the dongle, but this seemed to be permanently on, not just when it was in a special setup mode, and also it was unsecured and I could connect to the Wi-Fi network without a password. The settings page for the dongle itself was password protected (though lets just say the username and password were not exactly secure).
More worrying though was the fact that this network also seemed to allow connection to the internet, so I could connect to it and access regular websites without needing any sort of password (as I assume could my neighbours or passers by). Looking into the setup guide for the dongle it seems like the installer should have setup WPA on the dongle and assigned a password etc. which I have now done, but apparently I have been running an unsecured wi-fi network for many months, which is slightly worrying!
Does anyone know any more details about this? Is the network just for setup or does it have other uses? Am I missing something and maybe it isn't as alarming as it seems! It seems odd that it actually allows internet access if it's just for setup. I assume the internet access is via my regular internet connection, rather than having its own connection (though I believe there's also a 4G dongle with a SIM which I guess has its own connection, but I believe mine is just the wi-fi version and connected to my regular network).
So anyway, worth checking if you have a GivEnergy system and any extra info appreciated!
I discovered recently that mine seemed to provide a wi-fi network, I assume to allow connection for setting up the dongle, but this seemed to be permanently on, not just when it was in a special setup mode, and also it was unsecured and I could connect to the Wi-Fi network without a password. The settings page for the dongle itself was password protected (though lets just say the username and password were not exactly secure).
More worrying though was the fact that this network also seemed to allow connection to the internet, so I could connect to it and access regular websites without needing any sort of password (as I assume could my neighbours or passers by). Looking into the setup guide for the dongle it seems like the installer should have setup WPA on the dongle and assigned a password etc. which I have now done, but apparently I have been running an unsecured wi-fi network for many months, which is slightly worrying!
Does anyone know any more details about this? Is the network just for setup or does it have other uses? Am I missing something and maybe it isn't as alarming as it seems! It seems odd that it actually allows internet access if it's just for setup. I assume the internet access is via my regular internet connection, rather than having its own connection (though I believe there's also a 4G dongle with a SIM which I guess has its own connection, but I believe mine is just the wi-fi version and connected to my regular network).
So anyway, worth checking if you have a GivEnergy system and any extra info appreciated!
Soldato
Can you remove the aerial?
Man of Honour
I logged onto it @Tavis75 and stopped it from being a gateway I think. I'm not at home at the moment so can't check but there's a setting in there to deal with that I'm pretty sure.
Associate
What are the implications of exporting at too high of a rate? When our system was installed we had a 5kW inverter put in but only G98 was applied for as it is apparently capped at 3.68kW export rate at the inverter itself. Well, it isnt. It'll happily send out consistently at well over 3.68kW and has peaked at 5.11kW!
Would this have anything to do with our export MPAN taking forever (5 weeks and counting now)?
Would this have anything to do with our export MPAN taking forever (5 weeks and counting now)?
Soldato
whos getting your mpan??
I will have a look into that, now I have set WPA and a password it's obviously far more secure anyway, but if there are other settings I can change to improve things further then that seems worth doing. Just hope none of my neighbours have been naughty in the meantime!
I seem to have that going on as well, thought maybe it was just the GivEnergy app over-reporting the export amount, but the amounted exported in the app is always a pretty close match to what Octopus seem to record. Unless maybe it's just the instantaneous reading that is too high and the days total reported by the app is correct and taking into account the G98. Can't say I'm complaining, but would be nice to know if I'm wasting energy when it's exporting above the limit and could instead be charging less overnight and charging the battery with the excess instead.
Associate
EDF unfortunately.
I'm wanting to get onto Octopus so we can go onto fixed export as we'd be pretty much in negative bill territory from March to September.
I may just bite the bullet and do the switch and then transfer the export when that's set up.
Soldato
id get switching and let octopus take over...only took a few days to get my mpan with them
Soldato
The biggest implication as I understand it, is that the voltage will rise if there isn't enough load, you can see this happening at night in the early hours where there is minimum power draw. IIRC the maximum permitted UK voltage is 253v.
This is why the DNO limit what people can export, too much PV and they can start competing and pushing the voltage up. Mind you, I'm not convinced the DNO know what they are doing, I applied for and got 11.68kW export, but the final email didn't reflect this and when I queried it they said it was based on my new PV array (and not the batteries) which is 4.74kW. But everything I've read states they need to know the maximum power you could produce, which is 8kW from the Victron system, and 3.68kW from the SolarEdge system. I did get 7.9kW export this morning, just from solar.
PS. Octopus took two weeks to get my export MPAN.
Soldato
Without just picking bits to reply to, the WiFi dongle does two things:
- AP Mode = Broadcasts it's own SSID (you can see it in WiFi networks on capable devices).
- STA Mode = Connects to your WiFi network to route data to GE.
Assuming the dongle is working and all connected up OK then look at the following:
Get your dongle IP address and then just connect to it via a web browser. I can see my dongle is called HF-A21 and is visible in my router connected devices, with a local IP address.
From my regular desktop machine I can just browse via Chrome to http:// followed by the dongle IP address, in my case http://192.168.1.184. This prompts for the admin details.
Lock down AP mode
- Go to AP Interface Setting on the left.
- Change the Pass Phrase value to something else. I use the serial number of the Inverter for ease of remembrance. This is visible on the GE dashboard in various places. This is the password demanded if anything connects to it.
- Optionally mark the Network Name(SSID) as hidden. This will mean you can't see it to connect though without undoing this. Hidden network does not mean it's not broadcasting or make it secure, just an optional step you can do to improve security.
- Go to Device Management on the left.
- Change the Password field to something stronger than the probably insecure one that is set by default.
Regarding this more specifically, it's actually worse than you think, because if someone has connected to your WiFi dongle, yes they can browse the internet probably very poorly. Being connected to this though, if they get into the dongle admin portal with the insecure password it came with, they can read your current WiFi password and SSID in plain text within the STA Interface Setting page.
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