Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Ron-ski said:
I'm really failing to see what you are saying here. Do you really think all those cars are parked in suitable locations, and have enough charge to discharge 28 kWh between 1600 - 2000? Cars are for driving, not sitting on drives (if you have one), my car is out all day when I'm at work, so no charging from solar if it was electric.

Yes I do agree we need to be more green.
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HMG originally gave grants to everyone installing a EV charging point. People would come home in the peak period and plug their cars in. They then only subsidised charging points which were smart and could take advantage of cheap overnight tariffs. Octopus have been at the front providing these.

If car manufacturers can "be persuaded" to help the grid then owners would come home and plug their cars in. During the peak period the stored energy from the car can be used to help out the grid. Later when demand tailed off, owners would get back their KW loaned to the grid and be compensated for this. They can also charge up their cars at a cheap rate. We know why using the batteries in cars is not happening. I would have gone for half my house battery size if I had been able to buy a car that could help out our house. It seems criminal to have them idle from a green point of view.

I agree that nearly all recent solar installations come with batteries but the take up of "FIT" people like myself has been poor.

If we widen the issue, I would also love to have a 8MW wind turbine in my garden apart from the cost of £8 million and minor planning and neighbour issues. An offshore 8MW turbine will generate an income of over £1million a year. If we take off 10% for initial installation and another 10% for ongoing maintenance and replacement, then investing in one will give a return of 10%. This is all based on selling the units at 5p/kwh. It explains why HMG has managed to sell licences for them. My vision sees us having 200% of current electricity demand from wind turbines (by far the cheapest source) The extra production allows us to store electricity and to make Hydrogen which is the only feasible green method to fuel (at the moment) trucks. We would also need to build up our predictable green generation, such as the tide from the Bristol Channel.

Going all out being green is not going to be easy or cheap. Failing in this is inexcusable IMO. I know I am in a very small minority. Our failure to act will be held against us. Small steps all count.........an example............50 years ago Swiss school children were all taught that they should pick up one piece of litter every day. Not a big sacrifice except, even then, it was hard to find litter. This explains why Switzerland has less litter than any other European country.
 
HungryHippos said:
A little but only based on the efficiency loss that MKW mentioned, where gas isn't 100% efficient.

Forgot to mention @Freefaller but even if you decide to carry on heating the hot water, I would disable it in the Flux peak, your exported kWh is more valuable to the grid at that time, you can almost heat hot water whenever but the grid will be using more fossil fuels in the 16:00 - 19:00 window.
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Yes very good point and I had done that when I moved to flux. But very worthwhile mentioning. :)
 
Peteronthesouthcoast said:
I agree that nearly all recent solar installations come with batteries but the take up of "FIT" people like myself has been poor.
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Take up has poor for people with FITS because for years we've been told we can't alter our systems, this is no longer true, but it's still not very clear. I was lucky enough to have space for an additional array and battery storage, which also stores excess from the FITS system.

94JDH said:
This might be useful for anyone having problems with First4solar
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They featured on the One Show/Watch Dog the other evening. There was also another company called Daylight Solar (robbery) that some how went bust last year, taking people's money with them.
 
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Finally some progress in regards my underperforming batteries.

The manufacturer have advised the installer to send a spark to measure the battery voltages (they look fine to me) and check the SOCs and to perform battery balancing if necessary.

So annoyingly its kind of leading me right back to where I was a few days after install with a query as to whether there should have been some kind of commissioning where the batteries fully charge and discharge like GE seem to do.

Booked for 23rd of May so will be reporting back within a day or so of that I suspect.

When I asked for their complaints procedure they seemed to finally take it seriously.

Fingers crossed.
 
Ron-ski said:
@Mercenary Keyboard Warrior I highly suspect it's individual cell voltages they'll be checking, be interesting what they come up with.
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Yes agree, assuming there is a tool or something than they have that can do this.
I used part of your quote to them that you put here before.

I assume the BMS really should be able to self balance batteries / cells but we will see.

I will deffo post up what they do and say
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
I assume the BMS really should be able to self balance batteries / cells but we will see
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It should, but very often they are under powered, or not set to work correctly. I've no idea what the internal configuration of your battery is ,but generally they do appear to be individual cells that need to be well matched and balanced.

My BMS has 2 amp balance current, a lot of the BMS's I've seen reviewed only have 0.15 A balance current, sometimes this only works when actually charging, and that just can't compete with the charge current, so a cell runs away.
 
Project extra solar panels has been agreed between me and swimbo. Thanks to @Ron-ski for the discussions and advice. Its part of a rebuild of the garden man cave in winter/spring next year. The roof will be removed and re-orientated and built as a skillion roof, so we can house 4 extra panels instead of two, but i needed it to fit into our financial plans. So for not much cost, we can add 1.6kwh of extra panels into our current inverter, that will be facing pure south with a lot better afternoon/evening production in the flux peak time.

So that will bump our system to 4.8kw, it may cap out at some points in the day, but will give us better overall production throughout the day.
 
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Ron-ski said:
It should, but very often they are under powered, or not set to work correctly. I've no idea what the internal configuration of your battery is ,but generally they do appear to be individual cells that need to be well matched and balanced.

My BMS has 2 amp balance current, a lot of the BMS's I've seen reviewed only have 0.15 A balance current, sometimes this only works when actually charging, and that just can't compete with the charge current, so a cell runs away.
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Interesting.

My batteries have a super rapid charge thing, I am inverter capped, but I believe even one 3kwh battery can be fully charged within an hour.

Maybe they have upped the charge rate so high that the system cannot rebalance itself at all. So if it starts out not quite right, for whatever reason, it cannot fix itself.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
there is nothing inefficient about a heat pump. A heat pump can heat any house, well insulated or not using 1/4 the energy of gas.

The issue is what you are connecting it to. If the heat exchangers (radiators) are too small (because they are sized for a boiler rather than a heat pump), you’ll get rubbish performance. That is all there is to it.

The economics of replacing loads of rads is a different question altogether.
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It cant and will not heat up an old house with solid walls no cavity and no wall insulation---fact
 
Kot said:
It cant and will not heat up an old house with solid walls no cavity and no wall insulation---fact
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true, maybe not but a couple of thoughts.........

1) these kind of properties need to be modernised such that they DO have better insulation..... if that means changing the rules about protected properties or government support for low income households so be it.... failing that ultimately some may need to be demolished

2) the phrase don't let perfection be the enemy of the good springs to mind.
let's say we accept 25% of properties are not suitable for ASHPs. that still leaves 75% which are. that is far more than just low hanging fruit.

we have all been spoilt for so long with cheap unlimited energy but now the chickens are coming home to roost. clearly we are not going to go back to the stone age, but I don't think it is too much to ask for minor inconveniences and thinking about the best tools for the Job.in specific situations.
the number 1 aim for all of our properties however should start with insulation. how we heat the properties in the end may differ depending on your home but good insulation really is key for all of them.
 
Kot said:
It cant and will not heat up an old house with solid walls no cavity and no wall insulation---fact
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No it is not a fact.

As long as the heat loss of the building is lower than the output of what ever is doing the heating, it will be heated.

It’s just physics at the end of the day and it is not relevant what is doing the heating as long as the fundamental equation is dealt with.

bigmike20vt said:
true, maybe not but a couple of thoughts.........

1) these kind of properties need to be modernised such that they DO have better insulation..... if that means changing the rules about protected properties or government support for low income households so be it.... failing that ultimately some may need to be demolished

2) the phrase don't let perfection be the enemy of the good springs to mind.
let's say we accept 25% of properties are not suitable for ASHPs. that still leaves 75% which are. that is far more than just low hanging fruit.

we have all been spoilt for so long with cheap unlimited energy but now the chickens are coming home to roost. clearly we are not going to go back to the stone age, but I don't think it is too much to ask for minor inconveniences and thinking about the best tools for the Job.in specific situations.
the number 1 aim for all of our properties however should start with insulation. how we heat the properties in the end may differ depending on your home but good insulation really is key for all of them.
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I take the view that it’s all well and good keeping old buildings for cultural reasons but they have to remain fit for purpose. If a building is not fit for purpose, it’s useless.

Old building can be renovated in a way that maintains their character and planners do need to shift their view on what is or isn’t acceptable. Likewise new buildings can be constructed in a traditional style to maintain that cultural element, not everything has to be a red brick housing estate or a glass box.

But fundamentally what you are talking about here is largely emotional barriers rather than problems using heat pumps in older properties.

The real issue here is that people in general just don’t invest their property to keep it maintained or improve it, they usually ignore it and it becomes someone else’s problem later.
 
I have had a further quote for an install:
12*500w Longi Panels (6 on east roof and 6 on west)
Sunsynk 5kw inverter
Pylontech 4.8kwh battery
£8,499, but have asked for revised quote with bird protection and ev charger.
This is with Myenergy solutions, who to be fair have been great through the contact I have had with them.

Has anyone had any experience with them as all the reviews appear to be good.
 
fullspizz said:
I have had a further quote for an install:
12*500w Longi Panels (6 on east roof and 6 on west)
Sunsynk 5kw inverter
Pylontech 4.8kwh battery
£8,499, but have asked for revised quote with bird protection and ev charger.
This is with Myenergy solutions, who to be fair have been great through the contact I have had with them.

Has anyone had any experience with them as all the reviews appear to be good.
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That sounds pretty reasonable considering it's a 6kW system, with a larger inverter and some form of battery to go with it.

Battery is relatively small though, what is your daily usage?
 
fullspizz said:
I have had a further quote for an install:
12*500w Longi Panels (6 on east roof and 6 on west)
Sunsynk 5kw inverter
Pylontech 4.8kwh battery
£8,499, but have asked for revised quote with bird protection and ev charger.
This is with Myenergy solutions, who to be fair have been great through the contact I have had with them.

Has anyone had any experience with them as all the reviews appear to be good.
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that is a cracker of a price in this climate. snap their hand off. 500w panels..... I didn't even know they were.available that efficient.

those batteries sound like the same as mine (if they are it will be 2x2.4kwh units)

your use case may be different than mine of course but I will say I have 3x2.4kwh array which gives me a usable 6kwh per day . in winter I wish they were a bit larger.

iiwy I would see if you can stretch to 3x2.4kwh units or even 2 of the .... I think it is 3.2kwh units.
if I could go back i would likely get either 4x2.4kwh batteries or 3 of the larger 3.2kwh ones
 
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