Associate
The 5 extra panels get additional shading throughout the day by trees depending on the Suns angle as they are on a lower roof than the others.
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Associate
- Joined
- 23 Oct 2020
- Posts
- 12
I’m not an expert but near enough 4k for panels that get additional shading sounds a lot. You won’t get the full additional 2kw I don’t think?
Associate
Yep its a lot, but is SolarEdge+optimisers better than a GivEnergy system - I mean its about 3k more. I am thinking its not worth it.
Soldato
Better output on the SolarEdge kit, no chance of clipping which you could get with the GivEnergy. Continuous output from battery on SolarEdge is 5000w which is decent, and it is NMC so no need to worry about cold temps if putting it in a garage etc.
Perhaps ask them if they could get the second quote down to under £16k?
Associate
Thanks, would the SolarEdge kit still be better if the GivEnergy inverter was bigger? I get the feeling SolarEdge is more premium than GivEnergy and the standard warranties are double with SolarEdge.
Soldato
SolarEdge is a premium product but doesn't mean everything they do is better, the inverter does however come with a 12 year warranty, which is a really good idea as they are usually the first thing to fail in any setup for solar PV. The extra 1400w output from the inverter/battery combo is really the big win, and GivEnergy don't really do anything that competes yet.
Obviously the other positive of the larger system is that you are going to be producing more energy, even with shading, and with tariffs like Flux they might pay themselves back faster than anticipated.
Associate
just read up on Flux - wow thanks for that.
Anyone know if the SolarEdge system can be set to charge the battery overnight on cheap rate so the inverter can export as much as possible during the day?
Anyone know if the SolarEdge system can be set to charge the battery overnight on cheap rate so the inverter can export as much as possible during the day?
Last edited:
Associate
- Joined
- 23 Oct 2020
- Posts
- 12
Anyone got any experience with GreenLinx batteries? They have a 100% depth of discharge and “work with Octopus”
So now i've had my solar installed for a year, a bit of a report and a few figures for you.
Installed System 30th June 2022
Actual Year Production (1st July - 30th June) 6195.4kWh
First year review/summary
Initial use meant I pulled only minimal watts (less than 10 per month) from the Grid through until October 14th, this was the date I established my panels had some shading from next doors roof (which actually started on the 7th October once I'd figured out my installation wasn't failing), initially this was only on the lower string until mid November, and obviously knew this would continue through until a similar time the other side of winter. But as I was on a fixed rate until October 2023, I just used my solar to supplement my usage during the day. My wife had her PHEV delivered in November and so usage ramped up (12.5kWh capacity used 5 or 6 times a week give or take).
Then on 6th December I noticed my outputs etc were 0, went down to inspect my inverter and no lights, nothing, immediately called the installer who came out the following day and confirmed the inverter was dead with some parts visibily burnt out. Not good my inverter lasted 5 months, but good it died when I benefited from the solar the least. The installers reported this to Givenergy who advised it'd take a few weeks to replace the inverter, with Christmas and NY this actually meant 6 weeks as they had had so few failures they wanted to check the installation to see if there is anything that could indicate what causd this. But when replaced they did not, unfortunately they replaced like for like with a Gen 1 inverter.
Since then I've had no issues and when the shading went I have been generating well and moved onto Octopus Flux in April. As I only had the 4p SEG rate from December to April, I missed out on 570 units of export last summer.
As stated elsewhere I've been tracking some rough cost savings and this for the first year is £1006, which with the inverter being out for 7 weeks isn't half bad and doesn't account for the missed export value whilst my SEG was set up. I've calculated these based on the fact I had a fixed rate of 19.5p per kWh until this October which if I didn't get solar I would have stayed on, obviously if I was at the cap I would have saved an extra £600. I also did't charge my batteries up over winter overnight which if I had been on go or similar would have saved even more money at 7.5p/10p per unit. The solar has also enabled me to run my AC 24/7 during the summer months with no panic about how much it was costing, which for the quality of sleep I got was worth it alone!
Going forward with energy prices and current tarriff options I believe more savings will be had in this coming year, with my solar coming out in profit once my Flux account is set up properly. One other piece of good news for my installation is that my neighbours are building an extension which is due to start at the end of July and with this they will be moving the gable of the roof back about 3 or 4 foot and removing the rogue TV aerial, so hopefully my shading time will be reduced by a few week either side of the winter. I may still investigate adding a Gen2 inverter in the future, but for now with my usage and the Flux tarriff my day export can be balanced by the overnight charging, so I will stay with this set up for now.
Installed System 30th June 2022
- 17x370w JA Panels (6.29 kWh) 30 degree roof angle - 1 degree off south
- Givenergy Gen 1
- 2 * 8.2kWh Givenergy batteries
Actual Year Production (1st July - 30th June) 6195.4kWh
- Units used directly 2133.5kWh
- Units used to charge battery 2297.3kWh
- Units Exported Directly (from solar) 1764.6kWh
- Actual Grid Out 2128kWh
First year review/summary
Initial use meant I pulled only minimal watts (less than 10 per month) from the Grid through until October 14th, this was the date I established my panels had some shading from next doors roof (which actually started on the 7th October once I'd figured out my installation wasn't failing), initially this was only on the lower string until mid November, and obviously knew this would continue through until a similar time the other side of winter. But as I was on a fixed rate until October 2023, I just used my solar to supplement my usage during the day. My wife had her PHEV delivered in November and so usage ramped up (12.5kWh capacity used 5 or 6 times a week give or take).
Then on 6th December I noticed my outputs etc were 0, went down to inspect my inverter and no lights, nothing, immediately called the installer who came out the following day and confirmed the inverter was dead with some parts visibily burnt out. Not good my inverter lasted 5 months, but good it died when I benefited from the solar the least. The installers reported this to Givenergy who advised it'd take a few weeks to replace the inverter, with Christmas and NY this actually meant 6 weeks as they had had so few failures they wanted to check the installation to see if there is anything that could indicate what causd this. But when replaced they did not, unfortunately they replaced like for like with a Gen 1 inverter.
Since then I've had no issues and when the shading went I have been generating well and moved onto Octopus Flux in April. As I only had the 4p SEG rate from December to April, I missed out on 570 units of export last summer.
As stated elsewhere I've been tracking some rough cost savings and this for the first year is £1006, which with the inverter being out for 7 weeks isn't half bad and doesn't account for the missed export value whilst my SEG was set up. I've calculated these based on the fact I had a fixed rate of 19.5p per kWh until this October which if I didn't get solar I would have stayed on, obviously if I was at the cap I would have saved an extra £600. I also did't charge my batteries up over winter overnight which if I had been on go or similar would have saved even more money at 7.5p/10p per unit. The solar has also enabled me to run my AC 24/7 during the summer months with no panic about how much it was costing, which for the quality of sleep I got was worth it alone!
Going forward with energy prices and current tarriff options I believe more savings will be had in this coming year, with my solar coming out in profit once my Flux account is set up properly. One other piece of good news for my installation is that my neighbours are building an extension which is due to start at the end of July and with this they will be moving the gable of the roof back about 3 or 4 foot and removing the rogue TV aerial, so hopefully my shading time will be reduced by a few week either side of the winter. I may still investigate adding a Gen2 inverter in the future, but for now with my usage and the Flux tarriff my day export can be balanced by the overnight charging, so I will stay with this set up for now.
Option 2 is a steal, the battery alone is in the £7k-£8k range. Solaredge is great, since my instal mid May have not imported hardly anything from Grid 2to 3 kWh!!! 9.88kW panels.
Generated to date 2.42MWh exported 999kWh to grid.
Change to Octopus Flexible now, and sign up for a smart meter with them, once install complete change to Flux, also now! check with DNO fuse is 80 to 100A better 100A if you can.
The monitoring system is great, also consider SE smart hot water heater which helps you use excess solar to immersion heater. If you use Boost etc then you have 2 apps to mess with, keep it all SE.
Consider adding Tigos optimisers (£40ea IIRC) just to the shaded panels, plus a TAP and CCA for monitoring them (~£200), it will play nicely with the GivEnergy and is much cheaper.
I had the same choice and went this way albeit with Tigos on every panel due to having 3 orientations across 2 strings and have no regrets.
This is interesting re Tigo vs SolarEdge albeit selected by Tigo... https://support.tigoenergy.com/hc/e...performance-data-comparing-Solaredge-to-Tigo-
Last edited:
Associate
So now i've had my solar installed for a year, a bit of a report and a few figures for you.
Installed System 30th June 2022
Estimated Yearly Production 6244kWh
- 17x370w JA Panels (6.29 kWh) 30 degree roof angle - 1 degree off south
- Givenergy Gen 1
- 2 * 8.2kWh Givenergy batteries
Actual Year Production (1st July - 30th June) 6195.4kWh
- Units used directly 2133.5kWh
- Units used to charge battery 2297.3kWh
- Units Exported Directly (from solar) 1764.6kWh
- Actual Grid Out 2128kWh
First year review/summary
Initial use meant I pulled only minimal watts (less than 10 per month) from the Grid through until October 14th, this was the date I established my panels had some shading from next doors roof (which actually started on the 7th October once I'd figured out my installation wasn't failing), initially this was only on the lower string until mid November, and obviously knew this would continue through until a similar time the other side of winter. But as I was on a fixed rate until October 2023, I just used my solar to supplement my usage during the day. My wife had her PHEV delivered in November and so usage ramped up (12.5kWh capacity used 5 or 6 times a week give or take).
Then on 6th December I noticed my outputs etc were 0, went down to inspect my inverter and no lights, nothing, immediately called the installer who came out the following day and confirmed the inverter was dead with some parts visibily burnt out. Not good my inverter lasted 5 months, but good it died when I benefited from the solar the least. The installers reported this to Givenergy who advised it'd take a few weeks to replace the inverter, with Christmas and NY this actually meant 6 weeks as they had had so few failures they wanted to check the installation to see if there is anything that could indicate what causd this. But when replaced they did not, unfortunately they replaced like for like with a Gen 1 inverter.
Since then I've had no issues and when the shading went I have been generating well and moved onto Octopus Flux in April. As I only had the 4p SEG rate from December to April, I missed out on 570 units of export last summer.
As stated elsewhere I've been tracking some rough cost savings and this for the first year is £1006, which with the inverter being out for 7 weeks isn't half bad and doesn't account for the missed export value whilst my SEG was set up. I've calculated these based on the fact I had a fixed rate of 19.5p per kWh until this October which if I didn't get solar I would have stayed on, obviously if I was at the cap I would have saved an extra £600. I also did't charge my batteries up over winter overnight which if I had been on go or similar would have saved even more money at 7.5p/10p per unit. The solar has also enabled me to run my AC 24/7 during the summer months with no panic about how much it was costing, which for the quality of sleep I got was worth it alone!
Going forward with energy prices and current tarriff options I believe more savings will be had in this coming year, with my solar coming out in profit once my Flux account is set up properly. One other piece of good news for my installation is that my neighbours are building an extension which is due to start at the end of July and with this they will be moving the gable of the roof back about 3 or 4 foot and removing the rogue TV aerial, so hopefully my shading time will be reduced by a few week either side of the winter. I may still investigate adding a Gen2 inverter in the future, but for now with my usage and the Flux tarriff my day export can be balanced by the overnight charging, so I will stay with this set up for now.
Associate
Do you have solaredge optimisers on yours?
Associate
Slightly surprised at a little lower output than I would have expected. Like you I live in Hampshire close to the sea. Our orientation is also close to perfect south. We have a 45 degree roof all round, which is less close to the optimum than yours. Best is between between 30-35 degrees. On our south roof we have 2 systems, the first installed in 2011, the second 10 years later. The original has no shading issues but the second does have slight shading issues. We also have an east facing installation which has reasonably serious shading issues.
You achieved an output of 98.5% of the installed capacity in watts against the annual output in kw. We got 113% and 114% on the south roof and 89% on the east roof. Even allowing for your inverter issue and shading, it seems a little on the low side.
You achieved an output of 98.5% of the installed capacity in watts against the annual output in kw. We got 113% and 114% on the south roof and 89% on the east roof. Even allowing for your inverter issue and shading, it seems a little on the low side.
As I said, the shading hits my output for almost 5 months a year with no optimisers means i may have my top string pumping out 3kWh but the bottom is maybe 500Wh at a push. and thats when only the bottom string is affected, when the top string starts getting hit mid to late november i'm getting hardly anything on a clear day.
Yes
Yes they are currently modifying the SE app. But ensure you make installer gives you installer access as part of the contract, it allows Battery power profiles to be fine tuned for your particular use see this utube video explains a lot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAvIb4Oti5k&t=142s
Tigo are not what I wanted, they are not anything like SE optimisers hence the low cost, did extensive research and had maybe 10 home surveys and a lot more armchair google earth surveys, used easy-pv to check etc, so glad I went down the SE route. I have shading early morning from trees and chimney shadows etcbut you wouldn't think so. Since 11th May I have generated 2.49Mwh of which 1.02Mwh exported to grid. I am a heavy user with a pool pump and a daughter part time baking business etc etc The app actually shows each panel and what power it is producing individually.
The inverter IP65 and battery IP55 both are outside they are rated for indoor or outdoor. Ensure you have the SE Modbus meter included in your quote as this is essential for monitoring https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/pdfs/solaredge-energy-meter-flyer-29.10.18.pdf
Make sure your installer gives you installer access for desktop so you can manage energy profile of battery make it a condition of the contract.