Soldato
It goes in both directions though. When they are colder they are also more efficient.
So in winter they could be significantly more efficient.
Around the 0.3-0.4% seems to be the normal for modern panels.
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
It goes in both directions though. When they are colder they are also more efficient.
So in winter they could be significantly more efficient.
Around the 0.3-0.4% seems to be the normal for modern panels.
Man of Honour
As a real world recommendation - summer time really does pay for itself.
Soldato
As a real world recommendation - summer time really does pay for itself.
No gas?
Man of Honour
Not in the summer no - the heating is off - well it's not, but it doesn't get cold enough to trigger the heating.
The water stays hot enough through the immersion heater via the eddi.
I think for the last 3 months we've barely use 3 cubic meters of gas.
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Soldato
But surely a SC so a £10 a month or so for that?
Man of Honour
Oh good point - not sure why it's not appearing! Either way it's not going to be that expensive
Soldato
Oh good point - not sure why it's not appearing! Either way it's not going to be that expensive
I had a bit of a nightmare with Octopus this month
Elec charges 30th June
Gas charges 2nd July.
Chased and got a bill for above, so had to chase again to get my export payment, which came as second "bill"
Export 6th July when I chased.
Seems their system could be creaking with all the new customers
Man of Honour
Electricity is all up to date, I received my last gas bill in April. I checked my meter readings for gas and did some quick sums, from April to July gas would have been around £80. So we're still more than breaking even
I suspect you're right though they're doing a big recruitment drive. I hope they don't lose their way or get greedy.
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Associate
They don't seem to want to take any money from me. I get an e-mail saying they're taking the money on a date and then it doesn't happen. The payment details are correct too so its bizarre.
If it happens again I'll have to contact them.
At least our Flux export is finally live from the 20th.
Soldato
Has anyone used the Solar edge app?
I thought the installers were going to set it up but I've now received ally insurance and certificates and no sign of the Solar Edge app information. Just curious if I can sort it out myself.
I thought the installers were going to set it up but I've now received ally insurance and certificates and no sign of the Solar Edge app information. Just curious if I can sort it out myself.
Soldato
I use it, but it was so long ago it was set up, but I'm sure my installer set it up. The installer would need to setup the panel layout anyway, I also had to email my installer to gain access to the API so I could get PV Output to automatically get the generation data.
I'd suggest you contact your installer, they should have noted the optimiser serial numbers for the panel layout, and setup the account.
I'd suggest you contact your installer, they should have noted the optimiser serial numbers for the panel layout, and setup the account.
The installer should create a log in for you by requesting it with Solaredge, you then get an invite email from SE and using your email as id, you create password.
Ask installer to give you installer access if you have a battery, as you can then play with Battery power profiles etc. They have recently just added in the app the ability to change some battery power profiles but its still in Beta stage
There is a facebook group for SE SolarEdge Battery Owners and Installers UK which is useful for Q & A
Ask installer to give you installer access if you have a battery, as you can then play with Battery power profiles etc. They have recently just added in the app the ability to change some battery power profiles but its still in Beta stage
There is a facebook group for SE SolarEdge Battery Owners and Installers UK which is useful for Q & A
I hadn’t see that Reddit post before, thank you for sharing.
Kinda interesting that 1) they were actually the F series (red, fire safety-cut off) not the O series (yellow, optimisers) so they won’t have done any optimising at all and 2) the installer had reversed the polarity of the string by mistake - oh dear.
Tigos not widely used in the UK it seems. My installer had no qualms installing them. Time will tell.
Also quite interesting: https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog...timisers: 97.55%,SolarEdge optimisers: 99.95%
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Soldato
Not a good day today.
It was battery testing day.
The installers had agreed with my testing approach.
1) Discharge whole pack to 10%. Which I did in advance.
2) Connect battery 1, charge that battery to 100% logging the data
3) Move to next battery rinse repeat step 2, 4x total
Inputs are as per below (bear in mind its logged at 5 min intervals so may well be some small rounding issues)
Batt 1, Grid power 2494wh, Battery power 2331wh
Batt 2, grid power 2551wh, battery power 2391wh
Batt 3, grid power 2528wh, battery power 2368wh
Batt 4, grid power 2360wh, battery power 2215wh
SOCs at start (when all should have been 10%)
Batt 1, 13%
Batt 2, 14%
Batt 3, 13%
Batt 4, 10%
Annoyingly we discussed changing batt 4 but ruled it out without fully logging the data on that one as it appeared to be the same. Time was pushing on they had already been at mine around 4 hours at this point.
I only realised half an hour later when checking all the numbers that actually batt 4 was a noticeable bit lower.
We discussed why one batt was 10% and the others higher but concluded that it was likely an issue from when we last disconnected and recharged them, and that 3-4% in each battery was not enough to balance the significant difference in what was being imported and what should be imported.
These batteries are combined listed as 12.3kWh, with usable as 11kWh. Assuming an efficiency of 95% or so we would need them to draw 11.5-11.6 or so kWh either together or individually when added together.
They managed to draw 9.93kWh and charge the batteries with 9.3kWh, actual efficiency of 93.6%*
*I believe the manufacturer is probably quoting a mix of AC and DC charging. DC is nigh on 100% of course since it has no conversion to do. They quote 95% round trip, well thats not going to happen on AC in and out with those numbers but blended partial AC and partial DC input it could.
Also I think they quote 25 degrees and the batteries went from around 30 to 34 during charging, so they would likely be a little less efficient.
So battery 4 is interesting. Since it started at 10% and with how BMS's seem to work once that one hits 10% it seems to go oh all are 10% stop discharging. Likewise with charging once one hits 100% then all hit 100% is the logic.
So even though it was properly empty battery 4 took less charge.
The 3-4% on the other batteries is probably 100w max, so the gap is not dramatic but it increases in theory by that kind of amount.
The issue with battery 4 does not explain the story but it does look like its got some kind of issue.
Based on the above I have serious concerns that there is a major issue with these batteries.
We did discuss that the only part of the system that remains and is untested is the inverter but we struggle to see any real possibility its an issue.
Between the inverter and the batteries sits the BMS (also been changed) and that should do all the control with the inverter simply feeding, or requesting DC from the batteries.
I am doing a full discharge and recharge in the go window tonight. But I expect we will be back to approx. 10kWh max from the grid, I would bet its closer to 9.5 but we will see. I say 9.5 because I think in reality all 4 are getting basically 2360wh or 9.44kwh total, because battery 4 is going to stop the charging completely when it gets to 100%.
It was battery testing day.
The installers had agreed with my testing approach.
1) Discharge whole pack to 10%. Which I did in advance.
2) Connect battery 1, charge that battery to 100% logging the data
3) Move to next battery rinse repeat step 2, 4x total
Inputs are as per below (bear in mind its logged at 5 min intervals so may well be some small rounding issues)
Batt 1, Grid power 2494wh, Battery power 2331wh
Batt 2, grid power 2551wh, battery power 2391wh
Batt 3, grid power 2528wh, battery power 2368wh
Batt 4, grid power 2360wh, battery power 2215wh
SOCs at start (when all should have been 10%)
Batt 1, 13%
Batt 2, 14%
Batt 3, 13%
Batt 4, 10%
Annoyingly we discussed changing batt 4 but ruled it out without fully logging the data on that one as it appeared to be the same. Time was pushing on they had already been at mine around 4 hours at this point.
I only realised half an hour later when checking all the numbers that actually batt 4 was a noticeable bit lower.
We discussed why one batt was 10% and the others higher but concluded that it was likely an issue from when we last disconnected and recharged them, and that 3-4% in each battery was not enough to balance the significant difference in what was being imported and what should be imported.
These batteries are combined listed as 12.3kWh, with usable as 11kWh. Assuming an efficiency of 95% or so we would need them to draw 11.5-11.6 or so kWh either together or individually when added together.
They managed to draw 9.93kWh and charge the batteries with 9.3kWh, actual efficiency of 93.6%*
*I believe the manufacturer is probably quoting a mix of AC and DC charging. DC is nigh on 100% of course since it has no conversion to do. They quote 95% round trip, well thats not going to happen on AC in and out with those numbers but blended partial AC and partial DC input it could.
Also I think they quote 25 degrees and the batteries went from around 30 to 34 during charging, so they would likely be a little less efficient.
So battery 4 is interesting. Since it started at 10% and with how BMS's seem to work once that one hits 10% it seems to go oh all are 10% stop discharging. Likewise with charging once one hits 100% then all hit 100% is the logic.
So even though it was properly empty battery 4 took less charge.
The 3-4% on the other batteries is probably 100w max, so the gap is not dramatic but it increases in theory by that kind of amount.
The issue with battery 4 does not explain the story but it does look like its got some kind of issue.
Based on the above I have serious concerns that there is a major issue with these batteries.
We did discuss that the only part of the system that remains and is untested is the inverter but we struggle to see any real possibility its an issue.
Between the inverter and the batteries sits the BMS (also been changed) and that should do all the control with the inverter simply feeding, or requesting DC from the batteries.
I am doing a full discharge and recharge in the go window tonight. But I expect we will be back to approx. 10kWh max from the grid, I would bet its closer to 9.5 but we will see. I say 9.5 because I think in reality all 4 are getting basically 2360wh or 9.44kwh total, because battery 4 is going to stop the charging completely when it gets to 100%.
Associate
Can you not get hold of a 10A charger and finish from say 90% charge each battery to 100% individually, then when you sure all are 100% do your discharge tests. With 4 all connected the bms may halt charging or reduce the current right down on all when they are not equal.
Soldato
@Mercenary Keyboard Warrior perhaps see if you can get them to swap out battery 4.
When I first installed my second battery, both battery BMSs reported very similar SOC as the Victron system, but I've noticed one battery drifted quite a way out, and has now drifted more back in line. In mine it's the Victron shunt which sets the SOC that the system runs by, and voltage plays a part as well. The BMSs jist act as safe gaurds for each battery, and balance individual cells in that battery.
When I first installed my second battery, both battery BMSs reported very similar SOC as the Victron system, but I've noticed one battery drifted quite a way out, and has now drifted more back in line. In mine it's the Victron shunt which sets the SOC that the system runs by, and voltage plays a part as well. The BMSs jist act as safe gaurds for each battery, and balance individual cells in that battery.
Soldato
We were going to then decided not to. New battery was sitting in front of inverter ready to go.
Thing is even if batt 4 fell into line with the others, the input from grid would be about 10.2kwh and battery storage would have gained 9.5kwh(ish)
Its supposed to be 11 useable so well short of that. It needs to draw circa 11.5-6 kwh to get the 11 usable, or maybe more depending on efficiency.
If it seemed much closer then batt 4 might be good enough but its still well out from specs even if that matches the others.
Bear in mind those numbers above were charged individually. So 1-3 are probably 3-400w or so down on input needed, and 250w or so for battery charge added.
Batt 4 is a bit higher again.
It looks to me like something significantly out.
These were charge tests as we can identify the numbers quite specifically. The discharge is harder since load varies on the house.
But I guess we could force discharge as well.
Main issue is time, I am towards the edge of the installers patch. So each discussion then ends up in 2-3 weeks before they can be in the area again.
If the manufacturer gets involved add another 1-2 weeks and potentially a daft answer.
The batteries need to be charged via the manufacturer BMS I think.
The overall picture was very much individually like when all are together.
It charges and stops faster than it can mathematically do so to complete what it should. And the graphs are kind of steady from 10%(ish) upto around 80% then jump to basically 100% in the next 5 minutes.
At this same point in time the current is dropping. Annoyingly you watch the data in real time connected via wifi to teh inverter but web logging is 5 min averages.
Its close but the web data is not necessarily perfect. It roughly lines up with Octopus for example when I charge early hours of the morning but the disagree by 2% or so.
Associate
Sounds like its reaching full capacity at 80% ish then the quite flat charging/capacity curve ends at around 3.4v and takes a rapid rise to cut off at 3.65 volts. If that's the case then either the bms firmware is not calibrated in % of capacity correctly or if it can and does "learn" then its still has some self calibration to do.
Associate
I have a new quote as my previous companies seem to have gone silent not replying at all.
JA 405w Deep Blue 3.0 panels
Solax Gen 3 Inverter
Triple Power modular batteries 2 x 5.8kw
Anyone have any tips experience / opinions on the above brands?
The price seems better than my previous quotes, 12 x panels, 2 x 5.8kw batteries and 4.6kw inverter for £10.5k installed.
JA 405w Deep Blue 3.0 panels
Solax Gen 3 Inverter
Triple Power modular batteries 2 x 5.8kw
Anyone have any tips experience / opinions on the above brands?
The price seems better than my previous quotes, 12 x panels, 2 x 5.8kw batteries and 4.6kw inverter for £10.5k installed.