Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

SBo said:
Inverters are on a level with domestic gas boilers. Plumbers have to be registered as gas safe ie a minimum qualification and then attend courses hosted by the boiler manufacturers. They also have the boiler manufacturers at the end of the phone and are able to ask them to visit sites for complex issues that are beyond them. Little of that for solar outside of GivEnergy, myenergi, Victron, Tesla ie. the expensive brands.

But it's also an emerging industry so it will mature with time.
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Agree.
From my general milling around on forums, issues here etc its batteries that are 99% of the problem IMO.

Inverters seem to basically work, or not.

Panels pretty much likewise. Not working, find fault, any sparkie can do that. Broken connection/wire, fubared panel.

I watch a company on you tube (Artisan electrics) on their installs and fault finding. I would say 9/10 inverters go along the lines of, yep its deffo the inverter. Speak to manufacturer, they go, god thats old, buy a new one.

I havnt caught up on their latest for a new chunk of stuff Libbi (I think) but I know they had some issues. I bet its batteries again...
 
There is a firm which inspects solar installations, not sure who it is but they featured on efix on YouTube a while back.

MCS is apparently an absolute waste of time, they've no back bone and just interested in looking after themselves and making money by charging installers a fortune to be registered, that's from an installer on the electricians forum, and most agreed with him.It doesn't help that Octopus only accepts MCS certificates otherwise you don't get paid decent export.

@KompuKare did you pay by credit card, even a small amount, if so you have section 75 protection, but you'll likely need a good case before you get anywhere with that.
 
Apologies if you mentioned it already, but I'm unable to spend time checking, have you raised an official complaint with your installer about the battery?

Even if they fob you off and refuse to deal with it, it's a good idea to put one in.

The complaint should be focused on the fact that the batteries are not providing charge to the rated capacity you paid for.
 
LithiumPytes
VBatMax61.0 V
VBatMin40.0 V
IChargeMax77.04 A
IDChargeMax78.0 A
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@KompuKare these settings aren't correct per the Pytes specification.
Voltage range should be 47.5V-57.6V so that's your VBatMin and Max. Max charge current is as per your inverter's max and always <100a per the Pytes' specification.
 
Ron-ski said:
There is a firm which inspects solar installations, not sure who it is but they featured on efix on YouTube a while back.

MCS is apparently an absolute waste of time, they've no back bone and just interested in looking after themselves and making money by charging installers a fortune to be registered, that's from an installer on the electricians forum, and most agreed with him.It doesn't help that Octopus only accepts MCS certificates otherwise you don't get paid decent export.

@KompuKare did you pay by credit card, even a small amount, if so you have section 75 protection, but you'll likely need a good case before you get anywhere with that.
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Afraid not. A small fortune and they are happy to have those installers display MCS everywhere yet when it comes down to it, they fob you off with "there are not actually certified to do batteries" despite them selling no other system :(
HungryHippos said:
Apologies if you mentioned it already, but I'm unable to spend time checking, have you raised an official complaint with your installer about the battery?

Even if they fob you off and refuse to deal with it, it's a good idea to put one in.

The complaint should be focused on the fact that the batteries are not providing charge to the rated capacity you paid for.
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Yes, we did a formal complains as without that HIES/NAPIT etc. wouldn't even talk to us.

The complaints were a bit broad as it was both the battery not working and the mis-sold super Intelligent Battery. A pity that most of the later was verbal but we do have this leaflet from sales:
vJT6383.png

but it was the words and sales pitch behind that which were important. Able to sell and buy at the optimal times to help with payback time. Total lies :(
SBo said:
@KompuKare these settings aren't correct per the Pytes specification.
Voltage range should be 47.5V-57.6V so that's your VBatMin and Max. Max charge current is as per your inverter's max and always <100a per the Pytes' specification.
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I wonder why the installers set them like that, as that doesn't look like the defaults. Another thing to possibly change but after the meter not working, I'm just doing the discharge / charge from grid this evening. Then tomorrow tried with SOC min at 10%. Then swap the the 2nd battery and repeat.
 
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KompuKare said:
Afraid not. A small fortune and they are happy to have those installers display MCS everywhere yet when it comes down to it, they fob you off with "there are not actually certified to do batteries" despite them selling no other system :(

Yes, we did a formal complains as without that HIES/NAPIT etc. wouldn't even talk to us.

The complaints were a bit broad as it was both the battery not working and the mis-sold super Intelligent Battery. A pity that most of the later was verbal but we do have this leaflet from sales:
vJT6383.png

but it was the words and sales pitch behind that which were important. Able to sell and buy at the optimal times to help with payback time. Total lies :(

I wonder why the installers set them like that, as that doesn't look like the defaults. Another thing to possibly change but after the meter not working, I'm just doing the discharge / charge from grid this evening. Then tomorrow tried with SOC min at 10%. Then swap the the 2nd battery and repeat.
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wait why did you quote me on a LTN/climate change post lol

London pollution & ULEZ

https://www.keepislingtonmoving.com/data#pollution Apparently the Ltn around Islington barely made much of an improvement on the pollution levels
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
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So set the min SOC to 10% and drained it (it is always off by 1%, previously with when set to 15% its min was 16%, now at 10% the min is 11%).
And got this:
zCM3Raj.png

So charging from 11% to 100% took less than 1.7kWh. I didn't take the screenshot at sunrise and there is some background usage overnight, but 1.7 - 0.4 implies that the actual charge from 11% to 100% was more like 1.3kWh. I'd have to download the logs to check as that gives me a cumulative daily charge / discharge / etc at 5 mins intervals.

Looks like I'm going to have to do the discharge and charge the 1st battery thing for another day to get any meaningful results. Although that too could be all over the place.

Solar truly is a total cowboy industry.
 
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MCS
Ron-ski said:
There is a firm which inspects solar installations, not sure who it is but they featured on efix on YouTube a while back.

MCS is apparently an absolute waste of time, they've no back bone and just interested in looking after themselves and making money by charging installers a fortune to be registered, that's from an installer on the electricians forum, and most agreed with him.It doesn't help that Octopus only accepts MCS certificates otherwise you don't get paid decent export.

@KompuKare did you pay by credit card, even a small amount, if so you have section 75 protection, but you'll likely need a good case before you get anywhere with that.
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Octopus now accepting applications for non MCS systems:

octopus.typeform.com

Non-MCS solar waitlist

We're in the early stages of trialling a solution now. Put your name on the list to hear when it's ready.
octopus.typeform.com octopus.typeform.com
 
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Looks like I can move on to the second battery now as this morning's results were almost exactly the same:
8Jsdqjf.png

So from 11% to 100% was 1.8 - 0.6 so 1.2kWh. Although earlier when I looked it was 1.7 - 0.4 kWh so 1.3 kWh which is exactly what I had yesterday.

89% is 1.3 kWh, therefore 100% is 1.46 kWh calculated battery capacity for one battery which should be 5.1 kWh.

This is even worse than I feared - will see what battery #2 does. But the telling part is that 100% the battery's LED are full. I do have an IP camera up there now, but forgot to see what 11% looked like in terms of LEDs.

So it really looks like the Pytes battery is at fault - at least battery #1 anyhow.

Will collect more data, but since neither the installer nor the regulator want to know I think court may be our only option.

Still once I have the extra data I could raise another formal complaint with both, for no other reason than doing so would look better in a small claims court case.

Once I have the data for the other battery and both together I may contact Pytes but they may be useless. Seem from the diysolarforum Pytes 48r100 thread I have the revision C which are the latests ones.
 
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KompuKare said:
Looks like I can move on to the second battery now as this morning's results were almost exactly the same:
8Jsdqjf.png

So from 11% to 100% was 1.8 - 0.6 so 1.2kWh. Although earlier when I looked it was 1.7 - 0.4 kWh so 1.3 kWh which is exactly what I had yesterday.

89% is 1.3 kWh, therefore 100% is 1.46 kWh calculated battery capacity for one battery which should be 5.1 kWh.

This is even worse than I feared - will see what battery #2 does. But the telling part is that 100% the battery's LED are full. I do have an IP camera up there now, but forgot to see what 11% looked like in terms of LEDs.

So it really looks like the Pytes battery is at fault - at least battery #1 anyhow.

Will collect more data, but since neither the installer nor the regulator want to know I think court may be our only option.

Still once I have the extra data I could raise another formal complaint with both, for no other reason than doing so would look better in a small claims court case.

Once I have the data for the other battery and both together I may contact Pytes but they may be useless. Seem from the diysolarforum Pytes 48r100 thread I have the revision C which are the latests ones.
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Yep that seems knackered but let's try the other one before we draw any conclusions.
You should still be under warranty with Pytes?
You may find someone on that forum is willing to lend you the bits you need to read the data from the battery directly, that data would prove in plain terms, if it is the case, that you have faulty cells in there.
 
SBo said:
Yep that seems knackered but let's try the other one before we draw any conclusions.
You should still be under warranty with Pytes?
You may find someone on that forum is willing to lend you the bits you need to read the data from the battery directly, that data would prove in plain terms, if it is the case, that you have faulty cells in there.
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Yes indeed.
I would conduct battery 2 testing to see what that does.
Pictures from post 8174 seem to show far more charge in battery 2 vs 1 when you would expect to be the same.

From what I can tell from my own issues, one battery misperforming in a multi battery system can affect the overall. Its going to depend on specifically how the BMS works. But my understanding is for most they just treat as one larger battery, with assumed equal charge / discharge so once they get a "full" or "empty" result from their monitoring its assumed for all.

Personally I would test number 2. See the results and then contact Pytes directly to see if they will engage in sensible conversation.
 
Done with testing the our two batteries individually, will test both next.
Battery #DateCharge startSOC % startDaily Charge at startCharge endSOC% endSOC % changeDaily Charge at endCalculated battery capacity[Daily Charging Energy(kWh)] from logsOctopus between 01:00 and 04:00
1​
2023-08-01 Tue
01:00​
16​
0.00 kWh​
02:18:32​
99​
83​
2.40 kWh​
2.89 kWh​
2.40 kWh​
2.76 kWh​
1​
2023-08-03 Thu
01:00​
11​
0.00 kWh​
01:58:01​
100​
89​
1.50 kWh​
1.69 kWh​
1.50 kWh​
1.85 kWh​
1​
2023-08-04 Fri
01:00​
11​
0.00 kWh​
01:55:00​
100​
89​
1.70 kWh​
1.91 kWh​
1.70 kWh​
2.05 kWh​
2​
2023-08-05 Sat
01:00​
11​
0.00 kWh​
01:55:00​
100​
89​
2.40 kWh​
2.70 kWh​
2.50 kWh​
3.44 kWh​
2​
2023-08-07 Mon
01:00​
11​
0.00 kWh​
02:20:00​
99​
88​
2.30 kWh​
2.61 kWh​
2.50 kWh​
0.28 kWh​
2​
2023-08-08 Tue
01:00​
13​
0.00 kWh​
02:20:00​
99​
86​
2.50 kWh​
2.91 kWh​
(No idea what was going on with Ocotpus's log figures yesterday morning but their logs do lag quite a bit, I got the logs yesterday evening and today it still stops at the same time - yesterday at 02:00 - so will have to do that part again.)

Anyway, battery #2 is slightly better than battery #1. Did not take down the full inverter logs for today's figures and I suspect that when I do that the end daily charge is going to be 2.4 kWh not 2.5 which would make today's calculated battery capacity closer to the other two days.

Wasn't able to get inverter to force discharge. That is sell to the grid after sunset and before charging starts. Not sure why but put those settings back. In the meantime I've been using the immersion heater - a bit wasteful also because it draws 3 kW and a single battery can only do 2.5 kW and tapers off. Anyway, the immersion heater is more work hence why today's charge started at 13% not 11%.

The LEDs on the battery do mostly agree with the SOC% - when full they are on 5 bars, when empty 1 or 1 plus 1 flashing. I think 11% should really be 1 flashing. Anyway, I have ordered a Cisco USB to RJ45 cable which should come soon so hopefully I can then look at the battery logs. Might leave my laptop up there connected and then I can remote into to read them easier.

@SBo you were right to question the earthing:
BjwE9tn.png

on the far side the two batteries are connected. On the other side:
U1iiWjb.png

But note that in both case the electrician had hidden the ends behind the batteries!

Tried contacting Afore UK asking if their app or web portal has any way to set charging / discharging of batteries, but no reply.

Might contact Pytes too to see if they have anything to say.

Also tried looking if I could find any "expert" to produce a report but no luck so far. If this goes to the small claims court, then a report is probably essential. Even if I could just get someone to certify what I have found.

Meantime, when I am done testing the two batteries (I intend to reverse master and slave today and then test 2-3 times - after that I will put things back as they were) I will write another complaint to my installer only about the battery and mentioning that under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 they are not fit for purpose. See what they say, I suspect nothing. Looking at their trustpilot reviews (average 4* plus but the low scores are interesting to say the least - I wonder about the high scores there), they never respond to letters but do respond to trustpilot reviews.
 
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Good work, save that photo then link the grounding wires together on the first battery. That’s a dangerous omission to not ground battery and inverter. Incompetence though rather than planned as it costs them nothing.

Very intrigued to see what the battery data says, it sounds from the forum that Pytes have been helpful so my hope is that they will look at the data, offer the firmware update if applicable and if that doesn’t fix it then warranty replace them. Keep us posted!
 
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