Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Domestic wind turbines are a nightmare to comply with planning unless you have a decent plot with the house set in the middle.
Domestic and commercial, crazy isn't it?

The cheapest of form of energy - onshore wind - has basically been banned in England. Hills are for sheep to overgraze on and have been like that for so long that people consider that to be natural.

Some of those compact domestic wind turbines are about as visible as a chimney. And the beauty of them would be that in the winter when there is a lot less sun, it tends to be windy.

A real pity - should be part of building regs for all new builds.
 
The 5kwh GivEnergy, anyone have any info on how much it can charge the battery and export at the same time if I cap it to 3.68kWh?
Assuming you mean the 5kw hybrid inverter? It's any combination within the spec of the inverter itself.


So any combination of 5kw but the max it can put into the battery is 3.3kw and the max you could export is 3.68kw at any one time you can of course consume the net of that in the house.
 
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Thanks I will look into fitting more panels on. Ideally I would half like a split system with 5kw on the house and 4kw on the garage but I assume that isn’t possible.

Its perfectly possible.

That was my plan, I was thinking of getting the batteries in the garage if I could and have a 10mm supply cable back to the house so I could run the house from it

See my build thread, link in my signature. I put in two 25mm cables, one feeds the grid to the garage, the other supplies the whole house, which means I have whole house back up.

If you do not wish to continue with your application please let us know within 2 working days to allow us to cancel with the DNO and avoid the COE, if we do not receive a response we will assume you agree to pay and you will be invoiced for the costs.

That's absolutely crazy, how can you agree to something you have no idea of the cost of, and the time frame is ridiculous. I applied for for my own G99, the DNO will tell you the costs, then you have to sign the form accepting said costs and send it back, you have 6 months to sign the form IIRC.
 
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@KompuKare

Take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/live/_1vHVUAMkzs?feature=share&t=1716 the guy is from GTEC which is a training company, but they appear from the video to clearly do inspections and reports on solar installations. Actually just found the page on their website.


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Finally finished reading this thread

Very interesting discussion and thanks for all the posters.

In Dec I chose an installer, local with excellent long term reputation in Coventry and observing Trustpilot feedback.

By Feb had researched and switched from my preferred Huawei battery/inverter solution to Solaredge by recommendation of the system designer who had it for months and praised its overall package. Was offered a deal to fit into my budget £14K so paid deposit. Also Anthony Dyer on YouTube provided excellent insights into Solaredge.

Plan to get split system Air con installed in near future, maybe an EV when I need one and ASHP eventually.

  • 12 425w Trina panels on south elevation of new build bungalow for 5.1kW with optimisers (wanted the individual panel data and there is shading from house to the west in late afternoon)
  • 5kW Solaredge inverter as I wanted the higher peak export from battery which was important to me.
  • 10kW SE battery.
DNO application finalised in June and then PV installed in July.

System commissioning took place this past wednesday with the original plan to put battery outside. After researching a little more I changed my mind and wanted battery inside for less temperature delta and better efficiency. Chose to have battery next to fuse box in walkin wardrobe.

Inverter location is in loft. Ethernet connection to network was another request as it was working via WiFi but I prefer physical connections as more reliable.

Was exporting by lunchtime and using battery for cooking in the evening which is all electrically based and I spend the most £ on.

Currently awaiting the ownership documents so I can then install the Solaredge app and observe the data then apply for Flux with Octopus.

Can already monitor the generation via Octopus mini and Octo-Aid which is great.

Peak export was 4.9kW so far on sunny morning at 10am so i know its working well with 62Kwh exported since Wednesday.

Yesterday's usage from grid cost 2 pence!

 
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@KompuKare

Take a look at this video https://www.youtube.com/live/_1vHVUAMkzs?feature=share&t=1716 the guy is from GTEC which is a training company, but they appear from the video to clearly do inspections and reports on solar installations. Actually just found the page on their website.

Thanks for that, we were really struggling to find anyone who provides that kind of service.

Even if a stronger worded letter to our installer gets them to do something and we end up not needing this, it is reassuring that there is someone providing this kind of service. I am actually surprised there aren't more as there are so many cowboys.

If the government really wants to go net zero they should push renewable technologies instead of the little tap that they start then just give up on.
Just that little two-letter word in the way then!

@BassPunk looks like you really did your research. A pity that we didn't do much before going ahead but at the time we were busy with a log cabin as the new WfH office. Since then I have probably spend far too many hours analysing logs; just for some our installer - who at least pretends to be barely literate even if we suspect they just never want to put anything in writing - and their best friends the "regulator" to dismiss everything.
 
Some guidance would be appreciated.

I have a quote for solar panels and battery. I have no idea if the specifications are good or not.

what I have been quoted is

11 X Jinko Tiger Neo 430W N-Type All Black Mono Panels

Lux Hybrid 5kW Inverter

Emlite NET Gen meter + 5x Tigo Optimisers 9.6kWh Hanchu Ess Battery Storage (100% Usable) Roof Mounting Kit

Wi-Fi Dongle for Cloud Access

Bird Protection not included

Assumed annual electrical generation from solar panels 3595kwh.


My annual electric use in 2022 was 3900

The quote for supply and installation comes in at £11,780

Does the specification look appropriate? I may get an EV in 5 years so I would want to take that into account too.
 
Some guidance would be appreciated.

I have a quote for solar panels and battery. I have no idea if the specifications are good or not.

what I have been quoted is

11 X Jinko Tiger Neo 430W N-Type All Black Mono Panels

Lux Hybrid 5kW Inverter

Emlite NET Gen meter + 5x Tigo Optimisers 9.6kWh Hanchu Ess Battery Storage (100% Usable) Roof Mounting Kit

Wi-Fi Dongle for Cloud Access

Bird Protection not included

Assumed annual electrical generation from solar panels 3595kwh.


My annual electric use in 2022 was 3900

The quote for supply and installation comes in at £11,780

Does the specification look appropriate? I may get an EV in 5 years so I would want to take that into account too.

Seriously consider bird protection

5x optimisers seems odd. Some panels potentially shaded?
 
Some guidance would be appreciated.

I have a quote for solar panels and battery. I have no idea if the specifications are good or not.

what I have been quoted is

11 X Jinko Tiger Neo 430W N-Type All Black Mono Panels

Lux Hybrid 5kW Inverter

Emlite NET Gen meter + 5x Tigo Optimisers 9.6kWh Hanchu Ess Battery Storage (100% Usable) Roof Mounting Kit

Wi-Fi Dongle for Cloud Access

Bird Protection not included

Assumed annual electrical generation from solar panels 3595kwh.


My annual electric use in 2022 was 3900

The quote for supply and installation comes in at £11,780

Does the specification look appropriate? I may get an EV in 5 years so I would want to take that into account too.
Don't know about the rest, but at least that Inverter has some control over charging / discharging in the Android App:
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One of the first things I look for now. In hindsight!

The batteries seem to be connected themselves (over Wifi) from the blurb which might mean the will get firmware updates when needed. 100% Depth of Discharge sounds gimmicky as I don't think any battery cell types actually support that - rather I suspect they are over-provisioned. No harm in that, just strange wording.

I knew I'd seen the video a few months back, just needed to remember to find it.
It is a very long video with no index or anything so no wonder that's it's hard to find.
 
See my build thread, link in my signature. I put in two 25mm cables, one feeds the grid to the garage, the other supplies the whole house, which means I have whole house back up.
I did exactly the same thing. I have 10 panels on the garage roof with the inverter and 11kw batteries in the garage. We dug a trench and ran new electric mains cable out to the garage and back as well as dropping in some CAT 6 cable at the same time for extending the internet access/hard connecting the inverter to the route in the house.

I've not yet wired in the emergency supply circuit but should be reasonably easy to do with the cables in place so although will need a separate earth ground in the garage apparently
 
See my build thread, link in my signature. I put in two 25mm cables, one feeds the grid to the garage, the other supplies the whole house, which means I have whole house back up.

I've not yet wired in the emergency supply circuit but should be reasonably easy to do with the cables in place so although will need a separate earth ground in the garage apparently
So true off-grid which stays on when the grid is off?

Guess a separate earth makes sense for that, but I though this whole thing - power when the grid is off - was very rare in the UK? Hence why I mocked my incompetent installers having a sales pitch for it on their website; basically I suspect they don't offer this but like to get sales any which way they can.
 
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So true off-grid which stays on when the grid is off?

Guess a separate earth makes sense for that, but I though this whole thing - power when the grid is off - was very rare in the UK? Hence why I mocked my incompetent installers having a sales pitch for it on their website; basically I suspect they don't offer this but like to get sales any which way they can.
I've got that with my system.
Full off grid until the batteries are used up.
 
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