Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

AnastieByte said:
Yes, I agree. I'm trying to suss out some of the offers then get someone round. But I'm literally getting the same script from many even before they discuss what I could possibly have. "we have a new offer just started this week"
I'm also realising having understood zero about this a week ago. That the warranty's, and manufacture of the batteries varies significantly. One company told me they offer a lifetime warranty. Others between 10 and 25 years some on panels others on batteries. That's before you read reviews...
Click to expand...
Installers will have their preferred system, and that's pretty much all they want to install. When I got quotes last year, most didn't take any notice of what I actually wanted, hence why I went the DIY route and used an electrician for the AC work.
 
Going to upset the Mrs tomorrow….4 panels ordered from city plumbing. How could i turn them down for £120 each.

Thats £480, when just a month ago it was £600 for the same panels. It means i now get panels and cabling for less than the original 600 for the panels.
 
So first report back.

Better charging, but not as advertised again. Fell probably about 10 minutes short of 2 hours of charging. Started at 1am, by around 2:50 the charge rate fell off very quickly.
So they took in somewhere around 10kwh. Supposed to be 11kwh useable, so pre losses fell around 1kwh short.

Looking this morning, 1 is a V2 model, the other 3 are a V1 (I assume they arent marked with a V number). Also two differing firmwares across the 4 batteries, 2 with .07 2 with .10
Poor QC that.

Contacted the installer to update the firmwares before we do anything else.

They say no other customers are having this issue, I find that hard to believe.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
So first report back.

Better charging, but not as advertised again. Fell probably about 10 minutes short of 2 hours of charging. Started at 1am, by around 2:50 the charge rate fell off very quickly.
So they took in somewhere around 10kwh. Supposed to be 11kwh useable, so pre losses fell around 1kwh short.

Looking this morning, 1 is a V2 model, the other 3 are a V1 (I assume they arent marked with a V number). Also two differing firmwares across the 4 batteries, 2 with .07 2 with .10
Poor QC that.

Contacted the installer to update the firmwares before we do anything else.

They say no other customers are having this issue, I find that hard to believe.
Click to expand...
Our installer won't even go that far!

The only hint was back in the cold snap in Feb when all the customers who they had installed batteries for complained about them not charging at all. Such incompetence, especially as we had specifically asked about temps in the loft.

Anyway, no good news on my front after changing the charging voltages to what Pytes have in their manual:
PWIhkyb.png

Well, at least it is 100% the same as the previous time. 51% of rated capacity. Hoping to get some advice from Citizen's Advice before writing the installer one last letter. Then it is probably going to contact the GTEC which @Ron-ski found and see if they will do a report for us, then small claims. Might ask Citizen's Advice if it worth hinting about that as the cost of any report will be part of any court case and I can't really see us loosing.
 
Last edited:
Forgot to add. I came across a setting in advanced (installer menu, cough) that balances battery packs.
The knowledgebase article says to use when you add a pack to an existing system.
The installer has set this to on (it works for 48 hours max).
Along with the firmware update there is some hope.

They looked at the charge from 12% to 91% since that was the only time range with full charge rate and fully charging in the 5 minute windows. Their calcs were it was around 0.5kwh short in that period. Makes sense, although is a best case still.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Forgot to add. I came across a setting in advanced (installer menu, cough) that balances battery packs.
The knowledgebase article says to use when you add a pack to an existing system.
The installer has set this to on (it works for 48 hours max).
Along with the firmware update there is some hope.

They looked at the charge from 12% to 91% since that was the only time range with full charge rate and fully charging in the 5 minute windows. Their calcs were it was around 0.5kwh short in that period. Makes sense, although is a best case still.
Click to expand...
If you can console to the batteries, you might be able to see what the BMS in them thinks.
In post #8290 I posted my battery logs and at least as far as the BMS was concerned both packs were already balance both internally (suspiciously so - their firmware must be really good!), and between the packs - well only out by 1-2%.
 
Last edited:
KompuKare said:
Our installer won't even go that far!

The only hint was back in the cold snap in Feb when all the customers who they had installed batteries for complained about them not charging at all. Such incompetence, especially as we had specifically asked about temps in the loft.

Anyway, no good news on my front after changing the charging voltages to what Pytes have in their manual:
PWIhkyb.png

Well, at least it is 100% the same as the previous time. 51% of rated capacity. Hoping to get some advice from Citizen's Advice before writing the installer one last letter. Then it is probably going to contact the GTEC which @Ron-ski found and see if they will do a report for us, then small claims. Might ask Citizen's Advice if it worth hinting about that as the cost of any report will be part of any court case and I can't really see us loosing.
Click to expand...

Yes my installers are pretty good now.
I had the same to be honest at the start, its working fine, nothing to worry about etc.
But by the time I had bombarded them with screen shots and calculations they clearly realised I wasnt just going to go "oh its ok, thanks"

Which brings me on to. Yesterday again.
The installer had put a note on the install "ticket" for the sparkie to call the Solax help desk.
The Solax help desk said everything is fine, nothing to worry about.
I have no idea what they look for, but its another piece of evidence if needed in regards the incompetence/lying that Solax will do. The installer actually wanted this, since they changed my batteries at their cost and were going to take the issue up with Solax afterwards.
 
200sols said:
The other customers probably just don't realise it, and anyway even if no other customers are not having issues that doesn't mean your battery is fine. Quite a poor response actually.
Click to expand...

Yes. The installer admits that most do not even seem to look at them the way I do. They do just assume they are working as per specs.
I mean I was lucky to be honest. My install was end of Nov, so with battery storage of around 60% of daily usage they were always going to run out. When I had a daily yield of 9.4kwh (from memory) which included a little solar, and batteries that were supposed to be 11kwh usable I immediately went, huh! thats not right.
And this time of year I suspect 99.9% of people will not fully empty batteries and charge from scratch. I wasn't planning to do so yesterday, but they were on 45% when installed and the sun went in not long after we switched everything back on.
So by midnight they were approaching 10% (minimum SOC%). I moved my charging back 30 mins and by around 0:50am they were at 10%, perfect.

By the time other customers are noticing potentially less energy than they expect we will be into winter and then the "but its cold, thats affecting your batteries" excuse will come out.

Part of what makes it difficult is the 5 minute logging. 5 minutes is fine for general monitoring, but for checking input when they charge at just under 5500w means that 5 minutes or parts of at the start and end are actually important.

I would certainly not recommend Solax at all to anyone. Some of their products are pretty good on face value. But their support is probably the worst support I have ever come across. I mean its just utterly incompetent.
One of their responses was temperature, in July in the UK, when the batteries were around 28C and they have a working range of 0-50C. I mean if they can't work properly at that temp.
Oh and their best was comparing house batteries to an EV. An EV has lower range when its cold they said, so thats why my batteries wouldn't even take in full spec (let alone allowing for conversion loss).

Don't start me on the heated batteries. Turn on the battery heating they said. Well yes thats nice, you have hidden that setting in the installer menu which I did not have access to. (I do now, thanks to Siliconslave who let me know the installer password)

I must admit if I was buying solar again now. I would be speccing what I want. And ideally looking to find a spark to install it much like Ronski did.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
They say no other customers are having this issue, I find that hard to believe
Click to expand...

200sols said:
The other customers probably just don't realise it, and anyway even if no other customers are not having issues that doesn't mean your battery is fine. Quite a poor response actually.
Click to expand...

I suspect most are clueless, I know someone that had solar and batteries installed, and he doesn't have a clue. Here at work we had an inverter go down, no one noticed for a long time, I just forget to check.
 
Ron-ski said:
I suspect most are clueless, I know someone that had solar and batteries installed, and he doesn't have a clue. Here at work we had an inverter go down, no one noticed for a long time, I just forget to check.
Click to expand...

Totally.

I suppose the 99% who just assume everything is working fine are part of the problem.

I must admit the vast majority of the issues seem to be batteries.
I guess panels, inverters etc are basically easy. They work or they don't. Any spark can test if they are a valid circuit etc

Batteries are more like tech. Most sparks don't have enough knowledge unless they are specifically interested.
Most installers are the same from what I can tell.

Anyway I am now starting to think seriously about my south facing wall mounted array.
Anyone with any knowledge in regards this approach as opposed to roof mounted I would like to know more please.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom