It all depends on your circumstances, for me, around the end of this month or beginning of October I'll be swapping from Flux to intelligent until around beginning March.
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Associate
Thanks for the reply. I'm going to read up on the differences
Soldato
Bear in mind intelligent and Go are Ev tariffs.
You wont get onto intelligent without one, you may if your lucky get onto Go.
You wont get onto intelligent without one, you may if your lucky get onto Go.
Associate
Ah i hadn't realized!
Soldato
You can try to get onto Go if you fancy that, they may let you. Its pot luck.
There is still Agile, and Eco 7.
I don't think tracker would make sense with solar, but never played with the numbers.
Quite a few options.
A lot depends on usage pattern, and how much storage your batteries give vs your normal usage.
I assumed wrongly might know what these are for - there is also cozy from Octopus for those with batteries.
Soldato
Cosy is for people with ASHP and I believe that is validated.
The battery one is Intelligent Octopus Flux (because combining the names of two other tariffs won't ever lead to confusion).
Yes, you are correct - another assumption I made like the EV!
Soldato
My installer seems to have given up trying to resolve the battery issue.
They again contacted to say they had taken a snapshot of data and it seems fine. I am not sure if they mean to deliberately attempt to mis interpret the data, or are simply unable to reason why what they are saying is pointless.*
SOLAX the manufacturer I believe are completely setup to say everything is working no matter what you say to them, however, I did have an interesting email from SOLAX saying that all the cells were showing the same voltage.
I replied to ask for a screenshot since no one else can see that data.
It would be good to see as it kind of eliminates the rogue cell theory.
Solax also at the same time said that they noticed the batteries were down to 21C. Capacity could be reduced at this level (in kind of English). I am not sure thats a good advertisement as being fit for purpose in the UK!
I mean thats not great for the UK if 21C is considered cold! You would have thought a manufacturer would not be selling into a market that would see adverse performance on their product, or amending the specifications if they considered they would be impacted.
I will be filling the RECC complaint in this weekend for a product that falls significantly below expected performance. I did note however that for technical issues they refer to MCS so I guess its probably going to be a waste of time.
I am going to request a partial refund, seeing as its performing around 20% below expectation.
When I requested quotes I requested at minimum a 10kwh system, I have one that is sold as 12.3kwh but seems to achieve around 8.7kwh actual performance.
The batteries and BMS are around £4.4k so not cheap. This is from a price as of today which I think is below what I paid.
* Despite me sending them a complete picture on more than one occasion of how the system performs differently when a full charge / discharge is performed, they insist in taking a partial data snapshot. And assuming that is linear in its ability to be scaled.
They took the 16% to 85% range, multiplied the charge rate by the time and said thats 8.21kwh, and 69% of the battery is 8.42kwh, all is good.
If you take the 16% to 99% range, multiply by the same charge rate (even though its much reduced from 85% to 99%) and apply the same calculation you get input of just over 9kwh and battery added capacity of 10kwh. They have broken physics and are capable of creating energy!
They again contacted to say they had taken a snapshot of data and it seems fine. I am not sure if they mean to deliberately attempt to mis interpret the data, or are simply unable to reason why what they are saying is pointless.*
SOLAX the manufacturer I believe are completely setup to say everything is working no matter what you say to them, however, I did have an interesting email from SOLAX saying that all the cells were showing the same voltage.
I replied to ask for a screenshot since no one else can see that data.
It would be good to see as it kind of eliminates the rogue cell theory.
Solax also at the same time said that they noticed the batteries were down to 21C. Capacity could be reduced at this level (in kind of English). I am not sure thats a good advertisement as being fit for purpose in the UK!
I mean thats not great for the UK if 21C is considered cold! You would have thought a manufacturer would not be selling into a market that would see adverse performance on their product, or amending the specifications if they considered they would be impacted.
I will be filling the RECC complaint in this weekend for a product that falls significantly below expected performance. I did note however that for technical issues they refer to MCS so I guess its probably going to be a waste of time.
I am going to request a partial refund, seeing as its performing around 20% below expectation.
When I requested quotes I requested at minimum a 10kwh system, I have one that is sold as 12.3kwh but seems to achieve around 8.7kwh actual performance.
The batteries and BMS are around £4.4k so not cheap. This is from a price as of today which I think is below what I paid.
* Despite me sending them a complete picture on more than one occasion of how the system performs differently when a full charge / discharge is performed, they insist in taking a partial data snapshot. And assuming that is linear in its ability to be scaled.
They took the 16% to 85% range, multiplied the charge rate by the time and said thats 8.21kwh, and 69% of the battery is 8.42kwh, all is good.
If you take the 16% to 99% range, multiply by the same charge rate (even though its much reduced from 85% to 99%) and apply the same calculation you get input of just over 9kwh and battery added capacity of 10kwh. They have broken physics and are capable of creating energy!
Associate
So I heard back only from three companies.
1.
10 x 430W Jinko Tiger Panel
Sun Synk Hybrid 16 Amp Single Phase Inverter
10.64kW Sun Synk Battery Storage
£9995
2.
12 x LR5-54HTB-425M 425 Watt Panels (LONGi)
1 x X1-5.0-T-D (SolaX Power)
Eddi Hot Water Diverter
£8515
£10411 with SUN-BATT-5.32 (Sunsynk)
3.
8x Trina Vertex S 425W Black Framed Mono
G3 GivEnergy 3.6kW hybrid inverter
GivEnergy 5.2kWh LiFePO4 Battery
£8434
Annoying thing on the quote is to see the equipment cost of £4000 and the labour +scaffolding £4400, that seems quite steep.
1.
10 x 430W Jinko Tiger Panel
Sun Synk Hybrid 16 Amp Single Phase Inverter
10.64kW Sun Synk Battery Storage
£9995
2.
12 x LR5-54HTB-425M 425 Watt Panels (LONGi)
1 x X1-5.0-T-D (SolaX Power)
Eddi Hot Water Diverter
£8515
£10411 with SUN-BATT-5.32 (Sunsynk)
3.
8x Trina Vertex S 425W Black Framed Mono
G3 GivEnergy 3.6kW hybrid inverter
GivEnergy 5.2kWh LiFePO4 Battery
£8434
Annoying thing on the quote is to see the equipment cost of £4000 and the labour +scaffolding £4400, that seems quite steep.
Soldato
Depends on the voltage of the cells at the time, on 3.65v cells like I use you will get more drift at the top end, and I should think its the same for cells that operate at other voltages. On my system , one battery BMS shows 30% SOC, the other 25% SOC, Victron shows 27%. All three are calculated/tracked independently of each other. Any way, each battery has a maximum cell difference of 0.003v at this moment in time, but as you charge the batteries that will drift and get bigger, which is why we balance the cells above a certain voltage.
Its when the cells get full that you get cell voltage imbalance, and therefore problems. Think of sixteen milk cartons as the 16 cells, they all hold two litres of fluid, they all fill at the same rate, when one is full it flicks a switch and they all stop filling up, now squash one, its going to overflow before its taken 2 ltrs of fluid and thus fill up quicker than the others, and thats what happens with a cell, once it gets full, its voltage rises quicker than the others, so unless they checked the cell voltages at the very top end the figures are worthless.
I also think its very hard to get quoted power out of batteries, mine are 14.5kWh each, but I'll never get that as I don't run the cells from 3.65v down to 2.5v, which should give 14.5kWh of energy, but that does depend on cell quality. In fact I've never bothered test capacity, not even of a single cell even though I bought a test rig, just never got around to it.
One would hope though, that a manufacture when advertising a ready built domestic battery, has got their sums pretty close.
Soldato
This also may give you an idea of what's going on.
I'd ask no.3 to upgrade battery to 9.5kWh and see what the price is compared to no.1
Associate
A little vent time!
Solar and battery installation well under way since 07.30 this morning.
A couple of hours ago the guy in charge comes up to me and says you were told by the surveyor who is also helping with the install that you could only fit 11 panels on the roof? You can easily fit another 2 or 3 up there. Great just fit them I say.
Only to be told they have only brought 11 panels with them as per survey.
He did say when next in the area he will bring them up and fit them. However, the company is 3 and a half hours from me!
So irritated
Solar and battery installation well under way since 07.30 this morning.
A couple of hours ago the guy in charge comes up to me and says you were told by the surveyor who is also helping with the install that you could only fit 11 panels on the roof? You can easily fit another 2 or 3 up there. Great just fit them I say.
Only to be told they have only brought 11 panels with them as per survey.
He did say when next in the area he will bring them up and fit them. However, the company is 3 and a half hours from me!
So irritated
Soldato
They can't wait around forever if they have scaffold up as usually that doesn't stay up forever either, they'd need to be a little more certain about when they're able to come back and add them.
Associate
The scaffolding is down already as they only needed it for the main roof. Other panels are going on the lower pitched garage roof Which I’m guessing as they are now using ladders only will be where they will add the extra panels.
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2010
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Added some more panels today. 
12 x 370w. 6 east and 6 west with a 13th to be added on the south facing roof.
This gives me 16 x 250w into a 3kw inverter on a decent FIT. The new 13 have solaredge power optimisers and i'll stick them into a 3.68kw solaredge inverter.
Hopefully this boosts my winter generation and helps keep me away from the grid.
12 x 370w. 6 east and 6 west with a 13th to be added on the south facing roof.
This gives me 16 x 250w into a 3kw inverter on a decent FIT. The new 13 have solaredge power optimisers and i'll stick them into a 3.68kw solaredge inverter.
Hopefully this boosts my winter generation and helps keep me away from the grid.
Soldato
Not allowed to add more solar, you'll be beating me, take them down (and put them on my roof instead)
Associate
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2010
- Posts
- 2,483
Blimey, we're low in the league table! i'm better placed in the efficiency league though.
They are just for show at the moment though. Mates rates install from my friend so it will be a while before it's fully operational.
They are just for show at the moment though. Mates rates install from my friend so it will be a while before it's fully operational.
Soldato
Ive been out and put the ground spikes in for the 4x4 posts….was damn hot hitting them in with the sledgehammer and tmrw i’ll be off to the timber hard to get the 2x4s for the cross members. To be attached with structural screws and storm braces to the greenhhouse. Will then run the cabling on the weekend. So what was going to be a next spring job, is now an end of summer job to hopefully boost winter production.