Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Probably a silly question, but do batteries only work with the same brand inverter?

[Edit]
Quotes updated to include bird protection:
At the moment, I'm leaning towards the 12 panel option with the slightly higher output, despite them not looking as tidy.
I think my daily usage is around 13kW+

6.06 kW
12 x Q.PEAK DUO ML-G11S.2+ 505 505 Watt Panels (Q CELLS)
1 x SUN-5KSG04LP1-EU (Sunsynk)
2 x Sunsynk 5.12kWh (Sunsynk)
1 x BIRD-MESH-BLK
Total System Price£10,654.00

6.02 kW
14 x LR5-54HTB-430M 430 Watt Panels (LONGi)
1 x SUN-5KSG04LP1-EU (Sunsynk)
2 x Sunsynk 5.12kWh (Sunsynk)
1 x BIRD-MESH-BLK
Total System Price£11,291.00
 
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Pyr0m@nI@]{ said:
Probably a silly question, but do batteries only work with the same brand inverter?
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Yes/No - totally depends on the brand and connectivity of the battery etc. If you look at the likes of SunSynk you can use their batteries with various inverters, and the inverters can be used with many battery types. Depends on how much integration and control you want for the most part, and then some of that will translate into compatibility and cost.
 
In away from home and this morning open the app to see if all well and my GivEnergy app is blank... Just a grey picture of the home, no panel icon, no grid icon, no icons for graphs...

Panicked, I checked the web portal which seems to be getting recent data from the system and has the graphs etc... Any ideas? Broken system? Broken app?

Edit: it seems it's a problem with GivEnergy as others reporting the same. Phew.
 
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Pickers said:
In away from home and this morning open the app to see if all well and my GivEnergy app is blank... Just a grey picture of the home, no panel icon, no grid icon, no icons for graphs...

Panicked, I checked the web portal which seems to be getting recent data from the system and has the graphs etc... Any ideas? Broken system? Broken app?

Edit: it seems it's a problem with GivEnergy as others reporting the same. Phew.
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No problems my end - did have any issue the other day, deleted app and reinstalled sorted it out.
 
My givenergy app seems to be fine.

Well, in that its working, I am not liking what I am seeing figures wise so far today.

Yesterday was the worst day of generation I have had, doesn look like it'll be that much better today.

I have a question, for those of you that have batteries what do you set your reserve/minimum discharge limit to?
 
BUDFORCE said:
My givenergy app seems to be fine.

Well, in that its working, I am not liking what I am seeing figures wise so far today.

Yesterday was the worst day of generation I have had, doesn look like it'll be that much better today.

I have a question, for those of you that have batteries what do you set your reserve/minimum discharge limit to?
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4% is more than adequate.
 
Pickers said:
In away from home and this morning open the app to see if all well and my GivEnergy app is blank... Just a grey picture of the home, no panel icon, no grid icon, no icons for graphs...

Panicked, I checked the web portal which seems to be getting recent data from the system and has the graphs etc... Any ideas? Broken system? Broken app?

Edit: it seems it's a problem with GivEnergy as others reporting the same. Phew.
Click to expand...

200sols said:
Seems to be the app. Working via the Web portal and octopus R&D.
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Apparently disabling the Carbon intensity tab resolves the issue- I don't have this enabled as I have the Givenergy EV charger enabled as you can't have both (not enough space).
 
ashna17mathur said:
We have electric underfloor heating throughout the house which is used mostly in winter months.

Would you think 2x 5.4kw GivEnergy batteries are better solution than 4x2.6kW Fox ESS batteries?
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If you have full electric underfloor heating, then that will drastically skew your average daily use of 28kWh, this will be far higher in the winter and far lower in the summer.

With 8kW of panels and only 10kWh of batteries I doubt you'll put much of a dent in your winter electric bill, on the correct tariff you'll be able to build up some credit over the summer months with exports though, by force charging the batteries off peak in the winter you will be able to save some money as well (note this point for later).

The worst months of the year are October through to March with December generally being the worst for solar, December - February is when you'll be using the most electric and generating the least.

I have 8.74kW of PV and generated just 5.6kWh of electric yesterday. We have a 50kW system at work, and I've seen days where that has generated just 6kW.

I have 29kWh of battery storage, I have an 8kW inverter/charger, so in a 3 hour off peak window I can charge at maximum power 24kWh, other tariffs have longer windows/different pricing structures.

For using off peak electric in the day time, adding more batteries may not help unless you increase inverter power depending on the length of the off peak window. Adding more solar will help, but in the winter can make marginal difference.

In your case with electric underfloor heating you have the worse case scenario, very high usage in the worst solar months.
 
Ron-ski said:
If you have full electric underfloor heating, then that will drastically skew your average daily use of 28kWh, this will be far higher in the winter and far lower in the summer.

With 8kW of panels and only 10kWh of batteries I doubt you'll put much of a dent in your winter electric bill, on the correct tariff you'll be able to build up some credit over the summer months with exports though, by force charging the batteries off peak in the winter you will be able to save some money as well (note this point for later).

The worst months of the year are October through to March with December generally being the worst for solar, December - February is when you'll be using the most electric and generating the least.

I have 8.74kW of PV and generated just 5.6kWh of electric yesterday. We have a 50kW system at work, and I've seen days where that has generated just 6kW.

I have 29kWh of battery storage, I have an 8kW inverter/charger, so in a 3 hour off peak window I can charge at maximum power 24kWh, other tariffs have longer windows/different pricing structures.

For using off peak electric in the day time, adding more batteries may not help unless you increase inverter power depending on the length of the off peak window. Adding more solar will help, but in the winter can make marginal difference.

In your case with electric underfloor heating you have the worse case scenario, very high usage in the worst solar months.
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Exactly this, I also have electric underfloor heating, Warmup Pro, and now only tend to use it during the off peak (octopus intelligent) hours as it would drain the batteries at around 4kW per hour.
 
The my energy solutions guy I'm speaking to still doesn't think I can fit another 430 panel, so I've tried using ms paint and it looks like you guys were right and I should be able to fit 15
15panels430.png
 
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Pyr0m@nI@]{ said:
The my energy solutions guy I'm speaking to still doesn't think I can fit another 430 panel, so I've tried using ms paint and it looks like you guys were right and I should be able to fit 15
15panels430.png
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You maybe too close to the ridge line to fit 15……need to be 300mm away from the ridge. Didnt you say there were vents lower down, so you cant move them lower, unless you fit them over the vents. Which may also not be viable
 
Welshman said:
You maybe too close to the ridge line to fit 15……need to be 300mm away from the ridge. Didnt you say there were vents lower down, so you cant move them lower, unless you fit them over the vents. Which may also not be viable
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How about:
15panels430.png

I've kept them to the same level at the top as the layout suggested by myenergy.
you can make out the vents below the panels as the darker blobs
 
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Pyr0m@nI@]{ said:
14panels.jpg
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Look at that photo/image again, in your edit it seems you have resized the panels to an incorrect ratio as they look much more square than rectangular. It's easier using maths to work it out than not-to-scale pictures, the first quote was 8x Qcells panels 505w, which are 1134mm wide, so overall the 8x panels would be 9072mm - the Longhi panels are 1722mm tall, so orientating them into landscape and having 5x across would be 8,610mm, which is less than the 9072mm of the 8x Qcells.

The vents would only be an issue for you didn't have a total of 3402mm of space, but we know you have at least that as the Qcells config used 8x in portrait, than 4x in landscape, for a total of 3226mm plus at least 100mm spacing gap either side of the landscape set.

Also you can always look at getting flatter roof tile style vents put in if you wanted.
 
The MyEnergy team got mine right with their calculations, but the surveyor came out to double check the measurements and said the same thing.
So far, I've been more than impressed with everything, communication spot on, completed works all appear to be ok. Nice and tidy in the loft where the inverter and battery is fitted.
Missus is well chuffed when she see's that using her washing machine, etc is hardly pulling any power from the grid (when the sun is out obviously)
 
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