Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

I've just had 15x of the new Sharp 420w panels fitted to our rebuild - all on the SW facing roof. Solar Edge optimizers and Solar Edge SE6000H HD Wave inverter.

We've got scaffolding up (with a metal roof) for another 2-3 weeks or so, and are also not connected to the new consumer unit and meter yet. That should be done in mid January, and we should be moving back into the house in March.

For the moment we have not got batteries, maybe in a year or two!
 
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Freefaller said:
GivEnergy battery just started an upgrade to firmware 3015. Going to be a high-export day - hopefully it does it's thing before too long so it can get a bit of a charge in the batteries before it gets expensive! :D
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I have been on their test firmwares for the AIO myself, currently on 24301 and I am hoping that whatever they did for this one stays consistent and I will demand they never update any firmware whatsoever ever or ill hunt them all down lol
 
I have just started my solar journey with some quotes from a few companies; Enphase, Tesla PW, Fox, Solar Edge, and Givenergy have all been mentioned in various quotes. I have a westerly-facing house and aim to put 5 panels on each side of the roof. I have an EV (Tesla) and am at the point of almost too much information. Is the extra you pay for a battery (I am looking for around 10Kwh) worth the expense, or is it better just to go for a cheap solution?

I do want a seamless app solution and not to be using two apps - hence, I like the SolarEdge. There will be some shading and, therefore, probably need some optimisation on the roof. Should I worry about inverter size and clipping at peak times?

Thoughts very much appreciated. I am based in Buckinghamshire, a 3-bed detached house.
 
kevinpat said:
I have just started my solar journey with some quotes from a few companies; Enphase, Tesla PW, Fox, Solar Edge, and Givenergy have all been mentioned in various quotes. I have a westerly-facing house and aim to put 5 panels on each side of the roof. I have an EV (Tesla) and am at the point of almost too much information. Is the extra you pay for a battery (I am looking for around 10Kwh) worth the expense, or is it better just to go for a cheap solution?

I do want a seamless app solution and not to be using two apps - hence, I like the SolarEdge. There will be some shading and, therefore, probably need some optimisation on the roof. Should I worry about inverter size and clipping at peak times?

Thoughts very much appreciated. I am based in Buckinghamshire, a 3-bed detached house.
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Solaredge seem to do the best optimisers, but they aren't cheap.

With 5 panels W, and presumably 5 panels facing E if they're on the other side of the roof, you won't get a lot of issues with peak generation exceeding probably even a 3.6kW inverter, because E will be reducing whilst W is increasing.

Can you get more panels up? If you're doing this I'd certainly go larger if you can, there are a lot of fixed costs of just getting panels put up, so adding a few more panels is usually cheap, relatively speaking.

Bigger inverter isn't usually much more expensive, but the 3.6kW ones are often recommended because the installer doesn't need to fill out a DNO application for G99, they can instead do a G98 notify which allows you to export 3.6kW without any approval. You can get a larger one and the installer can limit export to 3.6kW though.

For battery, the answer is going to be "it depends". You ideally need to run some expected numbers on generation data for your system size, how much you typically use, and whether you can take advantage of say Octopus IO or Go to both charge the car and battery for cheap, and for how long that battery can power your home if there is no solar generation to speak of.

For me, with fairly moderate - heavy electric usage, I'd say my battery has contributed about 50% of my savings so far, with the solar doing the other 50%, this is because even on a day like today, a fully charged battery to start the day typically will last me most of the day, this allows my average unit cost to be fairly low.

I don't have an EV but I spend about £1-2 per day on electric at this time of year and I use about 17 kWh per day, which would be £4.60 per day on SVR. In the summer excess generation can make the days negative cost, but I think £1 - £2 per day in winter is good, and a lot of that saving is down to battery.
 
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That is great advice about the panels; thank you. I will look to add more. We use around 10kwh a day, using cheap electricity to charge the car and heat the how water. Currently, using Eon drive 00.00-0700 is their low-cost window; we are now using the main appliance in this period to take advantage of this.
 
kevinpat said:
That is great advice about the panels; thank you. I will look to add more.
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Yeah if you got room go for more panels, anything you don't use you can usually get paid for export, so it's sort of your own power plant you got going on as well, and will future proof you for other stuff like if you add a heat pump in the future as well.

Better options with more generation.
 
Hi guys

I am buying a house with heat source pumps solar and a Tesla wall battery

Never had any of it before . They claim to sell to the grid in busy times and recharge at the cheaper rates etc

The house has heating zones and a big old plant room

Is there any questions I should be asking ?
 
Yes, a detailed explanation of how it all works. Make sure you get all the logins or the hardware transferred to accounts that you own.

The heat pumps heat houses using a very different strategy, low and slow. They are meant to trickle heat into the house over time and they tend to run 24/7 during the heating period. You use set back temps when you are typically out during the day rather than turning them off.

Finally be happy that they’ve spent the £40k installing it all so you don’t have to.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
Yes, a detailed explanation of how it all works. Make sure you get all the logins or the hardware transferred to accounts that you own.

The heat pumps heat houses using a very different strategy, low and slow. They are meant to trickle heat into the house over time and they tend to run 24/7 during the heating period. You use set back temps when you are typically out during the day rather than turning them off.

Finally be happy that they’ve spent the £40k installing it all so you don’t have to.
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Thank you, they are air source heat pumps heating around 4000 sq ft on floor heating.

the house itself is a A rated for the EPC they went mental with it. Supposidly the first the estate agent had ever sold.

Going to be a learning curve
 
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That’s a lot of house. It’s a shame money can’t buy taste though :cry:

Look up the heat geek channel on you tube, there are plenty of seriously good and accurate videos which will explain how it works.

As for the tesla stuff, generally it’s set and forget. You can mess around with it to get a bit more out of the system but the automatic opens they have are very good. Again, go on YouTube and watch some power wall tutorials.
 
sigma said:
I just wanted to be nosy tbh!
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lol no harm in that, its a bit expensive for what it is, ideally i wanted more land but then i dont want to be messing around trying to mow a lawn i dont use. The biggest thing was to get a good bit of parking and garage space for the motors :D
b0rn2sk8 said:
That’s a lot of house. It’s a shame money can’t buy taste though :cry:

Look up the heat geek channel on you tube, there are plenty of seriously good and accurate videos which will explain how it works.

As for the tesla stuff, generally it’s set and forget. You can mess around with it to get a bit more out of the system but the automatic opens they have are very good. Again, go on YouTube and watch some power wall tutorials.
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Thank you, its terrrible how bad some of it can be, the colours blow my mind, but luckily a bit of neutral and feature walls etc and it will change compeletly if your into that sort of thing. Incidently i is owned by a couple of lesbians if that means much....

thank you will go and watch im more worried its hard to heat up a few degrees if it does chill
 
Nice place if a little funky on decor! :)

With that much outside space you could look at adding a ground mount solar system somewhere, would give you some extra generation potential to reduce costs, also they're not permanent.
 
What do you think is best in this situation?

We currently have 4.8kW on a SE facing roof and are going to get 4.62kW installed on the opposing NW roof. We're running on a 5kW inverter at the moment and the installer wants to leave the SE + 5kW inverter alone and add a separate 3.6kW non-hybrid inverter for the NW facing roof. Essentially the hybrid will be the master with the batteries and the second will be the slave.

Personally I think I'd prefer one larger inverter with 4 MPPTs - 2 for each array (Fox do the KH 9.0 which is a straight swap), but the installer says this will be much more expensive and not really offer many benefits. I'm not too sure to be honest, as I could see >9kW of panels easily hitting 5kW for a lot of the year even on opposing roofs (the SE array alone hits >3.5kW with ease from 9am - 3pm in May/June). There's also the faster charge/discharge factor - we have an 8kW electric shower so would save another £70 a year approximately with the larger inverter as it currently needs 3kW from the grid every time we use it - and that's with nothing else running.

I suppose two inverters adds a bit of redundancy and we don't lose all of the PV if one fails, but I'm a bit concerned we'll have clipping and just be a general pain in the backside to get running right. The installer wants to charge £800 for the second inverter (lol), but I could buy the larger one for around £1200 myself. Though I imagine they'd not be keen on this. Any thoughts?
 
reef said:
What do you think is best in this situation?

We currently have 4.8kW on a SE facing roof and are going to get 4.62kW installed on the opposing NW roof. We're running on a 5kW inverter at the moment and the installer wants to leave the SE + 5kW inverter alone and add a separate 3.6kW non-hybrid inverter for the NW facing roof. Essentially the hybrid will be the master with the batteries and the second will be the slave.

Personally I think I'd prefer one larger inverter with 4 MPPTs - 2 for each array (Fox do the KH 9.0 which is a straight swap), but the installer says this will be much more expensive and not really offer many benefits. I'm not too sure to be honest, as I could see >9kW of panels easily hitting 5kW for a lot of the year even on opposing roofs (the SE array alone hits >3.5kW with ease from 9am - 3pm in May/June). There's also the faster charge/discharge factor - we have an 8kW electric shower so would save another £70 a year approximately with the larger inverter as it currently needs 3kW from the grid every time we use it - and that's with nothing else running.

I suppose two inverters adds a bit of redundancy and we don't lose all of the PV if one fails, but I'm a bit concerned we'll have clipping and just be a general pain in the backside to get running right. The installer wants to charge £800 for the second inverter (lol), but I could buy the larger one for around £1200 myself. Though I imagine they'd not be keen on this. Any thoughts?
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Surely they should install what you want to pay for and not what is easier for them to fit??
 
reef said:
What do you think is best in this situation?
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Why don't you just explain that you want the larger inverter to supply more AC power (in kW) to the appliances in the house, if they can't or won't offer to install it go elsewhere. Installers need to stop dictating what 'you can have' rather listen to what people want if they are actually informed, as it isn't always just about the upfront cost and they need to understand they'll lose business if they don't listen.
 
Have you checked fox in regards overpanelling.
My Solax 5KWh will allow 10kw of panels, 7.5kw of generation.
Each string will allow 5kw but capped at 7.5kw together.
I am sure it will be working a lot harder and hence may fail earlier, just buy a bigger one when it fails in that scenario.
You will almost certainly get some clipping at peak time but its worth considering.
 
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