Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Soldato
Yeah even being rather conservative your panels will do pretty well being >400w each and south facing, no shade.
ed-
FWIW my quote was 4500 and I use the E/W split. A few more panels but they are 400w and compared to S facing should be 20%+ less gen typically and definitely worse this time of year.
Unfortunately Ron and the Kent mob get nicer spoils but what I didn't know which I do now is the panels work better when cooler, so you dont want a baking hot no wind day as they start underperforming.
ed-
FWIW my quote was 4500 and I use the E/W split. A few more panels but they are 400w and compared to S facing should be 20%+ less gen typically and definitely worse this time of year.
Unfortunately Ron and the Kent mob get nicer spoils but what I didn't know which I do now is the panels work better when cooler, so you dont want a baking hot no wind day as they start underperforming.
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Soldato
I was being conservative when I said 4000 kWh, the least I've generated in a year on the 4kW array is 4150, the most 4630, but only half my array faces south, the other half faces east.
PS With the additional array, total so far this year is 8258 kWh.
PS With the additional array, total so far this year is 8258 kWh.
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Does anyone know how much RAM is required to run Home Assistant on a Pi? The official website doesn't say.
I have HA running within Hyper-V on my CCTV server. I don't have much running on HA at the moment, only Solax Inverter, Hive, and the Octopus tariff rates. I allocated the VM 512MB - 8192MB of Dynamic RAM to see how it went. I've noticed Hyper-V Manager is reporting it's demanding 3974MB with 5520MB allocated.
I'm sure it would be happy with 4GB, possibly less.
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I have HA running within Hyper-V on my CCTV server. I don't have much running on HA at the moment, only Solax Inverter, Hive, and the Octopus tariff rates. I allocated the VM 512MB - 8192MB of Dynamic RAM to see how it went. I've noticed Hyoer-V Manager is reporting it's using just over 5GB.
I'm sure it would be happy with 4GB, possibly less.
Thanks very much
Associate
Hi everyone,
Next year I am thinking of expanding my solar setup and looking for a little advice.
At the moment I have 16 panels on the house split between north east and south west orientations on separate strings of a 6Kw inverter. As you would expect the north east panels don't produce much outside of the best months of the year. I have a garage on the south west orientation and thinking of adding five panels. The house and the garage are the same orientation but different roof pitches.
Can this be done with the existing inverter? I was thinking they could be added to the existing south west string. But with two roofs having different pitches, would this be a problem if the new panels have optimizers?
Thanks
Next year I am thinking of expanding my solar setup and looking for a little advice.
At the moment I have 16 panels on the house split between north east and south west orientations on separate strings of a 6Kw inverter. As you would expect the north east panels don't produce much outside of the best months of the year. I have a garage on the south west orientation and thinking of adding five panels. The house and the garage are the same orientation but different roof pitches.
Can this be done with the existing inverter? I was thinking they could be added to the existing south west string. But with two roofs having different pitches, would this be a problem if the new panels have optimizers?
Thanks
Soldato
If your going from 8 to 13 you should just about be ok in regards clipping, maybe a very tiny amount at the absolute peak.
Check your inverter in regards over panelling limits. Many allow some but there are a few manufacturers that specify zero, so if you were to go over you would lose warranty.
How close are the roof pitches? If they are fairly close its unlikely to make much diff.
Any chance of shading being different between the new panels and the existing SW panels?
Check your inverter in regards over panelling limits. Many allow some but there are a few manufacturers that specify zero, so if you were to go over you would lose warranty.
How close are the roof pitches? If they are fairly close its unlikely to make much diff.
Any chance of shading being different between the new panels and the existing SW panels?
Soldato
Another consideration is you shouldn't mix panel types within the string.
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Soldato
Also wiring but I was building up
Depending on exact layout and lengths (and knowing trades always try to get by with the bare minimum) then its possible the existing panel wiring may be an issue due to extended length.
Associate
Indeed. Most installers won't do this either. I have 400w Sharp panels and they wouldn't even mix them with the otherwise electrically identical newer 420w panels.
I'd be wary of hitting the limits on the more productive south-west array too with 5 more panels added. I looked into this with my upcoming expansion and discovered on my current inverter it maxes out at 3300w per string so I would lose quite a lot.
With a 6kw inverter already I'd go for a smaller second inverter.
Soldato
Oops, there was a typo in my post, should, should have been shouldn't 
If you are willing to go to the effort of installing optimisers you might as well ‘do it properly’ and put in a G99 and attempt to get permission to put in an another inverter.
Another small inverter isn’t going to cost much more than 5 optimisers either.
If you have a 6kw inverter already, do you have a 6kw export limit?
The 8 panels on the west array are only going to be ~3.2kw peak so adding another 5 you’d probably be under 6kw anyway in the real world. The east aren’t going to be doing much once the west have ramped up.
Another small inverter isn’t going to cost much more than 5 optimisers either.
If you have a 6kw inverter already, do you have a 6kw export limit?
The 8 panels on the west array are only going to be ~3.2kw peak so adding another 5 you’d probably be under 6kw anyway in the real world. The east aren’t going to be doing much once the west have ramped up.
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Currently using 0.8Gb on a RPi 4 2gb, rock solid for over a year.
You getting a battery added on to an existing system, or that's just what you're buying with your complete system?
I'm considering a battery for my existing solar edge system, so need to start seeing what's out there.
Hi Guys,
I've been quoted £10.8k for 16 x 435 tiger all black panels in roof, with giv energy 13.5kw AIO battery with Sofar inverter (x12 panel on pitched roof x4 on flat) south facing.
Having a new roof so roofing cost cheaper plus already paying for the scaffolding...
Does this sound reasonable?
I've been quoted £10.8k for 16 x 435 tiger all black panels in roof, with giv energy 13.5kw AIO battery with Sofar inverter (x12 panel on pitched roof x4 on flat) south facing.
Having a new roof so roofing cost cheaper plus already paying for the scaffolding...
Does this sound reasonable?
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Soldato
Sounds reasonably good, I guess you should off-set the cost anyhow against the tiles/roof finish of choice and extra labour that would be charged for that.
Associate
The battery alone is about £5k ex VAT so it's about £5.8k for the panels and installation which I'd say is about right at the moment. I've just signed up for a second 11 panel system with non-hybrid inverter for £5.9k with scaffolding so very similar.