Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 09:33

As nice as the PW3 is, it's still too expensive, won't get it installed for less than 7.5k if it goes by PW2 pricing, probs more with initial hype / tax

Cost price from dave's vids for the give 9.5 is £2.7k with zero vat, 2 of them daisy changed + install cost

I'll probs add another battery later in the year tbh, you can have 3 daisy chained I believe

father-ted · 29 Jun 2024 at 09:35

I will see what they come back with, will update on here

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 09:39

father-ted said:
Just checked the electricity bill:Over a 7 month period we have averaged 865kw of usage per month

Ouch!

Quick lesson, kW (kiloWatt) refers to how much power a piece of equipment can supply or draws, so a 2kW fan heater draws 2kW, or 2000w.

kWh (KiloWatt Hour), is a measure of power used, so take our fan heater above, if its heating for a full hour it has used 2kWh of electric, if it was on for half an hour it would have used 1kWh of electric.

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 09:49

865kwh.. been double that some months, mostly over 1k kwh monthly, charging EVs etc, tub, ac

I just had my kit installed last week so will see how July fairs as first month

father-ted · 29 Jun 2024 at 09:49

Tell me about it, I have had the hot tub turned off since January as well......I am about to put it back on, so a significant uplift to this as well

Koi ponds & hot tubs suck the life out of your wallet tbh.
My car is hybrid, never charged fom home but will be looking to in the future.

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 09:55

What tarrif are you with btw, intelligent go here is most sensible for me, gives biggest window at 7.5p

Flux look good to make money dumping your battery at 38p rate but you're not going to do that with the pond lol

You need to charge your battery[/s] and use them in the day time / out of generation times

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 10:00

@father-ted Do you have a big garden, room for a ground mount array? If you want to make a big dent in that bill then you need a lot of panels. You'll still struggle in the winter, but the excess that's exported in the summer goes towards winter bills.

Talking of winter, batteries being charged with cheap rate electric help in the winter, BUT how much can you charge them in the cheap rate period?

I have an 8kW inverter, and 29kWh of batteries, but only a 3 hour cheap rate period, so that means I can only charge 24kWh of power into the batteries at the most (there are efficiency losses).

Lots of things to consider.

father-ted · 29 Jun 2024 at 10:07

maddness said:
What tarrif are you with btw, intelligent go here is most sensible for me, gives biggest window at 7.5p

Flux look good to make money dumping your battery at 38p rate but you're not going to do that with the pond lol

You need to charge your battery[/s] and use them in the day time / out of generation times

I have nae idea on tariff, the wife has always dealt with it, but will check.
All I know is the supoplier is Octopus lol

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 10:22

Besides the research, I did the following which greatly helped:

Get a burner sim / number, request quotes on these Facebook ads, you will get called and these suppliers / installers will chat to you like they are your mates and discuss and give you their ideas and suggestions and pricing and even hints and tips on how to reduce your bills too, some were sound and gave some really useful info about charging the car and settings and reduce my bills with the hot tub, fast tracking dno and ofcourse they will give you a ball park on what kit / pricing you need for your usage, they will slate each other which is more useful info for you and why certain kit is not good as other

Adding many panels as possible and max batteries and ground arrays lol will cost a lot and not viable, you may spend north of 12k-15k with these suggestions but how many more years will it be before you get your ROI, won't be viable and negate the idea of going PV in the first place

Edit: If you check the tariff info on the octo app it should say

I'm on intelligent go for the leccy and tracker on the gas

You want to be on a cheap rate overnight ideally on the leccy, your battery will need to topped full in this rate and to cover your day and evening, the sunny times solar will be used for house usage and topping battery up

The other day 1st time I kept the house split air con on for hours because the sun was running it lol, if I didn't it was sending the excess off to the grid

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 10:48

maddness said:
Adding many panels as possible and max batteries and ground arrays lol will cost a lot and not viable, you may spend north of 12k-15k with these suggestions but how many more years will it be before you get your ROI, won't be viable and negate the idea of going PV in the first place

I disagree. It is totally worth getting quotes for different systems, including maxed out systems, and then making informed decisions.

My first system was installed in December 2015, it paid for itself by 2022, this was helped by the high rates of electric back then, and of course its a FITS system (no longer available).

In February last year my second system came online, in April I finally got my smart meters working and was able to switch to Flux, and actually get paid for all my export. Last year my gas and electric was MINUS £400 taking into account all exports, FITS payments, one referral and saving sessions. I estimate that without solar last years gas and electric would be about £3000, add on the £400 and that's around £3400 saved/gained in one year.

This year won't be so good, as electric prices have come down, but if they are staying in the house long term and don't go too mad on the costs they will get their money back, especially given their high usage. Fitting a small 4kW system and no battery, or even a small battery will barely make a dent in their bills. Panels are cheap (£60 for a 410w panel, or £71 for a 435w one), installation is expensive, so you may as well get more panels fitted whilst the scaffold is up and the installers are already there.

PS. I'm adding another 6.8kWp of panels, in fact I have the electrician coming round this morning to discuss some things. That will take me to 15.5kWp of panels.

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 10:51

Here now it's raining, hot tub is on

Not using the grid, givenergy eco setting / mode does all the smart working itself, not using the grid, nothing you need to do it intelligently works itself out (if you don't like tinkering though you can)

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 10:55

maddness said:
Not using the grid, givenergy eco setting / mode does all the smart working itself, not using the grid, nothing you need to do it intelligently works itself out (if you don't like tinkering though you can)

And you're point being???

gpuerrilla · 29 Jun 2024 at 11:22

Get your hot tub on Ron!

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 11:33

Ron-ski said:
I disagree.....(blurb)
PS. I'm adding another 6.8kWp of panels, in fact I have the electrician coming round this morning to discuss some things. That will take me to 15.5kWp of panels.

and you think this is a normal setup, most home setups are approx 8-10 panels (according to my installer for my type of usage which is quite a bit higher than mr teds), i went with future proofing.. not an "abstract off grid unrealistic end of the world setup" lol

@ 15.5 you have / going to have what 30-40 panels, 30kw batteries and what not ... lol at what cost, a "sensible" installer octo suggested 11 panel setup for mr teds usage (ignore the no battery suggestion)

Ron-ski said:
And you're point being???

what is the question here .. i am what point being? :cry:

(i'm confused too with what you are asking)

joking aside ...if you cant grasp from the above that i am not using the grid in the day (so far) at an expensive rate on a overcast cloudy day, stilll generating some energy and using the battery that has energy stored at the 7.5p rate and using the hot tub, not sure what I can further say to you

the above stats are irrelevant to you with your "out of the ordinary" setup

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 12:03

@Madness

OK, here's mine (link in my signature).

As for most systems being 8 to 10 panels (well that's what they told you anyway), there's various reasons for that, main one being it means a 3.68kW inverter, easy DNO notification, quick install, more profit, and people just don't realise the benefits of a bigger system until its too late.

Take a look on PV Output, you'll see a lot of systems far bigger - link in my signature. There are also a lot of posters on here with bigger systems, @94JDH has a nice big Giv Energy system. Also a bigger system helps in the winter. Obviously everyone needs to decides for themselves what is right for their circumstances and budget

You can buy 15kWh battery for £2500 from a UK company, cheaper still if you're willing to buy from China and build your own although I appreciate this route is only for a small percentage of people like me.

Yes, I'm going to have 43 panels

I'm changing to an induction hob, and next year likely a heat pump and do away with gas, so I will need more electric.

Its also nice seeing my house generating clean electricity, and supplying the neighbours.

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 12:24

very nice setup ^

but with all these pricing you are quoting, no one will let you buy your kit and install and sign and provide after suppport for you for a year never mind 20-30 years lol

unless

a) you are very competent and dont mind your own support / are an installer youself or

b) your mate is an approved installer and signs off the kit at cheap rates / owes you

i'm sure 95% (probably more) of peeps will have to go with a supplied approved kit

I have a 5kw gen 3 inverter, all the quotes I had were including 5kw inverters, does anyone still give out 3.6s?? of course there is a very quick way to get this approved on dno (compenent suppliers will tell you and sort it for you

)

only thing i have running gas is the showers / radiators, was looking at ways to get rid of this (the next project)

but next for me I think is to get another battery

12 panels, 19kwh batteries for ~10.5k is not bad

can we post suppliers / installers info here in this thread or will mods not allow this..

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 12:38

Yes you can post suppliers / installers in the thread, never seen an issue with that - they are not competitors to Overclockers.

I agree, 95% will need to use an installer, my first system was installed by an installer, had to be to get the FITS payments.

When I came to adding a second system I contacted loads of installers, pretty much none of them listened to what I wanted, they quoted on what they wanted to install.

I'm not an electrician, although many years ago in the 80's its the direction I wanted to go in, and did some basic training, but no one was taking on apprentices, so after buying my first car I ended up being a mechanic.

I have done masses of DIY and really structural stuff as well (all signed off by building control), so I'm a very hands on type of person, so I designed my own system, built my own batteries, but I did get an electrician in to do the AC work, and thus get it signed off. Yes it was hard finding an electrician who was happy to work with me, but I did find one (he was just getting in to solar installs), he's just been round, and he said when it comes to solar I probably know more than him!

I applied for my own G99 DNO export, got what I wanted, designed my system, programmed and set it all up. The Victron system is incredibly flexible, it has a computer (Cerbo GX) that you can actually write code for (Node Red) so you can control it exactly how you want to.

Here's my build link https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...y-diy-build-with-whole-house-backup.18957434/

PS. There are several on here that have added additional solar, or even batteries to their systems, obviously this can cause complications with warranties, but with some Hybrid inverters it is very easy to add batteries.

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 12:46

jeez i knew it

I have 1 question though ...how long are you visiting Earth for

maddness · 29 Jun 2024 at 12:58

I used these chaps for my install:

from start to finish all done within a week, top service and the cheapest by far, ask for Liam and say your mate from Manchester sent you

he'll probably think oh god LOL

Ron-ski · 29 Jun 2024 at 13:53

maddness said:
jeez i knew it

I have 1 question though ...how long are you visiting Earth for

Until I've got enough energy to power my spaceship.