Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Ron-ski said:
@alphaomega16 So as not to keep derailing the other thread.

You just need something like this. Very easy to build.

Toledo – Solar Powered Timber Pergola – Solar Structures Ireland

solarstructures.ie solarstructures.ie

IMG-20230408-WA0000-Copy.jpg
Click to expand...
that is brilliant, planning will have a whale of a time for me at least lol
 
Last edited:
Hi all,

I'm looking to get a Sunsynk 5 or 8kw ECCO inverter and 3 or 4 pylontech us5000 batteries which I was planning to charge at the cheap rate overnight with Octopus an power my house through the day.

I may add 4 small solar panels on a flat roof just to assist a keeping the batteries as topped up as possible in the day but this is predominantly a battery system.

Has anyone got any alternatives that maybe cheaper/better in any way? The Tesla Powerwall 3 is also a contender.

Thanks
 
Frogstar battery?

Edit: do you want cheap or do you want fully featured?

Pylon and powerwall are at almost opposite ends of the market.
 
Last edited:
No
father-ted said:
Had a quote for the Tesla package today, from 'Effective Home':

Quotation: Cash​

23 x JA Solar 435 Watt Panels (EH. JAM54D41-435/LB)
1 x EH. Tesla Powerwall 3 - with PV package (Tesla)
TESLA discount - Customer direct from Tesla £-750.00
SPECIALIST SCAFFOLDING REQUIREMENTS £2,000.00
Bird Guarding £410.00
Total System Price£17,035.00
Excluding £0.00 VAT
Standard System Price£15,375.00
Excluding £0.00 VAT
Payment Milestones
Deposit£500.00
Pre-Install£8,517.50
Final Payment£8,017.50
Total£17,035.00

Scaffold price looks ridiculous (I challeneged them on it and got a salesmans response, they say they may do it cheaper after a survey is done, that is the highest it will be (but need to pay £500 for the survey - refundable if we go with them).
No EV charger either, they tried telling me that I am better off charging via an extension lead overnight 11.30pm until 5.30am).

From Spectra Solar, the EV charger is included.
'Effective Home' did point out that the inverter with Spectra is only 8kw but we would have a 10kw system - so 2kwph wasted (not sure if Spectra do a bigger inverter, will have to ask).

Your thoughts please?
Click to expand...
Have pushed back on the £2k scaffold price, as that is just ridiculous.
Emailed them last Thursday, still no repsonse.
Just emailed them again stating if no response tomorrow, then we will go with Spectra on Tuesday.

Would have rather gone Tesla tbh, for the additional functionality.
However, not a lot of availability at the moment (Spectra do them, but no availability on the Powerwall3 for a few months).
Not impressed at all with the service so far from 'Effective Home', got an intense 'sales' presentation from them over Teams, a lot of bluster but we already knew most of it.
Then silence.....when we queried the massively inflated scaffold price.
 
Last edited:
b0rn2sk8 said:
Frogstar battery?

Edit: do you want cheap or do you want fully featured?

Pylon and powerwall are at almost opposite ends of the market.
Click to expand...
I guess good value and compatible with Octopus ultimately.

The Sunsynk seems fairly feature rich are will do everything I need (I think!) and the actual medium of storage is largely irrelevant, as long as its cost effective,safe and has good longevity.

My concern about the Tesla Powerwall is if Tesla drop the octopus collaboration in the future if start their own energy company. Also, it's not modular so you can't change individual components, however it has a long warranty
 
Also, I understand the inverter needs to be fitted by a qualified electrician.

But what about the DC side of things, battery rack and potentially a couple of PV on a flat roof, can that be done by someone competent but not qualified? Thanks
 
@silverwings if you want the ultimate in flexibility look no further than Victron, as long as you don't mind a bit of basic coding (Node Red).

See my build thread for what's possible, and the Victron VRM (click the link again or the back button if you get a password error).

I did all the DC work myself, had an electrician do the AC and also used them to connect the panels up, that way the crimps for the MC4's should be good.

I'm currently installing another 6.5kWp of panels, doing the bulk of the work myself.
 
Last edited:
silverwings said:
I guess good value and compatible with Octopus ultimately.

The Sunsynk seems fairly feature rich are will do everything I need (I think!) and the actual medium of storage is largely irrelevant, as long as its cost effective,safe and has good longevity.

My concern about the Tesla Powerwall is if Tesla drop the octopus collaboration in the future if start their own energy company. Also, it's not modular so you can't change individual components, however it has a long warranty
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by 'compatible with octopus'.

There are only 2 product lines on the market which work with Octopus' smart solar tariff, they are the GivEnergy line of hybrid inverters and AC coupled batteries and the Tesla Powerwall (2&3).

Everything else just imports and exports at the relevant price when you tell it to.

Just bare in mind that you can't get paid for export unless you either have an MCS installation or go through Octopus' trial program. The latter costs £250 with no guarantee you'll be accepted (you'll get a part refund if you are not accepted). If you are not fussed about exporting (say for saving sessions), then don't worry about it. In any case you'll still need a G99 for the DNO.
 
Last edited:
b0rn2sk8 said:
I'm not sure what you mean by 'compatible with octopus'.

There are only 2 product lines on the market which work with Octopus' smart solar tariff, they are the GivEnergy line of hybrid inverters and AC coupled batteries and the Tesla Powerwall (2&3).

Everything else just imports and exports at the relevant price when you tell it to.

Just bare in mind that you can't get paid for export unless you either have an MCS installation or go through Octopus' trial program. The latter costs £250 with no guarantee you'll be accepted (you'll get a part refund if you are not accepted). If you are not fussed about exporting (say for saving sessions), then don't worry about it. In any case you'll still need a G99 for the DNO.
Click to expand...

What does the Octopus one actually give you do you know?
Thats quite a lot if it just gives you the export with them, but would seem OK value if you for some reason failed to get MCS originally and ended up with a transferrable cert, ie basically an MCS cert issued by Octopus?
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
What does the Octopus one actually give you do you know?
Thats quite a lot if it just gives you the export with them, but would seem OK value if you for some reason failed to get MCS originally and ended up with a transferrable cert, ie basically an MCS cert issued by Octopus?
Click to expand...
It just gives you the ability to export with Octopus and it’s not transferable.

Not wanting to get into the merits of MCS but it’s basically just a shortcut to say your installation meets a prescribed standard.

The octopus trial is them manually checking you meet said standard which you have to pay for before they set up an export tariff.

Neither is ideal and I don’t like the fee being charged either. If all supplies did this model and charged a fee, it would effectively lock you into that supplier as the cost of moving would wipe out any potential saving for moving.
 
Last edited:
'Effective Home' tried the hard sell, seemed like wide-boys with a pre-planned sales pitch asking questions to each other (when they clearly already knew the answers), quite cringey and false.
Quoted £17,035 - Powerwall3, x22 panels with no EV - said they didn't have Powerwall3 in stock but it was due September.
Scaffolding quoted £2k - laughable.
Said they quote everybody £2k as that is the most it can be - but if we pay the deposit, they will do a survey and quote the correct scaffold price (no thanks, once I have paid a deposit, you won't reduce that price much......wouldn't be suprised if you tell me in September that your stock delivery is delayed either).

Narrowed it down to these quotes - both from Spectra Solar (who have been brilliant all the way through, not pushy at all and very genuine & informative):


Solar PV System Size: - 9.68kW
Battery Storage Size: - 15.96kWh
Total price for installation: - £14,838.51

22 X Jinko Tiger Neo 440W N-Type All Black Mono Panels
Price includes all cable & electrical sundries
(25yr Product Warranty- 30yr Linear Power Warranty)
1 Sunsynk 8kW ECCO Hybrid Inverter
(10yr Manufacturer warranty)
1 Emlite NET Gen meter
1 15.96kWh Sunsynk Battery Storage (90% Usable)
(NEW 2024 BATTERY)
(10yr Manufacturer warranty)
1 Renusol Roof Mounting Kit 1 INCLUDED INCLUDED
Wi-Fi Dongle for Cloud Access/Mobile App
1 Consumer Unit + SPD
1 Bird Protection + Installation
1 5X Tigo Optimisers
1 Armoured Cable + Ducting
1 7kW MyEnergi Zappi Untethered Charger
1 Description of Services Qty Unit Price Total Price
Design, Installation & Setup
1 MCS Cert, DNO(G98/G99), Elec Cert (EIC), HIES Warranty IBG
1 Free Site Survey prior to Installation
1 Free Online Monitoring
1 24 Months defects “return to site” warranty
1 Goods & Services Sub Total: £14,016.00
Scaffolding: £980.00
GROUND WORKS TO BE CARRIED OUT BY CUSTOMER PRIOR TO INSTALLATION £0.00
VAT @ 0%: £0.00
Total: £14,838.51


------------------------

Solar PV System Size: - 9.68kW
Battery Storage Size: - 13.5kWh
Total price for installation: - £16,265.76

22 X Jinko Tiger Neo 440W N-Type All Black Mono Panels
Price includes all cable & electrical sundries
(25yr Product Warranty- 30yr Linear Power Warranty)
1 Emlite NET Gen meter
1 Tesla Powerwall 3 Inc Gateway
13.5kWh Battery Storage (100% Usable)
(NEW 2024)
(10yr Manufacturer warranty)
1 Renusol Roof Mounting Kit
1 Wi-Fi Dongle for Cloud Access/Mobile App
1 Consumer Unit + SPD
1 Bird Protection + Installation
1 5X Tigo Optimisers
1 Armoured Cable + Ducting
1 7kW MyEnergi Zappi Untethered Charger
1 Description of Services Qty Unit Price Total Price
Design, Installation & Setup
1 MCS Cert, DNO(G98/G99), Elec Cert (EIC), HIES Warranty IBG
1 Free Site Survey prior to Installation
1 Free Online Monitoring
1 24 Months defects “return to site” warranty
1 Goods & Services Sub Total: £15,285.76
Scaffolding: £980.00
VAT @ 0%: £0.00
Total: £16,265.76

They have told us that nobody has stock of the Powerwall3 at the moment, expected in the next couple of months - they could guarantee the Powerwall3 install for November latest (most probably a lot sooner).
I asked which they would advise, they said the Powerwall3 is the premium system, however paying extra for the name and extra functionality is a personal choice (so depends if we value that, which we do tbh).

Your thoughts please?
We can get the Sunsync fitted in a few weeks / or wait until the Powerwall3 is in stock? (could be Sept/Nov latest)
 
Last edited:
You need to factor in the first quite is 90% depth of discharge on the battery which means it is actually only 14.364kwh.

So basically it comes down to:

£1500 buying you the premium system with whole home backup and an inverter which will put out 11kw, an excellent app/software user experience and the system is compatible with Octopus Intelligent Flux but you lose 1kwh of battery storage.

I'd take that deal and wait for the Tesla system. If someone had offered me that system at that price back in January when I got my GivEnergy All in One installed, I'd have bit their hand off.
 
I was swaying towards the Tesla anyway, you have just convinced me so I have messaged Spectra to accept.

'Effective Home' telephoned today, saying that as it is month end, they can lower by another £750 and have sent through a new quote - but that still does not include an EV charger.
We just didn't like their sales technique and do not trust them, so wouldn't go with them now anyway (even if they come back cheaper).
Not sure why they told us they had discounted it further, as the new quote they emailed today (after the call) is exactly the same.....lol do people actually fall for their sales pitch?
 
Last edited:
Bin off effective home and to answer your question, yes they do fill for that.

I binned off all the installers that gave me stupid answers to simple questions or uninvited opinions on products they didn’t stock or couldn’t answer basic questions that they did.

One installer told me the power wall 2 was poor and unreliable so they don’t fit them while trying to sell me what they did fit. I’m not sure what my face was doing when he said that but I doubt it was completely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom