Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

[Ron-ski]

Now is the perfect time to reap the rewards of solar panels but come winter time, can peoples bill be at least halved ?

Right now you can in theory live off the grid in the summer times..

As long as you have a battery, a big enough array (at least 8kw), and you're avergae daily usage isn't too high (about 8kw), yes I think so, maybe even more than halved. November through to January were the worst months.

As usual there are always a lot of variables.

 

[SoliD]

Now is the perfect time to reap the rewards of solar panels but come winter time, can peoples bill be at least halved ?

Right now you can in theory live off the grid in the summer times..

As above, batteries assist the payback period for the majority especially if you can get on a cheaper nighttime rate tarriff to supplement what minor solar you have in the winter.

 

[SDK^]

Today is my first proper sunny day since my solar went live last week.
By about 1pm I‘ve ran out of things to power Home and car batteries full, water hot and outputting 4.5 kWh to the grid.

Time to order a hot tub and A/C

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Today is my first proper sunny day since my solar went live last week.
By about 1pm I‘ve ran out of things to power Home and car batteries full, water hot and outputting 4.5 kWh to the grid.

Time to order a hot tub and A/C

Set yourself a nice home electrolysis system up and start splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen

 

[SoliD]

Today is my first proper sunny day since my solar went live last week.
By about 1pm I‘ve ran out of things to power Home and car batteries full, water hot and outputting 4.5 kWh to the grid.

Time to order a hot tub and A/C

Same here, been running AC non stop since it's been installed, got it on lowest temp throughout and still only consuming 1.2kwh.

 

[SDK^]

Some people say “where will all the EV batteries go once they don’t provide enough miles”

Imagine getting a few 40 - 75 kWh of those for home energy storage.
You could power a house for months with occasional solar top ups.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Some people say “where will all the EV batteries go once they don’t provide enough miles”

Imagine getting a few 40 - 75 kWh of those for home energy storage.
You could power a house for months with occasional solar top ups.

Yup, or just really cheap off peak electricity. You could even export at peak times to support the grid and get paid.

 

[SoliD]

Indeed, intrigued to see how many days my batteries drain over when the weather starts being unable to charge them up every day.

Generated 32kwh already today and still going at 4.6kwh, which looking at previous days should carry on until about 5.30-6 before dropping off through until 8pmish.

 

[Simon]

Some people say “where will all the EV batteries go once they don’t provide enough miles”

Imagine getting a few 40 - 75 kWh of those for home energy storage.
You could power a house for months with occasional solar top ups.

Wrong voltage etc so you need that to be worked out for all the diff types and then 10- 15k for a second hand battery so it’s not like gonna be free. https://www.secondlife-evbatteries.com/collections/ev-packs

 

[SDK^]

Wrong voltage etc so you need that to be worked out for all the diff types and then 10- 15k for a second hand battery so it’s not like gonna be free. https://www.secondlife-evbatteries.com/collections/ev-packs

Nothing an inverter can’t sort out

 

[Hawk Tuah]

Indeed, intrigued to see how many days my batteries drain over when the weather starts being unable to charge them up every day.

Generated 32kwh already today and still going at 4.6kwh, which looking at previous days should carry on until about 5.30-6 before dropping off through until 8pmish.

I'm up to 18.7kw so far today. Nice 80% charge on the car battery from pure solar. Now, if only it would start raining over night to save the lawn....

 

[Ron-ski]

I'm planning on building my own battery, roughly £2.5k for a 15kWh battery using these cells.

Here's a 44kWh system https://youtu.be/owXqzvdeeeY

PS I'm designing my own battery drawer system.

 

[Hawk Tuah]

On grid?

 

[Ron-ski]

Yes, current plan is to divert the incoming mains via a 8kva Victron inverter in the garage, so the inverter will supply the existing consumer unit, and thus the entire house. Not enough solar or battery and the inverter will just pass through the grid supply. All in the planning stage at the moment.

 

[casper_uk]

It's been a long time coming but I have at least got a start on my panels being installed! The scaffolding was put on the wrong side of the house though, which meant it was only safe enough to install on one side. No battery either yet, but at least its started

 

[SoliD]

@Journey, you said you'd be interested so pretty much done for the day and generation total of 43.4kwh. Export of 15 of those with the ac going hard all day and batteries charging up.

 

[BUDFORCE]

We did 27khw of generating on our first full day, it's actually still ticking over now about 100w.

Unfortunately I have no way of telling how much of that we used.

 

[Journey]

@Journey, you said you'd be interested so pretty much done for the day and generation total of 43kwh. Export of 15 of those with the ac going hard all day and batteries charging up.

Nice, any sign of the PHEV yet?

 

[SDK^]

@Journey, you said you'd be interested so pretty much done for the day and generation total of 43kwh. Export of 15 of those with the ac going hard all day and batteries charging up.

Nice - I’m on 29.95 kWh. Hoping it roles over to 30 but it’s trickling now
Exported just 5.85.

 

[SoliD]

Nice, any sign of the PHEV yet?

No idea, company car was originally due to be delivered in May and current date is October...Might offer to charge my neighbours car at this rate.