Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Needs a market shakeup and pressure on suppliers to offer better tariff rates (accommodate micro-gen residentials). Nothing has really changed much over decades.
 
The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) payments are very low 3-4 pence per kWh - for me it covers the cost of the imported power from the inverter managing the power, which is about 0.3 kWh per day (8p).
Yesterday I was out all day and couldn't use most of my solar power, so exported 32 kWh, which is about £1.30.

Moving to Octopus Agile for the summer is probably worth it and something I will do next summer.
 
gpuerrilla said:
Needs a market shakeup and pressure on suppliers to offer better tariff rates (accommodate micro-gen residentials). Nothing has really changed much over decades.
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The amount of people investing in solar would prove that wrong. Buying solar panels isn't a way to 'make money', it's a way to reduce your bills in the long run.
 
It is, but why should we export and get paid peanuts for it, that's the shake up that needs to happen, we need to paid more for what we export, a set percentage of the wholesale price as a minimum.
 
Bug One said:
The amount of people investing in solar would prove that wrong. Buying solar panels isn't a way to 'make money', it's a way to reduce your bills in the long run.
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Hence the word residential. If it was a commercial money spinner then it would be abused. The point being if the energy being generated is made by a residential dwelling and costing nothing to 'buy' in advance from the markets.. why should that unit only credit you to the capped value of 5p whereas the suppliers can charge 6x that amount?

There should be a minimum and it should be aligned to the going market rates. To stop abuse or 'make money' as you put it, then you can introduce limits at the other end such as 20 KWh which could be whatever a standard size roof could generate per day for example?
 
Ron-ski said:
It is, but why should we export and get paid peanuts for it, that's the shake up that needs to happen, we need to paid more for what we export, a set percentage of the wholesale price as a minimum.
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100%..

At the least they should give half of what they charge. So come October they should be giving 20p. If they did that I would go solar only.
 
Does anyone know the easiest/cheapest way to monitor my solar output, panels where already fitted to the house when we purchased it but the energy monitor only tells us when we are producing and not the amount.
 
joev88 said:
Does anyone know the easiest/cheapest way to monitor my solar output, panels where already fitted to the house when we purchased it but the energy monitor only tells us when we are producing and not the amount.
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What is the inverter make/model? You should be able to retrofit something but depends on how old the equipment is I guess.
 
Ron-ski said:
It is, but why should we export and get paid peanuts for it, that's the shake up that needs to happen, we need to paid more for what we export, a set percentage of the wholesale price as a minimum.
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It's the reason I'm looking more at off grid recently. Plus the no regulations to abide by.
Downside is needing to rewire a few things, and if it gets big enough I'll just rewire the consumer unit.
 
Fairly sure your house still need to meet building regs so you can’t just go ahead and re-wire anything unless you are qualified or pay building control a bunch of money to come and sign it off.

It’s irrelevant if it’s ‘off grid’ or not, it still has to meet the regs.
 
Is this normal?

Panels been installed for 4 days, first two days a bit cloudier but was peaking about 4.3 ish kw, which is what Id expect on a 4.5kw system.

Yesterday and today, clear days, smoother generation, but it capping out about 3.2kw.

Only thing I can think is heat is affecting something????
 
BUDFORCE said:
Is this normal?

Panels been installed for 4 days, first two days a bit cloudier but was peaking about 4.3 ish kw, which is what Id expect on a 4.5kw system.

Yesterday and today, clear days, smoother generation, but it capping out about 3.2kw.

Only thing I can think is heat is affecting something????
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Check your inverters also, they may have flagged an error.
 
BUDFORCE said:
Is this normal?

Panels been installed for 4 days, first two days a bit cloudier but was peaking about 4.3 ish kw, which is what Id expect on a 4.5kw system.

Yesterday and today, clear days, smoother generation, but it capping out about 3.2kw.

Only thing I can think is heat is affecting something????
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If they've only just been installed, contacts the supplier/installers and ask them.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Fairly sure your house still need to meet building regs so you can’t just go ahead and re-wire anything unless you are qualified or pay building control a bunch of money to come and sign it off.

It’s irrelevant if it’s ‘off grid’ or not, it still has to meet the regs.
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Pretty sure it doesn't, I don't need to notify anyone to run things off grid.
Building regs are a different thing.

First plan is to run the stuff in the garage, freezer and washer and dryer, maybe move the server and switches over as well see how it goes.
 
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BUDFORCE said:
Is this normal?
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No that isn't normal at all, they (the panels) have to be hitting 65c to be severely affected. Find out what the temperature coefficient of Pmax is for your panels, should be on the data sheet. You can then work out what the loss would be based on the formula T(temperature) x Pmax -0.44%/c . If you are hitting 35c then you shouldn't be losing much more than 15% overall. Put your value for Pmax in place of the 0.44 value btw.

So 35c * Pmax 0.35%c for my panels = 12.25% loss of maximum possible output. It's actually much lower than that as I believe they use 25c as the starting point, so it would really only be 10c * Pmax 0.35%/c or 3.5%
 
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Ron-ski said:
It is, but why should we export and get paid peanuts for it, that's the shake up that needs to happen, we need to paid more for what we export, a set percentage of the wholesale price as a minimum.
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Or an option to have credits in kW to offset in winter months? Obviously cheap night tariff for some with batteries helps, but for those without?
 
Thought I may as well join the bandwagon! The price of energy (especially the forecast rises over the coming year(s) seems to make it a no brainer at this point.

11 x 385w JA Panels (4.24kw)
Growatt SPH3600 Hybrid Invertor
Growatt 6.5kw Battery

Installed and fitted price (with bird protection) £10,200 which seems about the average I am seeing so far.

The roof that all 11 panels will be sited on is around 20deg off South so should give me some decent production!

I work from home predominantly and installed heat pumps in 2 bedrooms and the main living area so hoping to be able to use up most of what I produce myself :) I look forward to guilt free cooling next summer!

Been quoted 6-8 weeks lead time but we shall see on that.

Has anyone managed to get onto the Octopus Go tariff without an EV? Seems like it could be useful during the winter months to top up the battery overnight on the cheap :) Especially if I later decide to add a second battery....
 
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