could do with a banana for scale tbh
Is that a wood burning flu literally right next to the panels?!!
If so, yes I can see why you'd want to clean the panels - that's a pretty niche setup!!
#shocked emoji
Rather frustratingly as I’ve only just learned this. It seems I may need to clean my solar thermal regularly….it’s standard glass. FML
These panels must produce almost nothing!
Is that a wood burning flu literally right next to the panels?!!
If so, yes I can see why you’d want to clean the panels – that’s a pretty niche setup!!
#shocked emoji
The Exit is 2m from the panels at the closest point in accordance with building regs. We only light the fire ~5 times a year and only burn VERY dry wood which has been stored inside the house. I've never seen any significant soot on the panels. Dirt? Yes.
We see about an 8% jump when they're freshly cleaned, now whether this is just due to light getting to the panel or the ability of the panel to reject heat, I couldn't say and it's very difficult to tell how long that clean effect lasts due to variations in incidence, weather etc through the day.
Desert solar panels are regularly cleaned using either vibration, static or water.
Update on my install:
Battery in the loft isn’t allowed in new install because MCS cartel.
Survey has occurred and its going in the loft...
Installer then wanted a double pole isolator installed, 3rd party came out to do this, said it was an easy job due to outside meter box with lots of space, 10mins later aborted...turns out the fuse is 100amp ,but the meter tails to the SMETS2 Smart meter installed 2 years ago are 16mm which is a no no now, and should have been changed when meters installed, but the engineer went to change the meter tails and snapped the screw in the fuse carrier/cut out hence the abort for the DNO, but the DNO aren't out till late Feb, so install date has gone from early Jan to early March now...very annoying!
Question to help me, current system to be installed is 10 panels with a 5 and 5 split on a east/west split and a 5kw inverter installed, inverter start up voltage is 125v, I wanna check 5 panels generates enough voltage to wake up the inverter each morning, but on the data sheet for the Tiger Neo N-type 54HL4R-B I can see Maximum Power Voltage (mVP) and Open Circuit Voltage (Voc) with values of STC and NOCT with ranges from 30v to 39v, is this the right voltage data to be checking? so 5 x panels x the voltage value I find needs to be 125v?
I have some extra cash and was contemplating either adding maybe 6 more panels, so a 8 and 8 east/west split or a second battery and the inverter wake up is being a headache for this!
add the panels, its a couple of hundred per panel, scaffolding is a couple of times that
it's an absolute no brainer, as you know it will wake up earlier, have more power output over all, carry on generating later
iv'e got 9, south facing 3.9kw, it's only just enough for me and my lad i would say
Update on my install:
Battery in the loft isn’t allowed in new install because MCS cartel.
Survey has occurred and its going in the loft...
Installer then wanted a double pole isolator installed, 3rd party came out to do this, said it was an easy job due to outside meter box with lots of space, 10mins later aborted...turns out the fuse is 100amp ,but the meter tails to the SMETS2 Smart meter installed 2 years ago are 16mm which is a no no now, and should have been changed when meters installed, but the engineer went to change the meter tails and snapped the screw in the fuse carrier/cut out hence the abort for the DNO, but the DNO aren't out till late Feb, so install date has gone from early Jan to early March now...very annoying!
Question to help me, current system to be installed is 10 panels with a 5 and 5 split on a east/west split and a 5kw inverter installed, inverter start up voltage is 125v, I wanna check 5 panels generates enough voltage to wake up the inverter each morning, but on the data sheet for the Tiger Neo N-type 54HL4R-B I can see Maximum Power Voltage (mVP) and Open Circuit Voltage (Voc) with values of STC and NOCT with ranges from 30v to 39v, is this the right voltage data to be checking? so 5 x panels x the voltage value I find needs to be 125v?
I have some extra cash and was contemplating either adding maybe 6 more panels, so a 8 and 8 east/west split or a second battery and the inverter wake up is being a headache for this!
If you're having a battery installed, why would the inverter need to wake up? It'll always be on.
Regardless - install the extra panels.
oh, I didn't realise the battery would keep the inverter awake!
After being passed from pillar to post between Solis and LG, I finally managed to find the advanced setting in the inverter that's been hobbling my batteries to a max charge and discharge rate of 70A rather than their allowed 100A. Even so, everytime I changed it, it went back to 70A. Quick call to Solis and they place a modified firmware onto the inverter and last night it charged at 95A. MAX Power - well. almost I didn't set it to full and the batteries can do 120A for a number of seconds, but 100A is the sustained max.
I installed the second battery and the splitter/bridge/joint BMS myself, so there was always that nagging doubt that I'd done something wrong. Happy days.
Just got a quote in for a 3kWp system and 5.8kWh battery for just under £7.7k installed. Panels are AIKO, inverter and battery are SolaX. Are these brands reputable/decent? Will hopefully add a bit more generation once they come and measure up as likely to be able to fit more panels on an east aspect part of the roof.
Sound reasonable? Installation in North Cumbria, if anyone has any recommendations for suppliers to get further quotes from. Cheers!
I used UPS Solar and my experience was good and they have been generally responsive and helpful with the small number of issues I have had. I have an 8.7kW Foxess battery and 5kW inverter. We went for an array size of 5.7kW. Worth contacting them for a quote, Scaffolding installed before and taken down about 10 days after install, installation done in a day and the guys were very good. Installed an ASHP last summer and (as was expected) could do with a larger battery....
@TomB - If they're the newer generation panels - they're very good. 23.6% efficiency, which doesn't sound great, but it is. They're almost 10% better than mine. I don't know SolaX.
If you have space for it. I'd be going for more panels. the panels are a small cost in the install, but make SUCH a big difference.
Agreed. Asd many panels as possible! The are only costing about £55 each retail at the mo. If you have batteries and use for the electric then a no brainer. You may be limited to 3.5 KwH export but so waht. You will very rarely be exporting that amount anyway if you are recharging batteries to use over night. And in the case you are produces more than that with nowhere for it to go then the inverter should be able to limit export so all that happens is the panels won't be opporating at full power. Better for that to happen a few days in summer and have much more panel area in winter.
then a no brainer.
+1. You may have some limitations on how many you can have but add the max. Scaffolding is expensive so put them up while its on site.
2024 figures were in 44kwh down on 2023 on whole year figures - so basically 1. 5 days less full sun.
Januarys figures are currently above previous seen max January for me. and +41% on 2024 figures.
my solar thermals preheating my tank to 30c almost every day so far this year.
yer 3kw isn't great, can you push the boat out and get two strings installed east and west?
You may be limited to 3.5 KwH export but so waht. You will very rarely be exporting that amount anyway if you are recharging batteries to use over night.
inverter dependant - i can be charging at full 3.6kwh on the batteries (DC) & exporting +/-2kwh (AC) - MY 4kw array produces nearly 6kw peak (DC) through my 3.6kw limited inverter in the right conditions.
what IS frustrating is i cant USE that excess beyond 3.6 on the AC side once the batteries are full as there is no recognition between export and use - the inverter sees it all the same. as its a very basic 3.6AC limitation.
2024 figures were in 44kwh down on 2023 on whole year figures – so basically 1. 5 days less full sun.
Januarys figures are currently above previous seen max January for me. and +41% on 2024 figures.
my solar thermals preheating my tank to 30c almost every day so far this year.
Quite substantially different to ours - we're almost 400kWh down on the 2023 yield. 5770 (2023) > 5310 (2024) which is a BIG difference, but I think almost all of that is due to the weather we had in May/June of 2023 where we generate over 800kWh in each month. December was (amazingly) slightly better than the last two years, but sill a dismal 90kWh.
Just got a quote in for a 3kWp system and 5.8kWh battery for just under £7.7k installed. Panels are AIKO, inverter and battery are SolaX. Are these brands reputable/decent? Will hopefully add a bit more generation once they come and measure up as likely to be able to fit more panels on an east aspect part of the roof.
Sound reasonable? Installation in North Cumbria, if anyone has any recommendations for suppliers to get further quotes from. Cheers!
Finally being fitted next month on my East/West roof is 4.4kwp (10 Tier Neo panels), 1 x 5kw Sunsynk Inverter and 5.32kwh Sunsynk Battery for £7.2, thats scaffolding and fitted including some optimisers for the Eastside (I declined bird proofing). Thats from Contract Solar who I went to via my Energy Supplier to get a tariff from them with a low price of 12p kwh, standard price of 21p kwh and a peak of 31p kwh and an export rate of 19p kwh.
The equipment isn't like for like, but may be worth shopping the quote, I used BOXT via their website to get another quote, it was super simple via mobile and uploaded some pictures, helped me save some pennies.
For economics - we used ~7000kWh last year (car charging was high and my son has developed a PS5 addiction) and generated around 5300kWh. Due to being able to charge the batteries off peak, participate in the occasional savings session and export at rates which paralleled or exceeded our import rate, our total cost for electricity supply (including the sodding SC) was £291 for the year. Over £175 of that is the SC. To import that power at the SW average price of ~25p/kWh would've cost £1750 and another £185 for the SC. So the array saved us around £1650. This year should be even better with the batteries now able to charge and discharge at full rates.
Additionally, we've now had our array running for 30 months and our battery health is still at 99% - which is identical to when supplied.
February on the whole has been crap. down from 250kwh 2024 to 130kwh up to yesterday - YoY looking at 2023 - was 200kwh and 2022 was 260. Even with today and tomorrow being great solar days i cant see us getting to much more than 180 for 2025.
BUUUUUT yesterday the solar thermal stood on its own two feet and heated 250l from 9c to a usable 50c.
all of january the panels only saw 38c max. now we are seeing 55c max which means we can actually pull a good heat into the tank - and thats only going to rise.
Used 2 bars less Oil to this point in the year - not using our combi to heat water on demand. - Priot to install i worked out that the Combi was using approximately 500 quid of my oil a year to heat water - Based on what we would use just for water over summer when the heating was turned off.
additionally - for those of us on flux.
do we see costs rising significantly when the pricecap rises - it usually follows suit.....
Anyone jumping to a fix and Standard outgoing at 15p ?
last flux pricing changed bumped the peak export rate up more than the other rates, if they maintain that import/export ratio for us with batteries, it shouldn't make a real world difference IMHO
Yep if you've got batteries then Flux would still make sense.
Interesting YTD picture too trail_rat, ours is the opposite where Jan was about - 30kWh on last year but Feb looks like being 10-15kWh up depending on how actual generation compares to Solcast's numbers.
Doube post
looking in detail - seems january was consistently around 5-6kwh produced daily- which is sustainable against import
February was almost exclusively 1-2 with three days in double figures (this week).
Total number for feb is currently the same as Jan but far less sustainable and needs alot more import.
Its finally been fitted, 12 panels (6 East - 6 West), 2 x 5.32kwh batteries and 1 5kw inverter. Scaffold going up was a slight pain on rear as I have a conservatory and needed to get into neighbours garden for the legs, but actual install went fine and was done in 6 hours-ish!
Batteries are in the loft with a fire alarm, but are freestanding which caught me, apparently its fine and the system works.
Now the wait for the export MPAN and EDF Empower tariff, hurts as current output since then has exceeded daily forecast and I'm not being paid for it!
yer they put my batteries in freestanding... i kinda wished they had put the wall mounting brackets up, personally id ask them if it were possible (if they came with them) then the batteries aren't being supported by wood.. above your head
Good to hear someone else has some freestanding!
I didn't have space on the wall for the batteries as the boiler is also up there, but they did leave my the brackets in case space does become available I guess!
the weight of these bad boys is quite something. my 5.2 batteries are 65kg each, and a quick google tells me that the the loft only has to be able to bear 100kg per square meter, granted that will be in the centre of a joist at worst. mine are on sheeting spreading over many joists, and right next to the wall
isn't it better to export to the grid then use gas to heat your hot water? Export tarrifs look around 10p/kwh, gas is around 6p/kwh. Gas is possibly marginally less efficient at heating your water than electricity, but its also a bunch less faff
Well in the middle of November I finally commissioned my micro-hydro turbine and it has been spinning merrily away ever since pushing out 29KwH a day which is slightly more than we (2 households) can use. Since the sun has come out and the days gotten a bit longer I now have to shut it down in the day time as my batteries are full and I have nowhere to store the electric. I saw almost 7kwh coming in from solar and hydro the other day!
@welshfarmer - can you share a link to the turbine? That sounds really cool.
Turbine sounds cool if you've got a handy river nearby. Loads of questions though! Is there much red tape involved or can you just fit one as long as you own the land? How does the install cost of the turbine compare to solar panels? How much flow do you need to drive it - ie will it still be as productive in summer when flow is lower. Any ongoing maintenance costs?
Short video showing the intake to the system.
https://youtube.com/shorts/ZDYpR7lB6pE?si=xkl5LkvNIFYFKG3H
same place during storm Darragh!!
https://youtube.com/shorts/RdA73MY4MTg?si=bQF4usdldH4TXfsA
The bottom end where the turbine sits
https://youtube.com/shorts/JQMZR6wGPUY?si=OtollPBjzBdzIt81
The same place during strom Darragh!!
https://youtube.com/shorts/Sk8XqETKk6A?si=1Yx-GHj0TW4mHhX5
Between the intake IBC and the turbine is about 400m of 110mm plastic pipe with a fall of 66 meters. The flow is set at 3.5 l/s (by the size of the jets) which is capable of generating a constant 1270W/h 24/7. This will gradually decrease towards summer when the stream usually runs dry for a few months. But I have plenty of solar for then.
The turbine is a Powerspout from New Zealand https://www.powerspout.com/collections/pelton-plt
The complete installation was done by me DIY for about £5K total installed price (though I had a lot of the hardware already from the solar). Payback will be in the order of 2-3 years. Maintenace is to keep on top of greasing (I use an auto greaser) and regularly bearing chages (every 18months or so). Otherwise you just need to keep and eye on it to make sure it is behaving properly. Definitely not a fit and forget thing, but also not too much trouble if you live and work on site.
Is there much red tape involved or can you just fit one as long as you own the land?
From what I've been told by one person getting the water wheel working again on the site of an old mill (they're a farm and they mill their own flour on a smallish scale) and by a friend who wanted to dig a lake fed by a small river* - the answer is yes there could be a huge amount of red tape.
Apparently the powers that be don't like people just doing stuff to rivers and streams 😬
* They are both within a mile of each other and the "river" is approx 10' across at most!
You water turbineists should have a look at Kris Harbour's stuff.
You water turbineists whould have a look at Kris Harbour's stuff
Yeah, I follow Kris
our solar system got installed last week and we have them coming around to do the app/wifi connectivity next week. We have 8x455w panels.
The original plan was to have them all on a south facing roof, but due to a space issue, 2 of them are on a west-facing roof instead. The schematic I have shows them in one "string".
Obviously the panels will produce peak power at different times to each other (although one panel should be fairly even across it - there's no shading) - is having them in a single string ok, or should they be connected to the inverter separately (the south facing vs the west facing) so they can be "inverted" correctly?
My guess is the panels will each be fitted with micro-inverters so it won't matter at all.
at the very least they will have bypass diodes so partial shading isn't the issue it was in 2005
Does anyone have any experience of E.On? Currently with octopus who have been good, but Eon tariffs have a longer and cheaper overnight low rate for car charging and 1p higher solar export
Last time I looked around EOn were only offering a decent export rate if they'd installed your panels - their "everyone else" rate was measly.
16.5p export on their ‘normo’ not installed by us rate. Thats 1.5p more than octopus.
Does anyone have any experience of E.On? Currently with octopus who have been good, but Eon tariffs have a longer and cheaper overnight low rate for car charging and 1p higher solar export
have you worked out how much it would save you to move?
I believe octopus CS is good compared to many others so it would take a bit to move suppliers.
@sharkbait my thoughts exactly. It wouldn't be negligible, few pence cheaper and 2 extra hours a night. We're running 2 EV's now so makes it potentially easier. Not sure I can be bothered with the palaver of actually changing though!
I moved from Ollie to eon, I'm on the V4 Next drive tariff. You don't need and EV and a charge batteries up at night at 6.7p. export at 16.5p during the sunny days.
Jan my electric was £27 feb was £16, just done my SEG claim and got £40 for export from Mid dec to 2nd march. I've not done any brown exporting yet just not sure about wear on battery
Their CS isn't great I managed to squeeze a £100+ out of them as a goodwill gesture. The app is poor but I can put up with all that for 6.7p in and 16.5p out
That’s a good plan. Are those values fixed?
Yup fixed to 13/12/25
Think they are on V6 next drive now, no need for an EV. As long as you have panels and battery and be prepared for some hoop jumping to get SEG set up. Need a MCS doc, Schematic of solar set up, photo of smart meter and proof of address. I ended up getting a new smart meter as EON couldn't connect yet I could see data on Hugo, Loop, Bright etc
Anyone wanting a referral link just ask 😀
That's a much better deal than Octopus Flux. Flux is currently ~15p offpeak from 02:00-05:00 and export day rate of ~13p. on an import of 10kWh/d and an export of 20kWh/day, this is around £80p better on the import and 60p better on the export. That's a max delta of ~£40/ vs Octopus Flux on those numbers. On an Annual basis, this would be £300 better off. @bruneep - please send me a link.
If I could get a referral as well please!
Should have links guys. Any questions just ask Thanks
Flux is currently ~15p offpeak from 02:00-05:00 and export day rate of ~13p. on an import of 10kWh/d and an export of 20kWh/day, this is around £80p better on the import and 60p better on the export.
Do you have a heat pump?
If so I'd be looking at Cosy Octopus
I don't, so cosy is MUCH more expensive for me as I don't get the improved export rates that I do with Flux and even those are less than the Eon Tariff.
Just looking at solar plus a battery and there's lots of variation in the quotes. We're in West Oxfordshire, decent size unshaded south facing roof, quotes are based on 14 panels plus 8-10kWh of battery storage. Quotes seem to vary a fair bit so looking for advice and input from people who have done it already.
WFH a fair bit between the 2 of us so can utilise energy during the day, 2 teenagers so washing machine and tumble dryer seem to be on all the time and no gas in the village so oil for heating and hot water, electric for everything else. Will probably go for an air source heat pump when the boiler dies at some point in the future. Have a VW ID5 which will do vehicle to home/grid but the current charger won't cope with that, Sigenergy seem to do a charger that will work V2H but not sure how that would work or cost. On Octopus intelligent go so I'm assuming I can charge a battery at cheap rate overnight as well as the car.
Octopus 14 panels + 10kWh Enphase IQ Battery 5P £14135
e.on 14 panels + Giv Energy 9.5 kWh £13559
Skylar 14 panels + Sigenergy 8kWh £10526
Costco (Fresh) 14 panels + 5.76 Fox £10500
Waiting on local electrician to see what he come in with.
Any thoughts?
Crazy the differences in pricing between "official" installations and what you can potentially do it yourself if so inclined. I just built a 14 Kwh Battery for a mate for about £800 (I will build another shortly). We are about to upgrade his solar installation by buying a pallet of 32 x 410W panels for £1280. Add in £400 for the roof mounting hardwear and £1300 for a 8KW Victron inverter plus a couple of MPPT charge controllers for £300 a pop. His place is completely off grid mind (diesel generator backup) and he has a large south facing cattle shed which is ideal for panel mounting without the use of scaffold.
Indeed it's amazing what you can do if you skip the eng calcs /warranty / certification and training.
Branded Panels are 60 quid a pop locally for 450w these days.
I’m just waiting on a G99 approval before installation, but got 14 x 480w panels, 10kw battery, 6kw inverter for £8.8k through the solar together scheme. I’m in Hampshire.
Do you really believe that many of the fly by night installation companies take more care of aa home installion than you or i would? Training? Just look at the examples constatly being flagged on facebook. Warranty? Most companies seem to have folded before the first sunny day.
Of course there are good companies out there and you will need a qualified electrician to be allowed to export or have house insurance cover so diy won't be an option for most. But knowing the actual costs of hardware should help inform whether a quote is good value or not
@chowsh the Octopus and Eon quotes are adding a premium as there’s usually a premium export tariff you can use to recoup some of the extra costs. I’d work out what that gets you over a few years and see if it then brings its price closer to the middle quote, which I think is about right for the spec. I’d also carefully study the inverter being offered, its warranty, etc, especially across the top 3 quotes. Our inverter is attached to a 5.5kWp array and is specced at 6kWp in the UK but is actually rated to 8.5kWp, so there’s scope in the future to cheaply replace the panels with more efficient units of the same size, raise the power of the array without having to change the rest of the system.
@welshfarmer - what happens when you come to connect it to the grid? It won’t pass muster with a DNO, will it?
Correct. It is only an option if you want to live off-grid. Saying that it is possible to use an electrician for all the wiring, commmioning and certification and you do all the basic installation work, but you would need to be sure everything (notably the inverter) being fitted was capable of meeting current MCS/DNO approval. But good luck finding one unless they are a good friend or family!
Thanks, I did have a look at the prices of all the kit and the panels, assuming the big companies get a significant discount there seems to be a lot of labour or profit in their quotes. As I’m not qualified or capable of doing an install and all the paperwork to make sure I get all the feed in tariffs I will have to pay someone to do it. My trusted builder and electrician don’t do any solar stuff and are busy enough they have no plans to do it or I’d use them as I know their rates are reasonable.
I was working on the assumptions that the enhanced feed in tariff is only fixed for this year and 0% finance is probably built into the cost somewhere. I think Octopus allocated £1k for scaffolding which seemed a bit steep but I haven’t seen the breakdown for the others. I’m waiting on a quote from a local electricians who have started doing solar recently, he’s the only one who has actually come had a look at battery location, loft access etc. They do all the electrical work and fitting of the panels but use a local roofing company for scaffolding and installing the kit into the roof, very honest that that isn’t their area of expertise. Will see what they come back with.
Some of the kit like sigenergy seems to be modular for additional battery, car charging, etc. but what I don’t want to do is spend loads on bigger battery storage when it should become the norm to use what’s available in an EV at 8x the size of most home batteries. Bit of a minefield!
On Octopus intelligent go so I'm assuming I can charge a battery at cheap rate overnight as well as the car.
Yes, that's what I do. The battery is set to charge up and stay at 100% during the cheap rate period overnight.
Do you really believe that many of the fly by night installation companies take more care of aa home installion than you or i would? Training? Just look at the examples constatly being flagged on facebook. Warranty? Most companies seem to have folded before the first sunny day.
No but that's why I used a long established known local trusted company - one I could turn up at their door if they made a mess.
It's why I always say on here to avoid company's aggregating all the orders and farming them out to the lowest bidder where you have zero control over the work. -octopus/council schemes.
Btw only the installer can sign off your MCS can't be retrospectively done or done by an independent party.
The MCS is a racket but it's still worth having currently.
But yes the Facebook groups are great for highlighting how significant amounts of people can see the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Update,
Local firm 16 panels and 8kw sigenergy battery £11266 all installed etc. Can add another 8kw for £2500 plug and play. The only ones with a full breakdown of parts and labour, total of £6770 for all the kit £3750 labour, £745 scaffolding. Can add the module to use the car battery as storage but almost the same cost as the additional battery and apparently the software and bits aren't all playing nicely just yet.
Hive (British gas/Centrica) 16 panels and 13.5kw GivEnergy battery £14000
Decision time now and payback calculations all between 6-9 years.
I had my system installed nearly 3 weeks ago, I didnt opt for Bird Proofing as my road is dominated by seagulls, a day after the scaffold came down last week I hear coo-ing go outside and Doves are trying to get underneath the front panels and a Pigeon is under the back panesl... joy oh joys, couple of phone calls and next morning bird proofing installed for £500... Half the price the OG instaler wanted, but annoying!
Even more annoying is the Brid Proofer being a solar firm too and coming down and asking if the installer was MCS registered... then telling me one of the rails isn't attached to a bracket, spliced rails don't have enough brackets near the join and cables going under a tile haven't been protected... now to find time to call the firm which installed and point this out !
Still waiting for my Export MPAN and tariff to be set up, the sunny days last week it pained me to see export energy for free! Even if it was only a couple of quids worth.
the sunny days last week it pained me to see export energy for free! Even if it was only a couple of quids worth
if that!
At least you didn't have what happened at my mums holiday place. Basically the installers wired the export meter to the incoming side of the main house meter rather than into the consumer unit - so that we were effectively paying for our own generation.
I only discovered it after nearly two years when mum had died and I inherited the house. I fitted an Immersun to use the spare electricity for hot water (as the house is entirely electrically heated) but it just sat there 'waiting for surplus generation' even though I had everything switched off and it was a sunny day!
After I traced the wiring and checked my suspicions on another forum I got in touch with the installers. They had to send someone from Norfolk to NW Wales to correct it! They also had to pay me around £2k as that what I calculated I'd lost in FITs payments because of their error.
Looks like my Spidey senses were right. Fair old shafting from flux.
Import Rates up across the board .
Exports down a 3-4 pence except for the short peak cost export window that's gone up a disproportionate amount - and unless you've got a north facing array that windows next to useless for exporting.
Update,
Local firm 16 panels and 8kw sigenergy battery £11266 all installed etc. Can add another 8kw for £2500 plug and play. The only ones with a full breakdown of parts and labour, total of £6770 for all the kit £3750 labour, £745 scaffolding. Can add the module to use the car battery as storage but almost the same cost as the additional battery and apparently the software and bits aren't all playing nicely just yet.
Hive (British gas/Centrica) 16 panels and 13.5kw GivEnergy battery £14000
Decision time now and payback calculations all between 6-9 years.
do you actually use 8kwh of power in the "dark part" of a day? We just got our 4kw array with a 5kw battery installed, and this time of year is the first time with our base load that we're filling the battery up completely during the day - the battery is then empty at about 6am the next day. If I had a 16kwh battery I don't think I'd be using the majority of it every day - for half the year there just isn't enough light to charge it up and for the other half there isn't enough non-solar need to drain it. Obviously ymmv with things like electric hobs (which we don't have) or you're gaming the realtime tarrifs to earn some cash
Many people with a battery will charge it at a cheaper overnight rate on something like Flux, then use the battery to run the house for the rest of the day. To enable that your battery needs to be sized in line with typical usage. Some installers that quoted for us had a different approach and just sized the battery for evening and overnight but that doesn't work if you're at home (and using power) during the day.
so the flux changes are interesting
previously you could fully charge at night, and any excess be exported during the day would only be a fraction of a pence lost (due to efficiencies etc). after the changes it absolutely makes the most sense to use all that excess solar as it's like a 5 pence loss, so it will mean more accurate prediction of required battery charge, and switching things like washing etc to daytime solar useage.
The welcome thing is the massive drop in standing charge, which will help lessen the impact.
i haven't looked at the latest agile predictions, wondering if now agile with fixed export would be king
The welcome thing is the massive drop in standing charge, which will help lessen the impact.
Ours went up ..... which i thought was ironic given their carbon copy spin in the email about them coming down in most areas......
Equally because we live where the electrics mostly being generated and they are doing massive infrastructure (mega pylons) in our area to take it south..........
do you actually use 8kwh of power in the "dark part" of a day?
Yes if I look at our daily use. With the battery and export it is cheaper to charge the battery at the same time as the car on the overnight rate (7p) then use that up and export any excess during the day back to the grid at 15p. We're on oil for heating in our village so induction hob, 1 of the showers is electric, and tumble dryer/washing machine that seem to be on non stop. Eventually when the boiler goes we will look at a heat pump as well. Skylar have just done the survey and may be able to get a couple of extra panels on which seems sensible while the scaffold is up.
Anyone swapped to intelligent octopus flux? The batteries supported now includes what we have so tempted to try it.
Quick question. I've a new 8 panel system with 6 facing south and 2 facing west in the south of the country. On the last few sunny days the total output appears to be clipping at around 2.7kw (as in the graph goes up then "flat lines" at the top) which is the peak capacity of 6 panels.
Should I expect more than this at this time of year? I'm not sure if the rating is theoretical or practical in the uk
If it's clipping is it the peak output of your inverter? Ours clips at 3.6kW through the inverter but can hit 6+ when the (DC side) battery has space. I think our peak this month (15 panels) has been 5.4.
