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Energy prices - gone nuts.

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Wow 12k system that is a flipping beast!! Of a system. What size are the batteries?

Iv found in my 4.8kw system on a pure blue sky day they will peak at exactly 4kw but on partially cloudy days you get spikes over 5kw. I’d of expected pure sun to be exactly 4.8kw but I guess losses in the system and maybe angle of the panels / house might not all be perfect to get the 100% panel rating?
 
Calimori said:
Your peak might be 12kW but most of the time, you will get lower than that, and a smaller inverter is cheaper. Plus, I have read, inverters are most efficient close to their operational peak, so getting a larger one, that you will rarely hit the peak of, will not be as efficient. You will overal, generate more with one that is occasionally capped.
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You should be working for some of the solar company’s, it’s a question I asked until my head hurt, I never got an answer!

That said some of the solar companies I dealt with were just an utter joke! I guess their product the previous week was double glazing or similar! 😡

Thank you for your explanation, some sense 👍

Thank you!
 
I’ve found this thread helpfully and encouraging - I’m halfway there , did the install myself but getting the panels installed by someone else late August as scaffolding and roofer required - I will have a 6kw system when done and ability to add 2 more batteries in the near future when I have a spare £2.5k

Had some friends over last night to play TNA, everyone has the same opinion. Unless you are devoted or have the spare cash it is an expensive decision to install solar. I’m quite fortunate as I run my own electrical company and have a mate who is the same and now fits solar. I’ve saved on VAT and install costs and been able to buy everything at a heavy discounted price but it’s still a hefty whack ££
 
SeikoKid said:
I’ve found this thread helpfully and encouraging - I’m halfway there , did the install myself but getting the panels installed by someone else late August as scaffolding and roofer required - I will have a 6kw system when done and ability to add 2 more batteries in the near future when I have a spare £2.5k

Had some friends over last night to play TNA, everyone has the same opinion. Unless you are devoted or have the spare cash it is an expensive decision to install solar. I’m quite fortunate as I run my own electrical company and have a mate who is the same and now fits solar. I’ve saved on VAT and install costs and been able to buy everything at a heavy discounted price but it’s still a hefty whack ££
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I just love watching the graphs :D I’m a data bitch haha.IMG_8330.jpeg
 
russdx1 said:
That’s a fair chunk of battery storage :)
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I think everyone has their own individual usage patterns, for ourselves we’re pretty heavy electricity users, so as for battery storage I can honestly see us upgrading storage, there is a very convenient space that would fit another 3 batteries at 5.12Kw each.

Another rather overcast day today but solar output was still very impressive (to me) at 67.5Kw, we charged the car to 95% (the highest I ever charge it to), charged the storage batteries to max, and were rather frivolous with electricity consumption, that then meant 5Kw back to the grid FOC, all for the greater good! FIT will be with us soon.

The real fortunate thing about the whole install for ourselves is that my partner’s daughter and husband have a solar company, so the install cost was comparable with other installers but came with 2 x the panels and 2 and a bit x battery storage for the same money 👍
 
taz turbo said:
I think everyone has their own individual usage patterns, for ourselves we’re pretty heavy electricity users, so as for battery storage I can honestly see us upgrading storage, there is a very convenient space that would fit another 3 batteries at 5.12Kw each.

Another rather overcast day today but solar output was still very impressive (to me) at 67.5Kw, we charged the car to 95% (the highest I ever charge it to), charged the storage batteries to max, and were rather frivolous with electricity consumption, that then meant 5Kw back to the grid FOC, all for the greater good! FIT will be with us soon.

The real fortunate thing about the whole install for ourselves is that my partner’s daughter and husband have a solar company, so the install cost was comparable with other installers but came with 2 x the panels and 2 and a bit x battery storage for the same money 👍
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It’s not what you know but who you know :D
 
taz turbo said:
I think everyone has their own individual usage patterns, for ourselves we’re pretty heavy electricity users, so as for battery storage I can honestly see us upgrading storage, there is a very convenient space that would fit another 3 batteries at 5.12Kw each.

Another rather overcast day today but solar output was still very impressive (to me) at 67.5Kw, we charged the car to 95% (the highest I ever charge it to), charged the storage batteries to max, and were rather frivolous with electricity consumption, that then meant 5Kw back to the grid FOC, all for the greater good! FIT will be with us soon.

The real fortunate thing about the whole install for ourselves is that my partner’s daughter and husband have a solar company, so the install cost was comparable with other installers but came with 2 x the panels and 2 and a bit x battery storage for the same money 👍
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Same as mine, Sunsynk. Seems okay so far. Yet to look at what needs to be done in the winter to charge the batteries at night from a lower rate. Sunsynk have moved properties too, i wanted to do an inverter training course but am having to wait until they are sorted. Then i guess i can do the config changes my self. I guess i will have to figure out the time to swap over then the time to swap back again, including the tariffs etc. Anyone had experience of this swap over?
 
Octopus do a good tariff called Agile (I think its called that) which is per half hour rate which they release the day before, and they are very good with APIs to link whatever service you want to use to control you inverter.

Im pretty sure they even had times recently where they paid people to take power from the grid.

With my inverter I can leave it in auto so it charges the battery when exporting and drains when importing, and then there is a mixed mode where I can add a schedule to charge or discharge for a certain amount of time and at a certain rate and then it reverts back to auto outside the scheduled time, all this done on the inverter settings itself.

There is then a third slave mode where you use something to send commands to it over RS485 (Pi/ESP32 etc) to tell it what to do charge/discharge/standby etc and then you link this to something like Home Assistant or Node Red to get the information from Octopus or wherever and then let work in auto mode to charge at low/negative rates and then discharge during high rates.
 
I was quoted £12k for a 6.5Kw with 5.8Kw Battery last summer if that helps.
 
London Area -
For 6kw with 14 panels - materials only for me is £7800 net - less 18% as i paid cash up front instead of my 45day end of month system
Roofer, scaffolding and commission, solar connections and sign off is £4700 net
(£1200 scaffold / £2000 Roofer / £1700 design, lots of help, final connections commission etc )
Then there would have been profit on the £7800 ( prob 20% ) plus the cost for the install of what i did attached plus the cable run to the roof, the dist board and the 6mm from that to my invertor

At the mo i only have 4kw battery storage, will cost me another £2600 net for 2 more batteries for 6kw storage

If my roof was a better shape i could have gone with less larger panels and no scaffolding

anyone want to buy a B7 RS4 stage 2 tuned?
 

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Would anyone with experience in this field have a look at a quote I received and let me know their thoughts. A simple 4kw system no battery storage (possibly upgrade at a later date)

Dave.
 

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daveyp said:
Would anyone with experience in this field have a look at a quote I received and let me know their thoughts. A simple 4kw system no battery storage (possibly upgrade at a later date)
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So just for Solar only. I think panels are around £150 + VAT for 500w, then all the rails , scaffolding and install labour
I’m going off Canadian solar brand in my experience of cost
 
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daveyp said:
So this seems reasonable and the quotes on energy saved etc ?
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i was out last night at electricians meal put on by the wholesaler. I discussed this thread and your quote. The feedback was that it’s hard to pin down energy savings as it’s all depend and upon weather and where you are in the country / world

also the quality of your system. how clean / dirty the panels are and so on

My fitter mate gets more on slightly cloudy days than fully sunny days as heat = resistance and such lower efficiency of equipment

It was mentioned that your quote is quite a fancy photo heavy sales sheet. Are there other houses nearby in your area with solar ?
 
SeikoKid said:
i was out last night at electricians meal put on by the wholesaler. I discussed this thread and your quote. The feedback was that it’s hard to pin down energy savings as it’s all depend and upon weather and where you are in the country / world

also the quality of your system. how clean / dirty the panels are and so on

My fitter mate gets more on slightly cloudy days than fully sunny days as heat = resistance and such lower efficiency of equipment

It was mentioned that your quote is quite a fancy photo heavy sales sheet. Are there other houses nearby in your area with solar ?
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Yeah quite a few properties but no one who I speak to unfortunately. £4k seems about average price I keep seeing in my Facebook targeted adverts.
 
SeikoKid said:
i was out last night at electricians meal put on by the wholesaler. I discussed this thread and your quote. The feedback was that it’s hard to pin down energy savings as it’s all depend and upon weather and where you are in the country / world

also the quality of your system. how clean / dirty the panels are and so on

My fitter mate gets more on slightly cloudy days than fully sunny days as heat = resistance and such lower efficiency of equipment

It was mentioned that your quote is quite a fancy photo heavy sales sheet. Are there other houses nearby in your area with solar ?
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I see this as well, higher spikes in partially cloudy days. I thought it was sun reflecting off the clouds which peaks the sunlight.
 
Temperature reduces their efficiency.
My panels are embedded in the roof and I think they can’t radiate heat as well as roof mounted.
 
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daveyp said:
Yeah quite a few properties but no one who I speak to unfortunately. £4k seems about average price I keep seeing in my Facebook targeted adverts.
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My mate seemed to agree what you had been quoted for solar only at that size was in par with his experience of prices. Do you have an electric car ?
 
July is looking like a total washout with not much sun! I reken May will probably beat it.
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AlanJ said:
the above been quoted £16,5k - seems expensive but i'm going on last years prices
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I’m using a company called Heron electrical over near Wetherby - they’ve been genuinely brilliant so far, lots of responsive conversations, details and reasoning, but we’re still waiting on my G99 application (due 24th July - don’t underestimate how long that takes! G98 was quicker but pointless for our use case scenario) so no actual install yet (starts 31st July). I created my own design and spec, sent it over to a few companies and they were the only ones who understood it, let alone priced it very competitively and openly. We have 3 aspects, with changing shading, so a standard 2x MPPT design wasn’t going to be much use. I wanted Enphase Micro Inverters, but we’ve compromised on Solar Edge 8kw with about 11kw of panels, plus 1 or 2 Powerwalls depending on the G99 response. Plus an Eddi for hot water (already got a Zappi EV charger).

They also do a referral scheme, with £100 each, but that’s entirely your call. https://www.heronelectrical.co.uk/referral-scheme-terms/ and they may just hide that extra cost somewhere else, but no harm in asking. Dave and Ben (owners) have been nothing but knowledgeable and helpful so far, visiting twice to sort details, plan cabling, etc.

I can email over my spec and quotes over if you want. I’ve spent way too much time looking into this, so I’m happy to help, but I know you‘re a savvy chap so I’m sure you’ve done your own homework!
 
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Monkeyboypaul said:
I’m using a company called Heron electrical over near Wetherby - they’ve been genuinely brilliant so far, lots of responsive conversations, details and reasoning, but we’re still waiting on my G99 application (due 24th July - don’t underestimate how long that takes! G98 was quicker but pointless for our use case scenario) so no actual install yet (starts 31st July). I created my own design and spec, sent it over to a few companies and they were the only ones who understood it, let alone priced it very competitively and openly. We have 3 aspects, with changing shading, so a standard 2x MPPT design wasn’t going to be much use. I wanted Enphase Micro Inverters, but we’ve compromised on Solar Edge 8kw with about 11kw of panels, plus 1 or 2 Powerwalls depending on the G99 response. Plus an Eddi for hot water (already got a Zappi EV charger).

They also do a referral scheme, with £100 each, but that’s entirely your call. https://www.heronelectrical.co.uk/referral-scheme-terms/ and they may just hide that extra cost somewhere else, but no harm in asking. Dave and Ben (owners) have been nothing but knowledgeable and helpful so far, visiting twice to sort details, plan cabling, etc.

I can email over my spec and quotes over if you want. I’ve spent way too much time looking into this, so I’m happy to help, but I know you‘re a savvy chap so I’m sure you’ve done your own homework!
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Cheers Paul, will PM U
 
russdx1 said:
July is looking like a total washout with not much sun! I reken May will probably beat it.
View attachment 225060
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Not a total washout here, after not a great start to the day we ended generating just over 75Kw 😎

So, 16 days after the install and total generated so far has been 862Kw, with the exception of three days we’ve been off grid, however we’ve also exported a little so nett total has been off grid. I’m happy with that.

860Kg reduction in CO2
23Kg reduction in sulphur dioxide
1/2 tree equivalent planted

Spoke with the solar company who did my installation, now waiting on the quote on 3 more 5.12Kw batteries and another 5Kw inverter. Would have a two fold benefit, reduce export on the good days and we regularly draw upto 15Kw, so rather than having to manage load we could then draw the full 15Kw from the batteries as and when required.

Chris.
 
taz turbo said:
Not a total washout here, after not a great start to the day we ended generating just over 75Kw 😎

So, 16 days after the install and total generated so far has been 862Kw, with the exception of three days we’ve been off grid, however we’ve also exported a little so nett total has been off grid. I’m happy with that.

860Kg reduction in CO2
23Kg reduction in sulphur dioxide
1/2 tree equivalent planted

Spoke with the solar company who did my installation, now waiting on the quote on 3 more 5.12Kw batteries and another 5Kw inverter. Would have a two fold benefit, reduce export on the good days and we regularly draw upto 15Kw, so rather than having to manage load we could then draw the full 15Kw from the batteries as and when required.

Chris.
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Haha yeah your system is a bit of a beast :D go big or go home! How much battery storage will you have in total? Be interesting if you will be able to stay off grid over winter days as well with that many panels? Worse case you can just top all the batteries up with cheaper night rate power and run off them in the day :)
 
taz turbo said:
3 extra batteries would take the total to 41Kw.

Come winter we will still be reliant on the grid, yes, we intend to charge storage and car using off peak electricity.

Chris.
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That’s insane and cool at the same time lolol
 
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