Talk to me about solar panels.

The Hawk

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
Are you thinking of removing the battery completely, as I'd say a battery was essential nowadays? I'm guessing you also have an EV, and you're talking about night charging? If so there are longer tariffs you could spread the charging out on?

I looked at Ripple, and was interested, but decided on solar as it removed the need at source rather than a payback method plus the repayment window was rather delayed. As prices have changed though I may regret that decision.
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My home battery never got installed, despite promises by the installation company; the impression I got was that they took on far more orders than they could cope with. The two warning signs for me were that there no indications that they could go ahead even in 2023 but, more worryingly, they were starting to get some really bad feedback, so I cancelled the contract.

I then undertook a review and decided that I may go down a slightly different route. The first Ripple windfarm is proving to be very successful and windfarm 2 (the one I've signed up to) should be going live this year. Windfarms (and/or solar farms) 3 and 4 are due to launch very shortly and, given the high returns now expected (due to the changing energy market), a modest increase in my current shareholding, will cover my house and increased EV usage, effectively reducing my electricity bill to zero. The upfront investment will, based on current prices, be paid back well within 3 years.

The main two benefits of home batteries, for me, were taking advantage of time of use tariffs and being able to power the house during power cuts, both of which can be provided by an EV, providing it has bidirectional charging. A raft of new EVs are due to be launched this year and next, many of which are expected to have bidirectional charging, so this is the option I'm exploring currently.

I still need to decide on the way forward for my heating (currently gas) and, as I have previously mentioned, I'm on the waiting list for Tepeo's new electric night storage combi boiler, which is due late 2023 / early 2024. If I go down this route, I can further increase my Ripple wind/solar farm holding, to achieve net zero energy costs.

And, of course, I may revisit solar panels / home batteries at a later date.
 
Cue

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
The Hawk said:
My home battery never got installed, despite promises by the installation company; the impression I got was that they took on far more orders than they could cope with. The two warning signs for me were that there no indications that they could go ahead even in 2023 but, more worryingly, they were starting to get some really bad feedback, so I cancelled the contract.

I then undertook a review and decided that I may go down a slightly different route. The first Ripple windfarm is proving to be very successful and windfarm 2 (the one I've signed up to) should be going live this year. Windfarms (and/or solar farms) 3 and 4 are due to launch very shortly and, given the high returns now expected (due to the changing energy market), a modest increase in my current shareholding, will cover my house and increased EV usage, effectively reducing my electricity bill to zero. The upfront investment will, based on current prices, be paid back well within 3 years.

The main two benefits of home batteries, for me, were taking advantage of time of use tariffs and being able to power the house during power cuts, both of which can be provided by an EV, providing it has bidirectional charging. A raft of new EVs are due to be launched this year and next, many of which are expected to have bidirectional charging, so this is the option I'm exploring currently.

I still need to decide on the way forward for my heating (currently gas) and, as I have previously mentioned, I'm on the waiting list for Tepeo's new electric night storage combi boiler, which is due late 2023 / early 2024. If I go down this route, I can further increase my Ripple wind/solar farm holding, to achieve net zero energy costs.

And, of course, I may revisit solar panels / home batteries at a later date.
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Kinda crazy that you had that much trouble with a battery given any spark can install them
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Certain brands have had stock issues, others reliability ones, but if you aren't stuck on brand it shouldn't be an issue getting batteries installed.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Just saw my December bill, considering the solar wasn't installed til a week into the billing period my electricity cost was still covered by the £66 government help. Should be about £45 next month.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
If anyone has panels this new flux tariff from octopus looks great. Daytime SEG is higher than night time import, but you only get 3 hours import now. Fine for me as I have a 5kW inverter, but may catch some out.

Peak SEG is nearly double import, but not til late afternoon. Could always dump batteries though, potential to make money if careful.

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tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
We had optimisers fitted on the 12th, to try to combat the shading issues. They put them on all 14 even though the front 4 are in direct sun (3 rows of 4-5-5), but don't deal in the monitoring equipment as that doesn't 'do' anything to help as such. I purchased that separately, and got it up and running around the 16th IIRC (had covid so got delayed).

Results are interesting. My worst panel has 2 issues, shade from the front and the condense pipe from the boiler (added after the panels) across the top. This performs almost uniformly at 50% of the front panels. Other panels have varying degrees of issue, the outer ones on the middle row being the better at around 75% and the back row at about 60%. Previously each string would run at the equivalent of it's worst panel, but now each panel is independent to a degree, reclaiming a lot of lost energy on those front panels as the front 2 rows are wired together.

Its hard to say how much it's helped as the weather changes so much, but I'm consistently better than I was by a good 30% or so. Even so on days like the last few I've been lucky to make 4kWh and nothing can rectify shading other than removing what causes the shade!

I have plans to change the layout of the panels, losing one and making a 5-3-5 configuration with the middle panels in landscape. This will give me both more room between rows and a lower point of shadow for the back row, plus make maintenance easier as I'd be able to walk around the row of 3. With optimisers and placing the middle row closest to the front I should then get maximum potential from the front and back rows, with the middle row getting some decent output in the summer but maybe 50% at best for 8 months of the year. I'm not touching anything til I have more data though.

Here's todays yield so far:

Screenshot 2023-03-30 at 17.01.35.png
 
Cue

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
tek-monkey said:
If I had the money I'd have had a powerwall!
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Pylontechs if you’re feeling a bit more hands-on. You can stack them and add as you feel the need then, you only need a spark to commission the link from DC to AC.

There’s a few starter kits out there, just be wary of API limitations if you want to integrate into anything. If I ever have the money to do it we’ll probably integrate everything into our Home Assistant server as it has an energy hub now - in which case I’d probably want a system that I can have HASS manage dumping to the grid as well.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Cue said:
Pylontechs if you’re feeling a bit more hands-on. You can stack them and add as you feel the need then, you only need a spark to commission the link from DC to AC.

There’s a few starter kits out there, just be wary of API limitations if you want to integrate into anything. If I ever have the money to do it we’ll probably integrate everything into our Home Assistant server as it has an energy hub now - in which case I’d probably want a system that I can have HASS manage dumping to the grid as well.
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My solis inverter can either be controlled by the cloud or home assistant, having one negates the other. Well, there are workarounds, but they're not great. Also the API is for reading data only!

On a side note I turned off grid charging completely now, and battery was full again by lunchtime today. Already exported 5kw!
 
Cue

Cue

Well-Known Forumite
I was speaking to the landlord at the office about the rather large overgrown south facing bank behind our unit today… annoyingly it might be shaded though

I don’t suppose there was anything used to measure the potential output by way of an irradiance sensor or similar when you were eyeing up getting this done @tek-monkey ?
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Cue said:
I was speaking to the landlord at the office about the rather large overgrown south facing bank behind our unit today… annoyingly it might be shaded though

I don’t suppose there was anything used to measure the potential output by way of an irradiance sensor or similar when you were eyeing up getting this done @tek-monkey ?
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Nothing so fancy I'm afraid, just the Web based calculator from JRC and solcast. Both great for generalised info, not good for a specific spot. Best bet is to pop out at 10am, midday and 2pm to get an idea of shading in the best part of the day.

In other news I forgot to grid charge last night, so today I may use peak. Got about 7kWh useable in the battery 😭
 
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