Talk to me about solar panels.

tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
Yes, there's one stud wall in the whole house that happens to be upstairs. They've cut a small hole in that to feed it through, then under the floorboards to get it to the consumer unit.

8 of the 12 panels will be up today but the other 4 won't go on until the specialist scaffolders come and take down what they've blocked (and fix the tiles they've broken).

Powerwall has a longer lead time so we won't be able to store any energy for a while.
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Glad it's getting somewhere. I thought powerwalls were available again? Prices dropped recently by quite a bit, which I assumed meant stock issues were sorted, but maybe not.

Are your panels on multiple aspects?
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
The electrician is going to another job and won't be coming back until next week, not great.

We were told August for the powerwall due to backlogs.

We've got 4 on the Southern aspect of our single storey utility extension and then 4 on each of the east and west ridges of the original cottage.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
The electrician is going to another job and won't be coming back until next week, not great.

We were told August for the powerwall due to backlogs.

We've got 4 on the Southern aspect of our single storey utility extension and then 4 on each of the east and west ridges of the original cottage.
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Out of interest what mitigation have they used for 3 aspects? Are you using optimisers? Micro inverters? Multiple string inverters?

For my install we had 2 electricians and 2 roofers, the roofers were here maybe 5 hours but the electricians about 12!
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
We have optimisers but 2 invertors. The panels on the utility room are slightly smaller too, so there's 2 invertors going in the loft.

There were 4 roofers, they've done as much as they can today.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
We have optimisers but 2 invertors. The panels on the utility room are slightly smaller too, so there's 2 invertors going in the loft.

There were 4 roofers, they've done as much as they can today.
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Interesting choice, likely means there's a spare string too for future additions!

Your install sounds a lot more involved, mine was very straightforward in the end.
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
We've not got any other usable roof space really, the other south aspects can't fit 4. They are smaller on the utility roof due to space, although the OH is just about to ring up and have a moan about it all and ask why we can't have bigger panels.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
We've not got any other usable roof space really, the other south aspects can't fit 4. They are smaller on the utility roof due to space, although the OH is just about to ring up and have a moan about it all and ask why we can't have bigger panels.
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There are rules around distances to edges of roof, but they aren't fixed. 200mm is standard I believe but if wind calcs are done and appropriate extra brackets used closer is fine
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
We haven't got this information yet. The salesman showed us the app which was great so hopefully someone will tell us about that when it's commissioned.
 
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tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
We haven't got this information yet. The salesman showed us the app which was great so hopefully someone will tell us about that when it's commissioned.
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AFAIK there are 2 main systems, tigo and solaredge. If the app showed green panels it'll be tigo, blue are SE.

May be worth a casual enquiry before the scaffolding comes down, as they need to go on the back of the panels so could be a problem later if they forgot! There may be some panels with SE ones prefitted but I've never seen one.
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
The roofers haven't been back but the electrician was so 8 are working. I was in the office but apparently the roofers can just fit the last 4 themselves.

I can't see what we're producing yet, something went wrong with the Zappi and that needs sorting then I'll be able to see it through that app.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
The roofers haven't been back but the electrician was so 8 are working. I was in the office but apparently the roofers can just fit the last 4 themselves.

I can't see what we're producing yet, something went wrong with the Zappi and that needs sorting then I'll be able to see it through that app.
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If it's any consolation mine didn't even recharge the battery yesterday and today is looking worse, so you aren't losing out on much!
 
Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
Obviously not making any money yet but still...

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Lucy

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
Once they've actually finished the job we need to DNO certificate to start applying for export I believe, so not sure we'll make anything this year on it.
 
tek-monkey

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
Lucy said:
Once they've actually finished the job we need to DNO certificate to start applying for export I believe, so not sure we'll make anything this year on it.
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Is it a 3.6 inverter, or higher?

A 3.6 is post install notification only, but can still take a while
Higher than a 3.6 will have already been applied for and acceptance received, so they just need telling the work was done. In theory this is quicker as they already know about it, but not always.

You also need the MCS certificate from your installer.
 
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