Yes, I know, you can stagger your appliances to help reduce the peak load. I always forget to say something in these videos and it always comes back to bite me! Thanks for all the (many) comments pointing this out. My personal view is that I'm happy to accept a few pence of grid power per day but if you want to stagger your tea and toast by all means do so. Take it easy, all, and I'll see you in the next video.
I got a continuous load of about 600W for my house. But when the cooking starts: the peak is about 12kW. We have 2 3.8kW ovens, 1 Quooker of 1.6kW, an induction stove of 8kW. And a heated plate drawer. So 18kW, but I registered a max of 8kW so far. But yeah, this kitchen will be the only thing that determines the amount of batteries and inverters I need. Limiting battery use to 100A @ 50V I need roughly 3 batteries to accommodate cooking. Batteries will be 280Ah x 16 prismatic batteries with a seplos casing probably. Yes, I would be able to do 200A or more with that, but I don't want to overestimate my batteries. I'd rather underestimate them and have room for anything I forgot. But yeah, the kitchen means about 4 inverters, and the remainder of the house a single same spec inverter. With victron I should be able to stack the inverters and put them in low power mode after cooking.
*What is the spec of the batteries you have on the system? This video is really helpful to see what runs. We mostly have the clothes dryer and kettle going at once? We are looking into systems and batteries at the minute.*
@@ShipsoftheOceans at the time we recorded this video we didn't have our system installed so I mentioned a few examples of battery specs during the video (3.6 kW for some, 5 kW for others etc.). Here's the system we ended up with: ua-cam.com/video/m1mIljYtFds/v-deo.html
@@ShipsoftheOceans our current system has a GivEnergy Gen 2 hybrid 5 kW inverter which is capable of 3.6 kW output from the batteries alone, rising to 5 kW if there is solar too.
Great video aswell, its way far on, it would be a start off system I will be going for, a hybrid as we get a fair share of wind at the same time. 4000w solar and 6000w wind, would have a 7500w inverter on 24v 100ah 2560wh x2 for 200ah 5120wh starting. I dont know if the discharge increases like the ah and wh when connecting more together.
Our Tesla Powerwall is sufficient to run our detached house off-grid the vast majority of the time. In winter we use cheap overnight electricity (Octopus Go) to charge our EV, heat our hot water and run our UFH. Six months ago we switched from a kerosene powered Rayburn to an ASHP, and this combined with our solar PV and battery storage is saving us a small fortune.
@@richardmarkham8369 You might have to spend a small fortune to save a small fortune! I was quoted £10, 450 for a Powerwall install, though have to wait until next September to get it. Then recently had an email from installer saying Tesla have increased the price by £1260. So a PW is a big up front expense. Unless you're going to be in your house for many years (and the battery lasts long enough) cI'm not sure I'll get the money back from reduced leccy bills. So purely as a financial prospect - an investment with a ROI, it might not add up. I'm having second thoughts now, and may go for a cheaper system, if I can find a decent local installer. The PW's potentially self-combusting lithium ion technology is also starting to look a bit outdated.
One other high usage electrical appliances that most people forget about is the electric shower - that will draw from 7kwh to 10kwh depending on your shower. Depending on your family each usage can last from 10 mins onwards.
Thanks. Peak load is a simple but key issue that every person who is buying a system considers carefully. Very nicely demonstrated here. Well done both.
Very interesting and thank you for sharing. We only just got solar installed back in October and are considering battery storage from 2023. They cost a lot 😅 but at current energy prices and further increases in the way, maybe I might break even in 6 years rather than 12-15 years estimated on our solar system (3.2kwp with solar edge inverter) By the way… I love your kitchen slick, clean and very nice!
If I wanted to be really frugal I could always use my slow cooker which is rated at 50 watts. Of course as mentioned one wouldn't necessarily use all appliances at once.
My 11.8kWh batteries run my house for about 6 hours in the winter and about 20 hours in the summer. Everything in my house is electric including my heat pump, (for heating and hot water), cooking and hot tub
If we were to have blackouts, the issue with exceeding the limit when there is no grid to draw from is that the inverter shuts off. Which is massively inconvenient. Keep up the great work.
Yes, indeed, you've got to be super careful not to draw too much from the battery in a blackout. I'm considering doing a video on that subject once we have our system installed and I know what the limits are.
It is possible to add a non grid tied inverter to a system where you have access to all the components. Commercial, all in one offerings, possibly not. But you need to know what you are doing, and a bit of rewiring of the consumer unit is needed. Or running extra circuits/extension leads to critical loads. I will be turning my GTI off during any blackout season. So using all my solar to charge batteries to use when the power goes out.
Can I just ask here. . . is my understanding correct that in the event of a power grid cut, it's only by having invested in a GATEWAY that will enable you to use battery power to continue to run the house?
Same applies to just solar PV, you are never going to cover your entire peak demand unless you have 6kw+. The holy grail of all of this of course is Vehicle To Grid, coming on CCS sometime after 2025 it appears...
You will only be able to additionally draw from the solar, on peak loads, if you have an AC coupled system. I don't know if that includes the majority of commercial home battery installs? On my DC coupled system, I have the GTI capacity, and that is it. In my case the max I can offset is 900W, but as you point out, the peak loads are only transient. It is the quiescent loading that dominates my power useage. Scaling the GTI up to cover peak loads would just not be cost effective.
Some folks have mentioned that you can charge your battery from the solar panels in a power-cut if you have a hybrid inverter. I don't know much about that though and would like to learn more to know for sure if that's possible and under what circumstances. Does it need setting up in a particular way, for example.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I agree. As you pointed out, these peak loads are very transient, and realistically only cost pence. I don't have a hybrid inverter, so don't know what their carpabilities are, in terms of running with the grid down. Also I suspect the term is used quite loosly and doesn't really describe a particular piece of equipment. If it can invert whithout the grid being presnt, then it should be possible to isolate the grid at the consumer unit and then turn on the hybrid inverter. And it may be possible to set them to only charge the battery, leaving you with battery capacity in reserve. My own system is very DIY and made up of building blocks, so I am in full control of charging etc. In reality, most of us are only going to see limited and planned power outages. In such cases it doesn't really make much sense to try and engineer a full house power backup, for what little use it will actually get. Getting some camping lanterns/gas burner, having a meal pre-cooked using the timer on the oven, setting the heating to warm the house in advance, should make power cuts quite trivial. The internet/4g would probably go down, so no need to keep TV/PC's going. I will be doing a full house backup, but just because it's a fun project, rather than any practical necessity. In the last big power cut we had (12hrs), I just grabbed stuff from the camping box.
We have a 14 kWp solar array, 2 x ev, an air source heat pump coupled with a 5 year old Tesla powerwall 2. Because we have the DNO limit of 5.5 kW, the Tesla powerwall has a limit of the maximum 5 kW available to us and on top, the 3 inverters of the 14 kW solar array so we tend to do heavy loads during the daylight hours like the air source heat pump, washing and of course, electric car charging even on bright days in November. We use Octopus go to charge the powerwall to full every night during winter time and we have successfully avoided buying peak rate electricity, except for the reaction times from the powerwall from the induction cooker.
Hi, really good explanation and something to consider. Can i just confirm if im using 5kw total will my Givnergy battery still provide my 3.6kw and the grid will provide the 1.4kw or does my battery just cut out and the 5kw comes from the grid? Many thanks
This is one reason why I'm looking to install twin batteries, along with a solar/wind hybrid generation system on a new build, single occupancy bungalow. It's all well & good having 10kwh sitting there but if you can't access it at the rate needed, it's not as useful as one would expect.
You'd also need two inverters. But bear in mind that the amount of time you'll be pulling more than one battery/inverter is capable of providing is going to be very rare, so consider that the extra cost of the equipment might not be worth it in the long run given you'll be spending a couple of pence per day on peak rate power. Domestic wind power is also rarely worth it, unless you are on a hill with no trees or buildings nearby and have a very tall pole to mount your turbine on.
you need to plan better, put the toaster on and when it pops up then put the kettle on, same with the cooker, when the oven reaches its temp and the lasange goes in then put the chips in the air fryer which takes less time to cook anyway, if you plan your consumption when using batteries and the panels to lessen the immediate load there should be no problem
yeah, that's not really the point of this video. I know we could do all that but we're trying to demonstrate that you can continue to keep your same lifestyle you'd just need to accept a small amount of grid use for a few minutes a day, which isn't that big a deal. Unless you want to do all that stuff of course. I'm not telling people what to do, just pointing out the options. People can live their lives how they choose.
yea - you learn about load balancing REAL quick when living with solar/batteries, don't ya? the fact is, NO ONE TURNS ALL OF THESE SYSTEMS ON AT THE SAME TIME when 'off grid'! AND you have to understand - how long does it take to make toast? or run your kettle? OR YOUR MICROWAVE?? it's not like you are running these systems for hours upon hours upon hours... and, again, NOT at the same time. gotta say, this was a *slightly* disingenuous demonstration/video.
Did you watch to the end? I did say that it's not a big deal if you use a lot for a short time. If you understood the video properly you wouldn't have made that comment.
The temperature of the battery plays a part too, if your battery is installed outside, in a garage or loft and it is below 20'c then it will not be able to provide 3.6kw. I have heard that at 10'c the output drops to around 2.8kw
No batteries will go in the loft, take the GIV energy battery over 100 KG, i would pay money to see anyone lift a battery up a loft 🪜, apart from the location in the loft all ladders could not stand weights of 100Kg plus person’s.
@@philip_james unless your neighbours installation don't foul the manual then that's okay. but giv energy installation are as follows: 5.2 Selecting the installation location Ø This is guidance for installer to choose a suitable installation location, to avoid potential damages to device and operators. Ø Raintight or wet location hubs that comply with the requirements mentioned in this installation manual are permitted. Ø The unit shall be mounted at least 914 mm (3 feet) above the ground. Ø The installation location must be suitable for the inverter's weight and dimensions for a long period time. Ø Select the installation location so that the status display can be easily viewed. Ø Do not install the inverter on structures constructed of flammable materials. Ø The humidity of the installation location should be 0~95% without condensation. Ø The installation location must safely accessible to get at all times. Ø Vertically installation or tilted backwards by max. 15°. and make sure the connection of inverter must be downwards. Never install horizontal and avoids forward and sideways tilt. Ø Be sure that the inverter is out of the children’s reach. Ø Don’t put any things on the inverter. Do not cover the inverter. Ø Do not install the inverter near television antenna or any other antennas, antenna cables. Ø Inverter requires adequate cooling space. Providing better ventilation for the inverter to ensure the heat escape adequately. The ambient temperature should be below 40°C to ensur e optimum operation. Please make sure the inverter is installed at the right place， so unless there is a stair case & proper insulation with a giv energy installation will void the warranty not with standing getting the batterys up any staircase. i'm an installer i know what i'm talking about.
@@philip_james if they have a Giv install, are you going to do the neighbourly thing & tell them about the lack of warranty they now have. Ps YT can also be full of shite & good advice as well.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I m afraid you can't be saving £10 a day because that means you were paying £300 a month in Electricity and now your bill dropped to £0 which is unrealistic plus this Battery Storage Systems are not £0 nor its installation is £0 this can easily cost £15,000 this cost over 48 months it's still around £312 every month not £0
Could we have a "Tim and Kat's Green Walk" video with the two of you in green fields or forests, walking arm in arm, pointing out things to each other off-camera and laughing, perhaps soundtracked by Greensleeves or similar?
Hi Tim ..I have a query .I got two quotes one with solis 5kw and puredrive 2 5kwh battery and another with Giv energy gen 2 hybrid and 5.12 kwh givenergy battery . Which one should I go for . The charge and discharge rate is better on solis and puredrive I beleieve. What is your honest opinion. Thank you
I'm afraid I can't give you an honest opinion because I've not used Solis or Puredrive products. The one thing I will say is that the level of control you have over a system is more important than almost any other feature so check to see what you can do with it. ua-cam.com/video/4jpWeRkkJRo/v-deo.html
Have you considered a boiling water tap? The Quooker uses hardly any power (10W per day to keep the water in the vessel at temperature) and you always get exactly how much you need, so you're not boiling water you're not going to use.
I noticed your equipment uses less power than equipment in Australia, my Microwave uses 1000 watts just on, not running, then another 900 on top of that to cook.
It's foolish to think getting off the grid. With the battery and panels, the amount of kWh acquired from the network is simply reduced. Nothing more. What tool is that to see consumption?
That's the in-house display that comes with the smart meter. I'm not suggesting getting off grid in this video, but it's not foolish to try and reduce your grid use.
This shows Solar & Home Storage does not actually work , if it does not cover peak loads ,idle loads are only 0.22 pence per hour 🙄 Why would anyone need help dealing with such costs 😕
Interesting experiment. I will confess I sat down with a calculator when I was doing the checks. I managed to do two things. 1) Get 36 solar panels and 2 by 5kw Solaredge inverters (aka max 10 kw of solar). 2) Get 2x Lux 3.6 AC inverters which on average provide up to 6.6KW combined power. This means that on a really good day in May we could have 8 to 9 kw from the Solar and up to 7kw from the batteries. The average over the year is more likely 4 to 5kw of solar, but this does allow for a large amount of flexibility. The key to all of this is agreement from the DNO, they need to agree that in the worse circumstances you could dump that amount of power on the grid. Of course, having 2 of the inverters increases the installation costs, but from a utility point of view it makes a big difference. We do seem to have the washing machine, tumble dryer and dish washer running most of the time, but that is what happens with a young family.
Depends on the day. In the Winter we use the whole lot because of the heating. I've got tons of stats update videos on the channel showing our usage throughout the year so feel free to watch them for all the details.
Tin and Kat great video. I have battery's myself and being aware of your usage is really very important indeed. My battery runs out much earlier in the winter months for sure but we try and reduce our usage. You have to continue life so you will use more. To save I have freezer in the garage and American fridge on timers that switch off the appliances for a period of 7 hours per day on the high rate use. Bearing in mind no one is opening it and closing it. When we have a break with good light so checking weather forecast is key to maximizing your system. So we would boil water using solar then flask it up for teas and coffee.when we need one say during day it's normally hot enough if not I will put in a cup of hot flask water to boil again but it's very quick with little KW as it's already hot. We have now managed to bring our homes KW over night and during the day to 150w as we switch everything off , so nothing is now on standby. We have noticed a huge difference in KW usage and our pockets. Next year my project is to buy a EV battery to use for my home use. But again it's how much it costs to save.
Nice, that's a neat trick with the flask. Our baseline is less than 100 W overnight but I'm not entirely sure how we manage that as we don't do anything special with turning everything off or anything. Just lucky I guess. Good luck with your future plans!
Yes I also heat my thermoses, all 4 of them 😀 Then use to cook food with them (effectively preheating for the hob) as well as for hot drinks. I turn my fridge down to 2C during the day then up to 8C overnight. Have had solar PV and immersion diverter heater for many years so hot water is taken care of. Got the gas capped off last month as the standing charge was 2/3rds of the bill. I heat the house with local foraged wood. Also put a kettle on the woodburning boiler. Bought a portable duo induction hob as used to cook with gas. Charge my numerous bike torches and portable led lights to use at night as well the USB battery sticks. Makes a huge difference; have low wattage led lights so not too much energy if they’re turned on.
I also have solar, you can use a feedback tariff during the day to offset the peak costs should you have to use a high power device even at peak times.
Great video! 1 thing I'm not 100% sure on though which I'm hoping you may be able to answer. You say that in summer months the limited 2.6kw distribution of battery can be topped up by solar. How does that work? Am I right in thinking it could be 2 6kw fed in by battery & 3.6kw fed in by solar due to 3.6kw inverter giving a total of 6 2kw or am I talking nonsense?
If you have a 5 kW inverter, say, and the battery can discharge at a maximum of 2.6 kW, then you can still get 5 kW from the inverter as long as there is 2.4 kW coming from the solar. If, however, you had 4 kW coming from solar then the battery would only need to discharge at 1 kW to reach the maximum output of the inverter. If you had a 3.6 kW inverter then you'd only ever get 3.6 kW from it in whatever combination of solar + battery you had available. I hope that makes sense.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thats answered the question. I will be getting a 3.6kw inverter. Hopefully it will cover majority of usage & limit what I take to the grid to a few pence here & there. Thanks
Have you tried to make one thing at the time so that high load doesn't become a problem? anyway a kettle or toaster just takes few seconds or minutes to run
That's an option for those who want to save every Watt from coming from the grid, but for the sake of 2p per day I don't really worry about stuff like that.
Great video. My Fronuis Gen 24 10kW with BYD batteries manages to cover our peak usage. Not sure why they are not more popular in the UK. Only downside is they have only just started allowing you to charge off peak overnight but software always improving. Lovely to see Kat and hopefully she will feature more in the future. I have really enjoyed getting my partner enthused will the solar/batter lifestyle.
@@singlendhot8628 presumably those people dont have a ; Car kettle Fridge Freezer Tv Radio Toaster Mobile phone Gas or electric boiler Oven Microwave Light bulbs Doorbell Anything battery operated Anything electrical not mentioned above. Clothes Shoes Household products Bedding & laundry Health & sanitary products Hair products Shaving products Food that is packaged in Chinese sourced materials......... Still, I guess that tent life is sufficiently enjoyable for them to stand firm on their beliefs .... I do hope that they haven't forgotten to check that the tent in which they live isn't made in China too, heaven forbid!🤔
Don’t use a 3kw kettle or stagger the usage… I use a electric airpot that boils the water slower but at 750w… Use things like the glass air fryer and instapot for low energy cooking or rice cooker to boil vegetables and sauces…
Yup, definitely something to consider. The GivEnergy All in One has a charge rate of 6kW, that might be worth a look if you've not already considered it.
Our setup is:- 7.2 kWp Solar Array with 5 kW inverter 27 kWh Tesla Powerwall Storage & Gateway 1 x 7 kW Car Charger for Solar Excess 2 x 22 kW Car Chargers for Fast Grid 8 kW Heat Pump 1 x Tesla Model 3 Performance Car 1 x Skoda Enyaq VRS Car (on order) 3 Phase Smart Meter on Octopus Go EPC A+ Rated House Retrofit in 2021 (EPC Scored 107 out of 100)
average power & stand by power is all the battery is designed for. Best advice i could give. Get it installed and & forget. System wait time on order is 6mts, don’t also forget the battery only install system is NETT + Vat. Saving are normally £50 month Also expect your installer to say the cost of material is only valid for 28 days, Payback 8-9 years.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk 👍👍👍. Thanks a lot. You’re way ahead in GB 🇬🇧 compare to us in 🇫🇷 for exemple in term of technical solutions and projects to cope with the energy crisis. Keep Going.
Really good vid and started to follow. I am looking at solar and batteries and currently the top option is a SE option, 9pkw, with 8k SE inverter and an SE battery DC coupled. So my max I think would be 8k.... enough for anything needed really.
Sounds good. Worth checking that the inverter can charge and discharge the battery at the full 8 kW. Some of them have lower rates for the battery but I think the SE inverters do allow the full rate although I'm not 100% certain.
It does seem rather daft in a post energy crisis era just how high a rate of energy consumption we use to heat a small amount of food. Alternative food warming solutions will be needed, a 1kw kettle will solve a lot of the problems. Argos have them for £10-£15.
Hi Tim and Kat, just a couple of things to think about here. First I would suggest you check very carefully that a 5KW inverter will be enough for the panels you propose as I’m not sure it will. I understand that east west will reduce the noontime peak, but I have 7.7KW of panels with a 7KW inverter and on the best days this last summer I saw over 6 generation (my panels are slightly south west/north east, but still split 12 panels on west and 8 on east. The other thing that you want to consider in terms of the load that would be covered by a hybrid inverter, is that the issue isn’t so much the peak load it’s more the large sustained loads that are the issue. In your example of the kettle that’s on for a couple of minutes, it’s only going to be some of that load that would be from the grid as most of it will be from solar or batteries assuming they have sun or charge respectively, however even if the whole of that was from the grid it would be around 0.1 of a kWh or 3p of electricity. On the other hand the tumble drier or the oven has a load over a longer time and so you will use much more in the way of kWh from that type of appliance. We have found that by running the devices such as dishwasher and washing machine one at a time, you can really reduce grid usage. Most of the inverters of the type that you are considering will have the 3.68KW limit due to trying to avoid the need for the other type of assessment by the electricity supply company as that’s apparently a lot more effort.
We're biting the bullet and going for two 5kW string inverters, one for each bank of 14 panels (east/west) and wearing the DNO approval delay. A 10kWh battery with a 5kW inverter and we shouldn't be using much grid energy at all. We're retired, so in during the day to run dishwasher/washing machine/tumble dryer(infrequently) straight off solar. The car charging will need to be managed, but I'm hoping just plugged in more often to the Zappi. Currently I'm plugging it in once a fortnight to top up from 50% to 80%.
I calculated that our E/W split array would max out at about 5.3 kW, which is easily handled by the 5 kW hybrid inverter as that has a 6.5 kW max input limit. That extra 0.3 kW above the 5 kW AC output will be very rare but when it does happen those extra 0.3 kW will go straight through to the battery, which is handy (this clipping is something most hybrid inverters can do, apparently, which is nice). So yes, it's something I've accounted for but thanks for brining it up as it's something folks should consider. I did mention in the video that the cost would be on the order of pence for those short bursts where you're drawing a bit extra from the grid, so not really a huge deal for the most part. Our oven reaches temperature in about 5 mins, so a similar picture there. Certainly it's worth making note of other situations where the load is high, as you mention, but for us those were the big ones. I'd encourage other folks to make their own observations in a similar way.
We have a Moixa battery and the peak charge and discharge is just 2kw , even with this low level you can just about get it to work ,it a bit of a game, but when I don’t mind playing! We no longer use the kettle instead use the induction hob as can reduce the output to match our load .
I’m subscribed to this to see the changes after you have your system installed. I went through similar exercises and then I was guilty of becoming obsessed and then getting all shouty when the Mrs put multiple things on at the same time. I learnt quickly when seeing what the excess peaks cost post PV / battery to not stress the small stuff. To focus on the bigger consumers like the dishwasher / washing machine which are sustained loads and can easily be shifted to off peak and no battery draw. You can’t shift teatime and I personally wouldn’t size a system to cater for the one off peaks neither would I compromise on lasagne OR chips -Your peak time usage should be so low after getting the system installed you’ll look back and chuckle (My daily usage is ~18kWh off peak with about 0.5kWh peak with a SolarEdge 10kWh battery and 3.8kw inverter - I can live with that)
Yes, indeed, the point of this video was to demonstrate what the implications are of peak loads, not necessarily to change what you do to try and mitigate them. If that's the sort of thing folks want to do then that's fine, but as you say I'm not going to stress over a few minutes of grid use at peak loads. I wanted to make this video to help ensure people are aware of this sort of thing and don't assume that a battery will magically cut their grid use to zero! I'm very much looking forward to doing a follow-up video with the full system installed for comparison.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions when you get it installed. For me it has turned out far better (and easier to see / manage) once the system is in place. Best of luck and thanks for the content
You never been to pub and seen this on the menu? It's a pub classic. Also, my biggest takeaway from your comment is that you're very judgemental and need to reevaluate how you interact with people you don't know online.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I hoped the emoji showed I was making a light hearted humourous comment and not trying to troll you. That wasn't my intention. I still watched the video from start to finish and found it very informative. Clearly I haven't been going to the right pubs.
@@dheaddy perhaps I was a little harsh. Honestly, I didn't even spot that emoji when I first read your comment and replied in haste. You're not the first to point out the double carb thing but I wonder why folks point this out yet will probably not bat an eyelid at burger and chips appearing on a menu, or ordering a side of garlic bread with their pasta. Especially considering how little actual pasta is in lasagne, relatively speaking. When you start a UA-cam channel you open yourself up to this sort of comment, of course, but boy, I was sure not prepared for my lifestyle or personal choices to come under such critique. I'm much more careful about what I include in our videos now but even so every time there will be something I didn't anticipate that someone will pick up on. The internet is weird.
you can expect a charge in your battery in winter of around 1.5kw to maybe 2 max, battery in winter is going to do little the same as solar in winter is going to do very little, thats with a 6kw array, most winter days you can expect pretty much no charge in your battery, batteries are a must tho, they buffer your loads and obviously let you run 24/7 in good daylight hours
We can charge our batteries at 3.5kW overnight using a cheap off-peak tariff. Not sure where you got your 2kW max from. Are you suggesting you can only charge your batteries from solar? Charge your batteries overnight with a time of use tariff during Winter for the best results.
Ahh yes sorry was referring to solar we cant get a cheap off peak tarrif that's viable for us. You can also get a 1.5kw kettle then if you have the oven or the washing or the dishwasher on you should be under your 3.6kwh output max.
@@AndrewBrelsford ah, that's a shame. It makes a big difference for us in the Winter being able to charge the battery overnight. I'm also not too bothered about a little bit of grid draw each day in the Summer, it usually amounts to a couple of pence at most, as the time spent above the battery limit is usually very small. In practice 3.6 kW appears to be plenty for our purposes.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Yes i agree 3.6kw inverter does enough. Yeah we need an ev to get those tarrifs. The Leaf is interesting but not one i would really want to own. You can use the new ones to either power your house from the cars battery or obviously drive the car, you would still need a small dedicated home battery though. but so far the inverters make a horrific level of noise.... one day soon ) Good luck Tim
Really interesting and informative videos. I’m just about to start on this journey, and it is hard to cut through the green washing and misinformation - the 4x return on energy inputs from an ASHP being a prime example. I hope you don’t have any near neighbours, as we had new houses built next door to us, all with ASHPs, and the droning noise was so bad that we had to move. One of the new owners invited his daughter to stay over Christmas and she left after one night as the noise from the heat pump was so bad. If you are in a town you may not notice it, but in a quiet countryside location they are murder. Make sure you go and listen to your chosen pump first at a quiet time of day
Yup, we live in the quiet countryside and I was very concerned about the potential for noise, so I made sure I chose the quietest heat pump I could, and located it as far from neighbours' windows as possible. I've checked the noise level several times and it's barely noticeable more than a few meters away, so it's all good. In fact our own ensuite window is the closest to the heat pump (about 4-5m) and we can't hear it when the window is closed, and have to listen carefully to make it out when we open the window. Most modern systems are very quiet now so it sounds like the ones you've experienced were unusually loud. The 400% efficiency of heat pumps is not greenwashing though, that's a real thing, they really can be that efficient. We've been running our system for a couple of weeks and it's been keeping the house warm using less than 500 W so far (in fact right now it's drawing about 300 W). I'm expecting that to go up as it goes colder but we're currently using about 5 kWh of electricity for heating per day when we'd otherwise be using 20 kWh of gas, easy.
@@simonr4031 haha! Yup, I'm not messing about. We'll be doing a thorough video showing our A2A heat pump system soon, covering choosing the system, why we went for A2A instead of A2W, how the installation went, and what it's been like living with it so far. And later in the winter I'll hopefully have some better data on how it performs when it gets really cold so we'll do a follow-up then. The whole point of this channel was to show some real world examples that might be helpful for other folks to see, so I'm hoping that'll be the case as we continue making more videos. Thanks for the support.
We have a Mitsubishi ECODAN 11kw output ASHP; it is very quiet - neighbour didn’t know we had it until we told her. We did listen to one at their showroom before buying. Multiplication factor is 3.4 in use, which is what was claimed
A lot of systems have some form of power-cut back-up that allows the battery to run some circuits, or in some cases the whole house. Some require more effort to set up than others though.
I'm looking at a 5+kW PV and 10kWh battery setup and I've been through exactly the same investigation. In my case with a background load of around 600w then switch on 3 induction rings, oven , 1000w microwave (which actually uses 2.1kW) and someone switches on the kettle - I'm drawing 12kW..... I've also downloaded a year's worth of data from my Octopus Go account in 1/2hr time slots, so quite a lot of data. I then analysed it in Excel to give me the range of the kWh load at peak and off-peak rates. N.B. kWh, not Kw so its actual consumption in a 1/2hr, not instantaneous load. I banded this as:
I applaud your commitment to understanding your requirements. That's definitely a good thing to do to make sure you get the best system for you. I wish you the best of luck!
Tim, you are doing a great job, thanks for your info videos. We are planning on getting a "Giv-HY 5.0 Gen 2" inverter with 4 x "Giv-Bat 9.5" batteries. This is to help power our 3-holiday lets &pool/ spa facilities. I understand each batter has 3.6KW charge/discharge power. As we have more than 1 battery we can achieve the full 5KW inverter output power. Is that correct, or will I only be limited to 3.6KW?
Thank you, I'm pleased you like what we're doing. That's a very good question about the multiple batteries. The way I understand it is that if all of the batteries are daisy-chained together and connected into the one inverter, it's the inverter that limits the charge/discharge rate, so you will only be able to charge up at 3.6 kW or draw 3.6 kW from those batteries. The inverter will still be able to output 5 kW of AC power but only if there is a combination of solar power, plus the batteries (unless you have 5 kW of solar power in which case all 5 kW will come from solar!). One option, since you have multiple properties, would be to split the system into two, or more, and have an inverter for each part. But not knowing the details of your setup I wouldn't want to presume that this is necessarily possible for you.
Thanks for this, good demonstration. I’ve been struggling with this topic myself as I didn’t like the idea of spending all that money on a solar/battery setup with all that stored power and still drawing from the grid in the evenings. I’ve ended up settling, after MUCH deliberation, for the GivEnergy All-in-one (I appreciate this wasn’t available when you made this vid), as I’m attracted by the 6kw output / peak of 7.2. My installer is happy anyway as I’ve driven them mad with questions over the last 2 weeks before finally arriving at the setup I was looking for.
That's a good choice, in my opinion. If it had been available when we were deciding on our system I would have gone with the AIO. Although in reality we use so little grid power, even with the 3.6 kW limit. A couple of pence a day in the Summer (more in the Winter but that's because we run out of battery to power the heating by the evening at this time of year).
I a now looking at a Sunsynk system with 4 x 5.1KW batteries which on Octopus Go will give just over 20KW for 4 hours charge which is my average On peak daily usage and I am thinking that if I use one of their 8KW Inverters that will allow me to draw 8KW (36amps) at any one time What do you think?
Yeah, that sounds pretty good, although there's one caveat. I'm not sure the 8 kW inverter will give you 8 kW from the batteries though as it may be the battery discharge rate limits you to 5 kW (I think). If you've got solar connected to it too then the solar could provide the extra 3 kW, potentially. Worth checking the data sheets for both the inverter and batteries to see what the limits are but if I remember correctly the Sunsynk batteries max out at 5 kW, so you might not be able to make full use of the 8 kW inverter.
My impression is that the biggest factor in supporting the peak load is the capacity of your inverter. Whatever the size of your solar array or battery is, the output would be the max supported by the inverter which in most cases is 3.6Kw. This is the max inverter capacity for a G98 application.
Yes, that's exactly what I said in the video, although I realise I perhaps wasn't totally specific when I said battery-inverter systems. A lot of inverters support 5 kW discharge from the battery (I mention several of them in the video), and don't necessarily need more than the G98 as it's only the export to the grid that is limited, not the draw from the inverter for the house load, so you could have a 5 kW inverter that is limited to 3.6 kW grid export.
I currently use the GivEnergy app as that's the system I got installed earlier in the year (after this video was recorded). Octopus Energy also provide that data as a csv file if you want to delve into it more.
Thank you for this demo. It's important that it's not only the Solar geek in the household understands all about peak loads. I'm still working on that with my 'loved one'!😄
Ha! Yeah, the trick is to strike the balance between optimisation and living your life without worrying too much about it. As long as it's not too often the occasional grid draw won't make a lot of difference.
I have 10 kWh Solar Edge Battery rated with 5 kW output. However the Inverter is only 4 kWp which limits the amount it can draw from the battery. The grid is also quicker to pick up extra power needs than the battery; whenever we turn something on there is always a few watts drawn from the grid. As for your examples have you ever though of turning the toaster on after the kettle has boiled?
I think a lot of systems will allow a little grid power through before they're able to balance the load, some are quicker than others though. Staggering the kettle and toaster is absolutely an option but I wanted to show what happens if you keep the same usage patterns as you'd be used to without a battery. It's then a question of personal preference as to whether you want to adjust your behavior to save a few watts or are happy to draw a bit from the grid now and then.
Many thanks Tim (& Kat) - top hint to save you some energy & thoroughly enjoy breakfast more (Kit that is). Make oats in milk (or almond milk) the night before and leave it in the fridge; no hob or microwave required & it is so much better too 😋 try it and let us know 😃
Looked at a few of your videos, interested to see your thinking and this one is a very nice demonstration I've not seen before. There is an option I think you did not highlight, that is to delay the toaster until the kettle has boiled. After all, will you notice if making toast is delayed by a couple of minutes (Tea brew time). That would be a zero cost option for keeping within limits of a battery (depending on it's capability). We've had Powerwall 2 for four years (next week) and found one of the big benefits of a battery is no longer needing to run things in cheap time overnight. I wouldnt be without it now, we only charge from Sun or in Go cheap period. However, a small amount of scheduling during the day can be required in winter (to keep under 5kW demand), but it is easy. From experience I would say always go for biggest flow in/out of battery that's in your budget. Many things don't take as much as you think, ovens for instance, big use during heating but once up to temperature the insulation is very good these days and consumption drops off massively. My personal preference is AC connected battery as the Inverter becomes SPOF if you have Hybrid (my understanding - happy to be corrected) resulting in loss of PV and battery if it fails (as I said, personal choice).
Yeah, I forgot to mention that in the video but staggering your appliances is always an option, of course. Although 2 mins of an extra 1 kW is 0.03 kWh, which is currently just over 1p, so I'm really not going to worry about that too much. Ideally I'd like to get a system that can cope with 5 kW peak, but it'll come down to availability and price at this stage, what with all the equipment delays right now. That would give us plenty of headroom in almost any situation. I do mention in the video about the oven only taking only a few minutes to heat up and that it's actually not that high a draw in the first place, so yeah, that's not too big a deal, thankfully. It's true that with a hybrid inverter you only have one place for your battery and solar to go through, but then you also have fewer items that could fail, so that could be seen as a plus. There are so many different pros and cons to the different setups I honestly don't know which is best. At this stage I'd be happy to get anything installed as it's been such a long delay! I'm glad you've had a positive experience with your Powerwall though, it sounds like you're making good use of it, which is the whole point of all this at the end of the day!
I guess peak is a luxury you look at after total consumption or kWh storage capacity is more important then single peak load when it comes to sizing your battery. Ie I’m having 5kwh installed soon it won’t matter if it can’t cover peak load it my daily load is above 5kwh as I know I’ll need some grid supply anyway.
Like you we Boil the Kettle, make Toast and Porridge in the Microwave. Kettle is put on, when it has Boiled Microwave is started and when eating the Porridge the Toaster is put on, so if you spread the load the Battery has no problem copping.
Yup, we could do that but then our breakfasts would be ready at different times and we like to eat together. At the end of the day it's only a few minutes of grid usage so not the be all and end all, but I think it's useful to at least know when you're doing that in case you did want to change your behaviour to mitigate it at all, as you say.
The oven will switch on and off as it reaches temperature, each switch on and off will lead to drawing from the grid as the batteries are delayed by 30 seconds each time - then the pennies stack up pretty quickly and there is no way round it I think if you are connected to the grid - Good video and illustrates the problem of peak usage beyond the capacity of the batteries
Am I right that the charge and discharge rate will also effect how much you will be able to charge your storage during a cheap tariff window? so the 5kWh might be necessary if you have a 4 hour window and 20kWhs of storage?
Having 3.6Kw Inverter means that you can only draw 3.6kW usage from solar or battery at a time without having to draw from the grid. So on making breakfast etc first make your toast and then after it's done switch on the kettle to make your hot drink; in that way everything is free. Plan your usage.
That is certainly one way to do it. Depends if you'd rather adjust your lifestyle to eek out every watt, or you're happy to accept a bit of grid power for a few minutes a day.
It's amazing how all these systems makes you so aware of your power usage. We have gotten used to switching things on one after another where we can....eg boil the kettle, then switch on the microwave.
Just had Guv energy 6.4KW array plus 9.5KW and soon realised that you have to put high load items on one at a time rather than all at the same time. So no Kettle , microwave and oven in at the same time !
It depends how much you really want to limit grid draw. For the couple of minutes a kettle is running you'll only draw a small total amount if something else is running at the same time, so I'm not too worried about a couple of pence of grid draw per day. It doesn't have to affect your lifestyle at all, if you don't want it to. Unless you want it to, of course!
Our oven has a "boost" function (4kW) when pre-heating then it drops to about 2kW. So a reasonable mealtime load in the kitchen is 4kW for a short time, the 900W microwave and the kettle for brief periods. The peak could be kept at or below the 5kW Inverter output by not using either the kettle or the microwave while the oven is in boost mode.
Yup, staggering the use of different high draw appliances is a good way to help mitigate the peaks, for sure. Requires a bit of extra planning but would soon become habit, I think.
If you're grid tied, I really wouldn't worry about the odd peak load from a kettle or toaster, better off paying a few pence for the grid to pick it up than hundreds for the additional inverter capacity.
That's always an option if you absolutely want to prevent grid use. Or you don't stress it and accept a few minutes of grid use per day for an easy life!
I i want to run everything on electricity (heating a hot water) and dont want solar just batteries to be charged off peak and discharge during day, what solution am i looking at? My daily consumption would be 50kWh tops, as no solar i would looking likely at AC coupled, something modular? Your input is much appreciated…thx
If you need to account for peaks an easy and expensive solution is powerwall. Each will provide a 5kw charge/discharge rate and you can stack up multiple (also stacks up both charge and discharge rates)
That's a huge daily usage, you'd struggle to find any system capable of charging up that much in the cheap overnight period. Unless you have a three phase supply and add a battery system to each phase separately. My advice is to consider a ZEB boiler for your heating and a timer on your immersion heater for your hot water. Then you might be able to cover the rest of your usual electricity usage using a standard battery system (see some of my other videos for examples, or the ones I mentioned in this one).
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I don't think you'd need a three phase supply. You can probably stack up 4 poweralls and charge them during night which would cover you both in terms of capacity and charge/discharge rate. It's just expensive.
@@jason8966 on one phase you'd risk exceeding the 100A limit with multiple Powerwalls. And a DNO would have a fit! They'd probably insist you have three phase if you wanted more than a couple of Powerwalls (maybe even if you wanted only two!)
You mean in terms of panel type and array size? We're going for 18 JA Solar 395 W all-black panels, split into East and West arrays of 9 panels each. 7.11 kWp total.
Am I right in saying that if your inverter is larger than 3.6kwh, then you need approval from your Distribution Network Operator as they may need to do some upgrades to the electrical network?
Yes, larger than 3.68 kW requires a G99 application from your DNO although usually your installer will sort that out for you. Smaller inverters need a G98 application but those are always granted as far as I know.
Quick question please. With everyone running to get solar and battery s as they think it's the awnser to saving them from huge bills and to have electric when we have black outs.we have recently heard the possibility of more blackouts ,let's see. It's great to see these videos as they hopefully will give a real time understanding of your investment. Also as I like to ask a key point. When we are all in say January every day we wake up to ice outside, we have had a 2 day power cut and it's week day so you need to go to work. So in this rare instants, for me living rural it's actually reality , do you think your battery system will keep you going for 2 to 3 days . Bear in mind we are all being warned of power cuts in the press. For all those who are transitioning from focil to all electric go back to my question. Do you believe your solar and battery s will work out for you. Reality is NO . Your going to be cold , hungry , and cannot wash or use your ev to drive to work. You all need to think about reality , make sure you have some kind of heating available. For those who use focil boilers count your self lucky as a cheap petrol generator will happily fun your heating and hot water and cooking should not be an issue. You will not be able to use a cheap small petrol generator if your home is totally reliant on heat pumps as they need a lot more power to run them. Your solar will not work to charge your battery's as regs shut them down if there is no grid. You may now be thinking what planet is this person from lol. I am from the planet reality, I will always have gas and an heat pump, I will always have a generator spare in case with enough fuel for weeks and yes I have one generator ready just to charge my ev. I hope I never have to use them. I have 13 KW solar system, one off grid 1 bank of 5kw battery and 3kw on my off grid system . All fantastic in the summer, reality October to march not so good. But nothing wrong with having solar or heat pumps or EVs green is good, but when the whole country goes 88% electric this will be interesting on our reliance for electricity. All my eggs in one basket is not what I do.
Sounds sensible to me , I have a 5kw giv energy system and a 7.5 kw off grid backup system which will provide 7.5kw during any blackouts we may or may not experience
hi there, thank you for the content. I think power rating of the inverter/charger is a primary factor when deciding on the ESS (energy storage solution). According to the video you draw about 6 to 7 kWh during the morning and about 4 to 5 at night. There was no information about the day time use. However modern battery systems are made to power the whole house provided they fitted with the adequate inverter.
Well, not quite, this was a hypothetical demonstration of the sort of things you might want to consider when choosing home storage batteries, rather than an exact recreation of our day to day lives. There's no need for an inverter to be able to cover absolutely every watt, generally speaking these very high loads are short lived and infrequent so even if your inverter can only provide 3 kW you'll still be able to cover the vast majority of your needs with only minimal draw from the grid of a few pence per day. I'd say control over your system is more important than raw power capacity.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkGreat video! I am off grid and we rely on a pump for irrigation and domestic water. The pump draws 1kW regardless of volume used. This is on one lead acid system (PWM 24v 3.2KVA) with its own battery bank.. Domestic, including Kitchen stuff, is on Lithium 24v (2nd hybrid MPPT SCC 3.2KVA) Both have utility bypass (which is not available to me) but I am wondering what if I use the AC out from one hybrid system to boost the AC out of the other.
Thank you, I appreciate you saying so. I've got no more news on the libbi yet, unfortunately, aside from a vague price that appeared on the myenergi website just after I published my video (£4600 excluding installation, presumably for the 5 kWh system). As soon as I know more I'll do a quick update video.
We have a 5.5kw Hybrid Inverter and a 21kWh battery pack which handles all our needs, but we do have to monitor our useage because we don't have a Eddi. Your video is interesting to compare, but one thing you might want to include is the recharging of the battery pack, as the charging rate can vary between Inverters usually 60A - 100A DC. This will determin the time taken to charge the battery pack to 100% within the cheap tariff time frame of four or five hours. Our Inverter charges at 60A (DC) which translates into 3kw x 4 hours will provide 12kWh of stored energy. Plus our up rate house fuse is 80A so we can charge everything over night including 2 EV cars, one Battery Pack, and a Sunamp and a ASHP which can also kick in adding the final 2kw making it 18kw drawn from the grid at one time, which falls just below the house fuse limit at 78A. We can take measure to avoid this by swapping the car chargers over, as one of the cars can only charge at 3kw. We have a 7kw and a 3kw wall chargers and by swapping the plugs over so that the 7kw car charges at 3kw and the 3kw stays as is, so dropping the 78A down to safer level of 65A. Thinking ahead does save any unforceens!!
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk But you should still mention it in this video about your previous video and offer a link, because in my mind the two go hand in hand.
@@showme360 there is no should. If I kept repeating things I've said in previous videos they'd be very tedious and long. This video was about one particular subject and it works just fine as it is.
I've only just seen this video ... and yes, I have subscribed. The detail you mention in the video was exactly the same stuff I researched when I was deciding what type of system to go for. After speaking with two or three companies about solar panels and batteries I opted to go for the following. A Sunsynk 5kw hybrid Inverter with DC coupled DMEGC 405watt solar panels, 16 in number, in two arrays, SE and SW facing ... feeding 2 Sunsynk 5.12kw batteries, 10.24kw in total. Typical house base load is around 150-250watts without heavy loads. The system was installed first week in Feb 2023 and even with cloudy days is holding its own very well with low winter sunshine. Even on overcast but bright days it generates in excess of 500watts and during very bright cloudless days even though the sun is still at low azimuth ... it recharges my batteries from a depleted level of 40% capacity back up to 100% by late lunchtime. It's max generation I've seen so far is roughly 4.3kwp and gaining as the sun rises higher in the sky. The Sunsynk batteries are fully BMS controlled and match the inverter perfectly ... with full comms via app or home computer. Incidently we never stagger anything, we just go for it ... The future looks good so far. Hope this helps.
That sounds like an excellent setup. Our E/W split array is hopefully getting installed this week (weather allowing) so I'm hoping to start benefitting from that springtime sunshine any day now.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk When your installation is complete make sure to get it bird-meshed ... pigeons living under the panels cause havoc with soiling the panels, my neighbour has that problem ... however since mine was all meshed in they don't bother with our panels. ;)
It doesn’t have peak load just don’t use high wattage appliances at the same time simple! Common sense is needed when using battery back up and technical understanding.👍
Yes, I know, you can stagger your appliances to help reduce the peak load. I always forget to say something in these videos and it always comes back to bite me! Thanks for all the (many) comments pointing this out. My personal view is that I'm happy to accept a few pence of grid power per day but if you want to stagger your tea and toast by all means do so. Take it easy, all, and I'll see you in the next video.
I got a continuous load of about 600W for my house.
But when the cooking starts: the peak is about 12kW.
We have 2 3.8kW ovens, 1 Quooker of 1.6kW, an induction stove of 8kW. And a heated plate drawer. So 18kW, but I registered a max of 8kW so far.
But yeah, this kitchen will be the only thing that determines the amount of batteries and inverters I need.
Limiting battery use to 100A @ 50V I need roughly 3 batteries to accommodate cooking. Batteries will be 280Ah x 16 prismatic batteries with a seplos casing probably. Yes, I would be able to do 200A or more with that, but I don't want to overestimate my batteries. I'd rather underestimate them and have room for anything I forgot.
But yeah, the kitchen means about 4 inverters, and the remainder of the house a single same spec inverter. With victron I should be able to stack the inverters and put them in low power mode after cooking.
*What is the spec of the batteries you have on the system? This video is really helpful to see what runs. We mostly have the clothes dryer and kettle going at once? We are looking into systems and batteries at the minute.*
@@ShipsoftheOceans at the time we recorded this video we didn't have our system installed so I mentioned a few examples of battery specs during the video (3.6 kW for some, 5 kW for others etc.). Here's the system we ended up with: ua-cam.com/video/m1mIljYtFds/v-deo.html
@@ShipsoftheOceans our current system has a GivEnergy Gen 2 hybrid 5 kW inverter which is capable of 3.6 kW output from the batteries alone, rising to 5 kW if there is solar too.
Great video aswell, its way far on, it would be a start off system I will be going for, a hybrid as we get a fair share of wind at the same time. 4000w solar and 6000w wind, would have a 7500w inverter on 24v 100ah 2560wh x2 for 200ah 5120wh starting. I dont know if the discharge increases like the ah and wh when connecting more together.
This shows, how we took everything granted before we realized that energy is a precious thing.
Our Tesla Powerwall is sufficient to run our detached house off-grid the vast majority of the time. In winter we use cheap overnight electricity (Octopus Go) to charge our EV, heat our hot water and run our UFH. Six months ago we switched from a kerosene powered Rayburn to an ASHP, and this combined with our solar PV and battery storage is saving us a small fortune.
Sounds like a good setup.
Clive, can you share your costs and expected ROI?
@@richardmarkham8369 You might have to spend a small fortune to save a small fortune! I was quoted £10, 450 for a Powerwall install, though have to wait until next September to get it. Then recently had an email from installer saying Tesla have increased the price by £1260. So a PW is a big up front expense. Unless you're going to be in your house for many years (and the battery lasts long enough) cI'm not sure I'll get the money back from reduced leccy bills. So purely as a financial prospect - an investment with a ROI, it might not add up. I'm having second thoughts now, and may go for a cheaper system, if I can find a decent local installer. The PW's potentially self-combusting lithium ion technology is also starting to look a bit outdated.
One other high usage electrical appliances that most people forget about is the electric shower - that will draw from 7kwh to 10kwh depending on your shower. Depending on your family each usage can last from 10 mins onwards.
Yes, indeed. Luckily we don't have an electric shower but that would be a big power draw for sure.
Thanks. Peak load is a simple but key issue that every person who is buying a system considers carefully. Very nicely demonstrated here. Well done both.
Thank you, that's kind of you to say so.
Very interesting and thank you for sharing. We only just got solar installed back in October and are considering battery storage from 2023. They cost a lot 😅 but at current energy prices and further increases in the way, maybe I might break even in 6 years rather than 12-15 years estimated on our solar system (3.2kwp with solar edge inverter)
By the way… I love your kitchen slick, clean and very nice!
Thank you, and good luck with your system.
If I wanted to be really frugal I could always use my slow cooker which is rated at 50 watts. Of course as mentioned one wouldn't necessarily use all appliances at once.
My 11.8kWh batteries run my house for about 6 hours in the winter and about 20 hours in the summer. Everything in my house is electric including my heat pump, (for heating and hot water), cooking and hot tub
A star is born. When is Kat starting her own UA-cam channel?
Ahem: youtube.com/@catkinandlillie
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk subscribed!
@@prometheus4130 not much overlap with this channel, admittedly.
Plan ahead boil the kettle before putting the toaster on get a 2 draw hair firer. Do a load of washing on off peak as well as the dishwasher
If we were to have blackouts, the issue with exceeding the limit when there is no grid to draw from is that the inverter shuts off. Which is massively inconvenient.
Keep up the great work.
Yes, indeed, you've got to be super careful not to draw too much from the battery in a blackout. I'm considering doing a video on that subject once we have our system installed and I know what the limits are.
It is possible to add a non grid tied inverter to a system where you have access to all the components. Commercial, all in one offerings, possibly not.
But you need to know what you are doing, and a bit of rewiring of the consumer unit is needed. Or running extra circuits/extension leads to critical loads.
I will be turning my GTI off during any blackout season. So using all my solar to charge batteries to use when the power goes out.
Can I just ask here. . . is my understanding correct that in the event of a power grid cut, it's only by having invested in a GATEWAY that will enable you to use battery power to continue to run the house?
Same applies to just solar PV, you are never going to cover your entire peak demand unless you have 6kw+. The holy grail of all of this of course is Vehicle To Grid, coming on CCS sometime after 2025 it appears...
Yup that would be great
You will only be able to additionally draw from the solar, on peak loads, if you have an AC coupled system. I don't know if that includes the majority of commercial home battery installs?
On my DC coupled system, I have the GTI capacity, and that is it. In my case the max I can offset is 900W, but as you point out, the peak loads are only transient. It is the quiescent loading that dominates my power useage. Scaling the GTI up to cover peak loads would just not be cost effective.
Some folks have mentioned that you can charge your battery from the solar panels in a power-cut if you have a hybrid inverter. I don't know much about that though and would like to learn more to know for sure if that's possible and under what circumstances. Does it need setting up in a particular way, for example.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk
I agree. As you pointed out, these peak loads are very transient, and realistically only cost pence.
I don't have a hybrid inverter, so don't know what their carpabilities are, in terms of running with the grid down. Also I suspect the term is used quite loosly and doesn't really describe a particular piece of equipment.
If it can invert whithout the grid being presnt, then it should be possible to isolate the grid at the consumer unit and then turn on the hybrid inverter. And it may be possible to set them to only charge the battery, leaving you with battery capacity in reserve.
My own system is very DIY and made up of building blocks, so I am in full control of charging etc.
In reality, most of us are only going to see limited and planned power outages. In such cases it doesn't really make much sense to try and engineer a full house power backup, for what little use it will actually get.
Getting some camping lanterns/gas burner, having a meal pre-cooked using the timer on the oven, setting the heating to warm the house in advance, should make power cuts quite trivial.
The internet/4g would probably go down, so no need to keep TV/PC's going.
I will be doing a full house backup, but just because it's a fun project, rather than any practical necessity. In the last big power cut we had (12hrs), I just grabbed stuff from the camping box.
I'm looking forward to doing something just like this. You may want to boil kettle 1st then do your toast. Love the video
We have a 14 kWp solar array, 2 x ev, an air source heat pump coupled with a 5 year old Tesla powerwall 2. Because we have the DNO limit of 5.5 kW, the Tesla powerwall has a limit of the maximum 5 kW available to us and on top, the 3 inverters of the 14 kW solar array so we tend to do heavy loads during the daylight hours like the air source heat pump, washing and of course, electric car charging even on bright days in November. We use Octopus go to charge the powerwall to full every night during winter time and we have successfully avoided buying peak rate electricity, except for the reaction times from the powerwall from the induction cooker.
Very nice.
Hi, really good explanation and something to consider. Can i just confirm if im using 5kw total will my Givnergy battery still provide my 3.6kw and the grid will provide the 1.4kw or does my battery just cut out and the 5kw comes from the grid? Many thanks
Yes, your battery will continue to provide 3.6kW while the rest comes from the grid (or any solar you happen to be generating at the time too).
I'm in tthe process of getting quotes atm, the front runner uses GivEnergy too, will definitely be holding out for Gen2 stock.
This is one reason why I'm looking to install twin batteries, along with a solar/wind hybrid generation system on a new build, single occupancy bungalow.
It's all well & good having 10kwh sitting there but if you can't access it at the rate needed, it's not as useful as one would expect.
You'd also need two inverters. But bear in mind that the amount of time you'll be pulling more than one battery/inverter is capable of providing is going to be very rare, so consider that the extra cost of the equipment might not be worth it in the long run given you'll be spending a couple of pence per day on peak rate power. Domestic wind power is also rarely worth it, unless you are on a hill with no trees or buildings nearby and have a very tall pole to mount your turbine on.
you need to plan better, put the toaster on and when it pops up then put the kettle on, same with the cooker, when the oven reaches its temp and the lasange goes in then put the chips in the air fryer which takes less time to cook anyway, if you plan your consumption when using batteries and the panels to lessen the immediate load there should be no problem
yeah, that's not really the point of this video. I know we could do all that but we're trying to demonstrate that you can continue to keep your same lifestyle you'd just need to accept a small amount of grid use for a few minutes a day, which isn't that big a deal. Unless you want to do all that stuff of course. I'm not telling people what to do, just pointing out the options. People can live their lives how they choose.
yea - you learn about load balancing REAL quick when living with solar/batteries, don't ya? the fact is, NO ONE TURNS ALL OF THESE SYSTEMS ON AT THE SAME TIME when 'off grid'! AND you have to understand - how long does it take to make toast? or run your kettle? OR YOUR MICROWAVE?? it's not like you are running these systems for hours upon hours upon hours... and, again, NOT at the same time.
gotta say, this was a *slightly* disingenuous demonstration/video.
Did you watch to the end? I did say that it's not a big deal if you use a lot for a short time. If you understood the video properly you wouldn't have made that comment.
The temperature of the battery plays a part too, if your battery is installed outside, in a garage or loft and it is below 20'c then it will not be able to provide 3.6kw. I have heard that at 10'c the output drops to around 2.8kw
That's very interesting and useful to know, thanks. I'll try to remember to mention that in a future video.
No batteries will go in the loft, take the GIV energy battery over 100 KG, i would pay money to see anyone lift a battery up a loft 🪜, apart from the location in the loft all ladders could not stand weights of 100Kg plus person’s.
@@ecoterrorist1402 My neighbour just had theirs installed in the loft. There are also videos on UA-cam of loft installs.
@@philip_james unless your neighbours installation don't foul the manual then that's okay. but giv energy installation are as follows:
5.2 Selecting the installation location
Ø This is guidance for installer to choose a suitable installation location, to
avoid potential damages to device and operators.
Ø Raintight or wet location hubs that comply with the requirements mentioned
in this installation manual are permitted.
Ø The unit shall be mounted at least 914 mm (3 feet) above the ground.
Ø The installation location must be suitable for the inverter's weight and
dimensions for a long period time.
Ø Select the installation location so that the status display can be easily viewed.
Ø Do not install the inverter on structures constructed of flammable materials.
Ø The humidity of the installation location should be 0~95% without
condensation.
Ø The installation location must safely accessible to get at all times.
Ø Vertically installation or tilted backwards by max. 15°. and make sure the
connection of inverter must be downwards. Never install horizontal and avoids
forward and sideways tilt.
Ø Be sure that the inverter is out of the children’s reach.
Ø Don’t put any things on the inverter. Do not cover the inverter.
Ø Do not install the inverter near television antenna or any other antennas,
antenna cables.
Ø Inverter requires adequate cooling space. Providing better ventilation for the
inverter to ensure the heat escape adequately. The ambient temperature should
be below 40°C to ensur e optimum operation. Please make sure the inverter is
installed at the right place，
so unless there is a stair case & proper insulation with a giv energy installation will void the warranty not with standing getting the batterys up any staircase.
i'm an installer i know what i'm talking about.
@@philip_james if they have a Giv install, are you going to do the neighbourly thing & tell them about the lack of warranty they now have. Ps YT can also be full of shite & good advice as well.
At 02:31 it shows how much a 5kw battery saves you per day , you decide if its worth it 🤔
Our system has been saving us between £5 and £10 a day so far. Yeah, I'd say that's very much worth it.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I m afraid you can't be saving £10 a day because that means you were paying £300 a month in Electricity and now your bill dropped to £0 which is unrealistic plus this Battery Storage Systems are not £0 nor its installation is £0 this can easily cost £15,000 this cost over 48 months it's still around £312 every month not £0
@@niceboy60 please see latest stats video.
Could we have a "Tim and Kat's Green Walk" video with the two of you in green fields or forests, walking arm in arm, pointing out things to each other off-camera and laughing, perhaps soundtracked by Greensleeves or similar?
Careful what you wish for!
My plan is to get a 15kw battery. It will charge overnight at 6p per kilowatt, and then discharge during the day when my rate is 34p. Saving lots of
That's a good plan.
Hi Tim ..I have a query .I got two quotes one with solis 5kw and puredrive 2 5kwh battery and another with Giv energy gen 2 hybrid and 5.12 kwh givenergy battery . Which one should I go for . The charge and discharge rate is better on solis and puredrive I beleieve. What is your honest opinion. Thank you
I'm afraid I can't give you an honest opinion because I've not used Solis or Puredrive products. The one thing I will say is that the level of control you have over a system is more important than almost any other feature so check to see what you can do with it. ua-cam.com/video/4jpWeRkkJRo/v-deo.html
Have you considered a boiling water tap? The Quooker uses hardly any power (10W per day to keep the water in the vessel at temperature) and you always get exactly how much you need, so you're not boiling water you're not going to use.
We did consider it, yes. Decided against it though
I noticed your equipment uses less power than equipment in Australia, my Microwave uses 1000 watts just on, not running, then another 900 on top of that to cook.
The microwave certainly uses a lot more than the cooking power. Maybe not double, but a good chunk extra.
It's foolish to think getting off the grid.
With the battery and panels, the amount of kWh acquired from the network is simply reduced. Nothing more.
What tool is that to see consumption?
That's the in-house display that comes with the smart meter. I'm not suggesting getting off grid in this video, but it's not foolish to try and reduce your grid use.
This shows Solar & Home Storage does not actually work , if it does not cover peak loads ,idle loads are only 0.22 pence per hour 🙄
Why would anyone need help dealing with such costs 😕
It absolutely does work. The vast majority of use is well below the limit the battery can supply.
I have a 10kw lux power inverter and 3 x Greenlinx 3.6 kw batteries that seem to be able to handle 5.5kw charge and discharge.
Very nice
Interesting experiment. I will confess I sat down with a calculator when I was doing the checks. I managed to do two things. 1) Get 36 solar panels and 2 by 5kw Solaredge inverters (aka max 10 kw of solar). 2) Get 2x Lux 3.6 AC inverters which on average provide up to 6.6KW combined power. This means that on a really good day in May we could have 8 to 9 kw from the Solar and up to 7kw from the batteries. The average over the year is more likely 4 to 5kw of solar, but this does allow for a large amount of flexibility. The key to all of this is agreement from the DNO, they need to agree that in the worse circumstances you could dump that amount of power on the grid. Of course, having 2 of the inverters increases the installation costs, but from a utility point of view it makes a big difference. We do seem to have the washing machine, tumble dryer and dish washer running most of the time, but that is what happens with a young family.
Goodness me, that's a monstrous system! Sounds amazing though.
Thanks, more shit I did not know, solar company does not tell you anything, you didn't say if it could finish cooking your breakfast
Our battery has enough capacity to power the house for a couple of days.
So what was your 24hr battery discharge?
Depends on the day. In the Winter we use the whole lot because of the heating. I've got tons of stats update videos on the channel showing our usage throughout the year so feel free to watch them for all the details.
Tin and Kat great video. I have battery's myself and being aware of your usage is really very important indeed. My battery runs out much earlier in the winter months for sure but we try and reduce our usage. You have to continue life so you will use more. To save I have freezer in the garage and American fridge on timers that switch off the appliances for a period of 7 hours per day on the high rate use. Bearing in mind no one is opening it and closing it. When we have a break with good light so checking weather forecast is key to maximizing your system. So we would boil water using solar then flask it up for teas and coffee.when we need one say during day it's normally hot enough if not I will put in a cup of hot flask water to boil again but it's very quick with little KW as it's already hot. We have now managed to bring our homes KW over night and during the day to 150w as we switch everything off , so nothing is now on standby. We have noticed a huge difference in KW usage and our pockets. Next year my project is to buy a EV battery to use for my home use. But again it's how much it costs to save.
Nice, that's a neat trick with the flask. Our baseline is less than 100 W overnight but I'm not entirely sure how we manage that as we don't do anything special with turning everything off or anything. Just lucky I guess. Good luck with your future plans!
Yes I also heat my thermoses, all 4 of them 😀 Then use to cook food with them (effectively preheating for the hob) as well as for hot drinks. I turn my fridge down to 2C during the day then up to 8C overnight. Have had solar PV and immersion diverter heater for many years so hot water is taken care of. Got the gas capped off last month as the standing charge was 2/3rds of the bill. I heat the house with local foraged wood. Also put a kettle on the woodburning boiler. Bought a portable duo induction hob as used to cook with gas. Charge my numerous bike torches and portable led lights to use at night as well the USB battery sticks. Makes a huge difference; have low wattage led lights so not too much energy if they’re turned on.
@@andrewallen9918 top man it's hard to start this trend but we win in the end
I also have solar, you can use a feedback tariff during the day to offset the peak costs should you have to use a high power device even at peak times.
Yup, and I do. Check out my many stats videos for more on that.
Im thinking of buying the tesla wall 3 for the higher output.
The specs for the Powerwall 3 are certainly very impressive.
Great video! 1 thing I'm not 100% sure on though which I'm hoping you may be able to answer.
You say that in summer months the limited 2.6kw distribution of battery can be topped up by solar. How does that work?
Am I right in thinking it could be 2 6kw fed in by battery & 3.6kw fed in by solar due to 3.6kw inverter giving a total of 6 2kw or am I talking nonsense?
If you have a 5 kW inverter, say, and the battery can discharge at a maximum of 2.6 kW, then you can still get 5 kW from the inverter as long as there is 2.4 kW coming from the solar. If, however, you had 4 kW coming from solar then the battery would only need to discharge at 1 kW to reach the maximum output of the inverter. If you had a 3.6 kW inverter then you'd only ever get 3.6 kW from it in whatever combination of solar + battery you had available. I hope that makes sense.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Thats answered the question. I will be getting a 3.6kw inverter. Hopefully it will cover majority of usage & limit what I take to the grid to a few pence here & there. Thanks
Electric devices can be operated sequentially; putting everything on at the same time is unnecessary
But convenient. For the sake of 2p imported power I don't really care that much.
Have you tried to make one thing at the time so that high load doesn't become a problem? anyway a kettle or toaster just takes few seconds or minutes to run
That's an option for those who want to save every Watt from coming from the grid, but for the sake of 2p per day I don't really worry about stuff like that.
Great video. My Fronuis Gen 24 10kW with BYD batteries manages to cover our peak usage. Not sure why they are not more popular in the UK. Only downside is they have only just started allowing you to charge off peak overnight but software always improving. Lovely to see Kat and hopefully she will feature more in the future. I have really enjoyed getting my partner enthused will the solar/batter lifestyle.
Thank you, yes, she's hard to schedule in but I do hope to get her involved more in future videos.
@@singlendhot8628 How many battery manufacturers are using LiFePO4 cells that aren't manufactured in China?
@@singlendhot8628 presumably those people dont have a ;
Car
kettle
Fridge
Freezer
Tv
Radio
Toaster
Mobile phone
Gas or electric boiler
Oven
Microwave
Light bulbs
Doorbell
Anything battery operated
Anything electrical not mentioned above.
Clothes
Shoes
Household products
Bedding & laundry
Health & sanitary products
Hair products
Shaving products
Food that is packaged in Chinese sourced materials.........
Still, I guess that tent life is sufficiently enjoyable for them to stand firm on their beliefs .... I do hope that they haven't forgotten to check that the tent in which they live isn't made in China too, heaven forbid!🤔
Don’t use a 3kw kettle or stagger the usage…
I use a electric airpot that boils the water slower but at 750w…
Use things like the glass air fryer and instapot for low energy cooking or rice cooker to boil vegetables and sauces…
I want a high charge rate so I can stock up on cheap electrons to feed high consumption through the day. ASHP means lots of import, my solar is
Yup, definitely something to consider. The GivEnergy All in One has a charge rate of 6kW, that might be worth a look if you've not already considered it.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk yes, thank you, the GE AIO is currently my top contender!
Our setup is:-
7.2 kWp Solar Array with 5 kW inverter
27 kWh Tesla Powerwall Storage & Gateway
1 x 7 kW Car Charger for Solar Excess
2 x 22 kW Car Chargers for Fast Grid
8 kW Heat Pump
1 x Tesla Model 3 Performance Car
1 x Skoda Enyaq VRS Car (on order)
3 Phase Smart Meter on Octopus Go
EPC A+ Rated House Retrofit in 2021
(EPC Scored 107 out of 100)
average power & stand by power is all the battery is designed for.
Best advice i could give. Get it installed and & forget.
System wait time on order is 6mts, don’t also forget the battery only install system is NETT + Vat.
Saving are normally £50 month
Also expect your installer to say the cost of material is only valid for 28 days,
Payback 8-9 years.
Hi Tim what’s the name of your in House display wich follows your instant consumption please.
Thks
Yann
Not sure, it was given to us by Octopus when they replaced our meters. It says it's made by Chameleon Technology Ltd though, if that helps.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk 👍👍👍. Thanks a lot. You’re way ahead in GB 🇬🇧 compare to us in 🇫🇷 for exemple in term of technical solutions and projects to cope with the energy crisis.
Keep Going.
Really good vid and started to follow. I am looking at solar and batteries and currently the top option is a SE option, 9pkw, with 8k SE inverter and an SE battery DC coupled. So my max I think would be 8k.... enough for anything needed really.
Sounds good. Worth checking that the inverter can charge and discharge the battery at the full 8 kW. Some of them have lower rates for the battery but I think the SE inverters do allow the full rate although I'm not 100% certain.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Yeah not sure. Read somewhere it might be 5 per battery, will ask installers.
It does seem rather daft in a post energy crisis era just how high a rate of energy consumption we use to heat a small amount of food. Alternative food warming solutions will be needed, a 1kw kettle will solve a lot of the problems. Argos have them for £10-£15.
Buy a 600watt 2 cup rapid boil travel kettle will save you a small fortune use the 3000 watt kettle only when you need more than 2 mugs of hot drinks
Hi Tim and Kat, just a couple of things to think about here. First I would suggest you check very carefully that a 5KW inverter will be enough for the panels you propose as I’m not sure it will. I understand that east west will reduce the noontime peak, but I have 7.7KW of panels with a 7KW inverter and on the best days this last summer I saw over 6 generation (my panels are slightly south west/north east, but still split 12 panels on west and 8 on east. The other thing that you want to consider in terms of the load that would be covered by a hybrid inverter, is that the issue isn’t so much the peak load it’s more the large sustained loads that are the issue. In your example of the kettle that’s on for a couple of minutes, it’s only going to be some of that load that would be from the grid as most of it will be from solar or batteries assuming they have sun or charge respectively, however even if the whole of that was from the grid it would be around 0.1 of a kWh or 3p of electricity. On the other hand the tumble drier or the oven has a load over a longer time and so you will use much more in the way of kWh from that type of appliance. We have found that by running the devices such as dishwasher and washing machine one at a time, you can really reduce grid usage. Most of the inverters of the type that you are considering will have the 3.68KW limit due to trying to avoid the need for the other type of assessment by the electricity supply company as that’s apparently a lot more effort.
We're biting the bullet and going for two 5kW string inverters, one for each bank of 14 panels (east/west) and wearing the DNO approval delay.
A 10kWh battery with a 5kW inverter and we shouldn't be using much grid energy at all.
We're retired, so in during the day to run dishwasher/washing machine/tumble dryer(infrequently) straight off solar.
The car charging will need to be managed, but I'm hoping just plugged in more often to the Zappi. Currently I'm plugging it in once a fortnight to top up from 50% to 80%.
I calculated that our E/W split array would max out at about 5.3 kW, which is easily handled by the 5 kW hybrid inverter as that has a 6.5 kW max input limit. That extra 0.3 kW above the 5 kW AC output will be very rare but when it does happen those extra 0.3 kW will go straight through to the battery, which is handy (this clipping is something most hybrid inverters can do, apparently, which is nice). So yes, it's something I've accounted for but thanks for brining it up as it's something folks should consider. I did mention in the video that the cost would be on the order of pence for those short bursts where you're drawing a bit extra from the grid, so not really a huge deal for the most part. Our oven reaches temperature in about 5 mins, so a similar picture there. Certainly it's worth making note of other situations where the load is high, as you mention, but for us those were the big ones. I'd encourage other folks to make their own observations in a similar way.
Great video. Some great information in there. Thanks :).
My wife goes on about the double carbs but I really like lasagne and chips.
very good visual testing... thanks for the info
We have a Moixa battery and the peak charge and discharge is just 2kw , even with this low level you can just about get it to work ,it a bit of a game, but when I don’t mind playing! We no longer use the kettle instead use the induction hob as can reduce the output to match our load .
I’m subscribed to this to see the changes after you have your system installed. I went through similar exercises and then I was guilty of becoming obsessed and then getting all shouty when the Mrs put multiple things on at the same time. I learnt quickly when seeing what the excess peaks cost post PV / battery to not stress the small stuff. To focus on the bigger consumers like the dishwasher / washing machine which are sustained loads and can easily be shifted to off peak and no battery draw. You can’t shift teatime and I personally wouldn’t size a system to cater for the one off peaks neither would I compromise on lasagne OR chips -Your peak time usage should be so low after getting the system installed you’ll look back and chuckle (My daily usage is ~18kWh off peak with about 0.5kWh peak with a SolarEdge 10kWh battery and 3.8kw inverter - I can live with that)
Yes, indeed, the point of this video was to demonstrate what the implications are of peak loads, not necessarily to change what you do to try and mitigate them. If that's the sort of thing folks want to do then that's fine, but as you say I'm not going to stress over a few minutes of grid use at peak loads. I wanted to make this video to help ensure people are aware of this sort of thing and don't assume that a battery will magically cut their grid use to zero! I'm very much looking forward to doing a follow-up video with the full system installed for comparison.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I'm looking forward to seeing the reactions when you get it installed. For me it has turned out far better (and easier to see / manage) once the system is in place. Best of luck and thanks for the content
Lasagne *and* chips = double carbs -->> blood sugars spiking like crazy
My biggest takeaway from this video was the premise of lasagna and chips as a meal. Got enough carbs there guys? 😉
You never been to pub and seen this on the menu? It's a pub classic. Also, my biggest takeaway from your comment is that you're very judgemental and need to reevaluate how you interact with people you don't know online.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I hoped the emoji showed I was making a light hearted humourous comment and not trying to troll you. That wasn't my intention. I still watched the video from start to finish and found it very informative. Clearly I haven't been going to the right pubs.
@@dheaddy perhaps I was a little harsh. Honestly, I didn't even spot that emoji when I first read your comment and replied in haste. You're not the first to point out the double carb thing but I wonder why folks point this out yet will probably not bat an eyelid at burger and chips appearing on a menu, or ordering a side of garlic bread with their pasta. Especially considering how little actual pasta is in lasagne, relatively speaking. When you start a UA-cam channel you open yourself up to this sort of comment, of course, but boy, I was sure not prepared for my lifestyle or personal choices to come under such critique. I'm much more careful about what I include in our videos now but even so every time there will be something I didn't anticipate that someone will pick up on. The internet is weird.
you can expect a charge in your battery in winter of around 1.5kw to maybe 2 max, battery in winter is going to do little the same as solar in winter is going to do very little, thats with a 6kw array, most winter days you can expect pretty much no charge in your battery, batteries are a must tho, they buffer your loads and obviously let you run 24/7 in good daylight hours
We can charge our batteries at 3.5kW overnight using a cheap off-peak tariff. Not sure where you got your 2kW max from. Are you suggesting you can only charge your batteries from solar? Charge your batteries overnight with a time of use tariff during Winter for the best results.
Ahh yes sorry was referring to solar we cant get a cheap off peak tarrif that's viable for us. You can also get a 1.5kw kettle then if you have the oven or the washing or the dishwasher on you should be under your 3.6kwh output max.
@@AndrewBrelsford ah, that's a shame. It makes a big difference for us in the Winter being able to charge the battery overnight. I'm also not too bothered about a little bit of grid draw each day in the Summer, it usually amounts to a couple of pence at most, as the time spent above the battery limit is usually very small. In practice 3.6 kW appears to be plenty for our purposes.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk Yes i agree 3.6kw inverter does enough. Yeah we need an ev to get those tarrifs. The Leaf is interesting but not one i would really want to own. You can use the new ones to either power your house from the cars battery or obviously drive the car, you would still need a small dedicated home battery though. but so far the inverters make a horrific level of noise.... one day soon ) Good luck Tim
Really interesting and informative videos. I’m just about to start on this journey, and it is hard to cut through the green washing and misinformation - the 4x return on energy inputs from an ASHP being a prime example. I hope you don’t have any near neighbours, as we had new houses built next door to us, all with ASHPs, and the droning noise was so bad that we had to move. One of the new owners invited his daughter to stay over Christmas and she left after one night as the noise from the heat pump was so bad. If you are in a town you may not notice it, but in a quiet countryside location they are murder. Make sure you go and listen to your chosen pump first at a quiet time of day
Yup, we live in the quiet countryside and I was very concerned about the potential for noise, so I made sure I chose the quietest heat pump I could, and located it as far from neighbours' windows as possible. I've checked the noise level several times and it's barely noticeable more than a few meters away, so it's all good. In fact our own ensuite window is the closest to the heat pump (about 4-5m) and we can't hear it when the window is closed, and have to listen carefully to make it out when we open the window. Most modern systems are very quiet now so it sounds like the ones you've experienced were unusually loud. The 400% efficiency of heat pumps is not greenwashing though, that's a real thing, they really can be that efficient. We've been running our system for a couple of weeks and it's been keeping the house warm using less than 500 W so far (in fact right now it's drawing about 300 W). I'm expecting that to go up as it goes colder but we're currently using about 5 kWh of electricity for heating per day when we'd otherwise be using 20 kWh of gas, easy.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk I should have expected you to research it carefully and do it properly! Thanks for sharing your journey, it's so helpful
@@simonr4031 haha! Yup, I'm not messing about. We'll be doing a thorough video showing our A2A heat pump system soon, covering choosing the system, why we went for A2A instead of A2W, how the installation went, and what it's been like living with it so far. And later in the winter I'll hopefully have some better data on how it performs when it gets really cold so we'll do a follow-up then. The whole point of this channel was to show some real world examples that might be helpful for other folks to see, so I'm hoping that'll be the case as we continue making more videos. Thanks for the support.
We have a Mitsubishi ECODAN 11kw output ASHP; it is very quiet - neighbour didn’t know we had it until we told her. We did listen to one at their showroom before buying. Multiplication factor is 3.4 in use, which is what was claimed
And what about when the power cuts come?
A lot of systems have some form of power-cut back-up that allows the battery to run some circuits, or in some cases the whole house. Some require more effort to set up than others though.
Lasagne and chips in the oven together .
We prefer to air fry our chips.
I'm looking at a 5+kW PV and 10kWh battery setup and I've been through exactly the same investigation. In my case with a background load of around 600w then switch on 3 induction rings, oven , 1000w microwave (which actually uses 2.1kW) and someone switches on the kettle - I'm drawing 12kW.....
I've also downloaded a year's worth of data from my Octopus Go account in 1/2hr time slots, so quite a lot of data. I then analysed it in Excel to give me the range of the kWh load at peak and off-peak rates. N.B. kWh, not Kw so its actual consumption in a 1/2hr, not instantaneous load. I banded this as:
I applaud your commitment to understanding your requirements. That's definitely a good thing to do to make sure you get the best system for you. I wish you the best of luck!
I do not see the point of the video....
Thanks for the pointless feedback.
you are good looking couple :)
Well, thank you!
Tim, you are doing a great job, thanks for your info videos. We are planning on getting a "Giv-HY 5.0 Gen 2" inverter with 4 x "Giv-Bat 9.5" batteries. This is to help power our 3-holiday lets &pool/ spa facilities. I understand each batter has 3.6KW charge/discharge power. As we have more than 1 battery we can achieve the full 5KW inverter output power. Is that correct, or will I only be limited to 3.6KW?
Thank you, I'm pleased you like what we're doing. That's a very good question about the multiple batteries. The way I understand it is that if all of the batteries are daisy-chained together and connected into the one inverter, it's the inverter that limits the charge/discharge rate, so you will only be able to charge up at 3.6 kW or draw 3.6 kW from those batteries. The inverter will still be able to output 5 kW of AC power but only if there is a combination of solar power, plus the batteries (unless you have 5 kW of solar power in which case all 5 kW will come from solar!). One option, since you have multiple properties, would be to split the system into two, or more, and have an inverter for each part. But not knowing the details of your setup I wouldn't want to presume that this is necessarily possible for you.
Thanks for this, good demonstration. I’ve been struggling with this topic myself as I didn’t like the idea of spending all that money on a solar/battery setup with all that stored power and still drawing from the grid in the evenings. I’ve ended up settling, after MUCH deliberation, for the GivEnergy All-in-one (I appreciate this wasn’t available when you made this vid), as I’m attracted by the 6kw output / peak of 7.2. My installer is happy anyway as I’ve driven them mad with questions over the last 2 weeks before finally arriving at the setup I was looking for.
That's a good choice, in my opinion. If it had been available when we were deciding on our system I would have gone with the AIO. Although in reality we use so little grid power, even with the 3.6 kW limit. A couple of pence a day in the Summer (more in the Winter but that's because we run out of battery to power the heating by the evening at this time of year).
I a now looking at a Sunsynk system with 4 x 5.1KW batteries which on Octopus Go will give just over 20KW for 4 hours charge which is my average On peak daily usage and I am thinking that if I use one of their 8KW Inverters that will allow me to draw 8KW (36amps) at any one time
What do you think?
Yeah, that sounds pretty good, although there's one caveat. I'm not sure the 8 kW inverter will give you 8 kW from the batteries though as it may be the battery discharge rate limits you to 5 kW (I think). If you've got solar connected to it too then the solar could provide the extra 3 kW, potentially. Worth checking the data sheets for both the inverter and batteries to see what the limits are but if I remember correctly the Sunsynk batteries max out at 5 kW, so you might not be able to make full use of the 8 kW inverter.
My impression is that the biggest factor in supporting the peak load is the capacity of your inverter. Whatever the size of your solar array or battery is, the output would be the max supported by the inverter which in most cases is 3.6Kw. This is the max inverter capacity for a G98 application.
Yes, that's exactly what I said in the video, although I realise I perhaps wasn't totally specific when I said battery-inverter systems. A lot of inverters support 5 kW discharge from the battery (I mention several of them in the video), and don't necessarily need more than the G98 as it's only the export to the grid that is limited, not the draw from the inverter for the house load, so you could have a 5 kW inverter that is limited to 3.6 kW grid export.
great video. What package do you use to monitor your usage
I currently use the GivEnergy app as that's the system I got installed earlier in the year (after this video was recorded). Octopus Energy also provide that data as a csv file if you want to delve into it more.
Your assumption is your battery will be full and in winter it may not recharge to full in a few days.
We'd charge up from the grid overnight during the cheap Octopus GO tariff period.
Thank you for this demo.
It's important that it's not only the Solar geek in the household understands all about peak loads. I'm still working on that with my 'loved one'!😄
Ha! Yeah, the trick is to strike the balance between optimisation and living your life without worrying too much about it. As long as it's not too often the occasional grid draw won't make a lot of difference.
Getting strong "demonstrating the prizes from Bullseye" vibes.
Haha! Not deliberate, I can assure you.
I have 10 kWh Solar Edge Battery rated with 5 kW output. However the Inverter is only 4 kWp which limits the amount it can draw from the battery.
The grid is also quicker to pick up extra power needs than the battery; whenever we turn something on there is always a few watts drawn from the grid.
As for your examples have you ever though of turning the toaster on after the kettle has boiled?
I think a lot of systems will allow a little grid power through before they're able to balance the load, some are quicker than others though.
Staggering the kettle and toaster is absolutely an option but I wanted to show what happens if you keep the same usage patterns as you'd be used to without a battery. It's then a question of personal preference as to whether you want to adjust your behavior to save a few watts or are happy to draw a bit from the grid now and then.
Have you found out the life expectancy of your inverter and the cost of replacing it, I was quoted £800 before vat after 4.5 years
The warranty is usually 5 years but I'd expect most to last a lot longer.
Many thanks Tim (& Kat) - top hint to save you some energy & thoroughly enjoy breakfast more (Kit that is). Make oats in milk (or almond milk) the night before and leave it in the fridge; no hob or microwave required & it is so much better too 😋 try it and let us know 😃
Kat does do that sometimes (particularly in the Summer). Overnight oats, she calls it. She prefers it hot in the Winter though.
Looked at a few of your videos, interested to see your thinking and this one is a very nice demonstration I've not seen before. There is an option I think you did not highlight, that is to delay the toaster until the kettle has boiled. After all, will you notice if making toast is delayed by a couple of minutes (Tea brew time). That would be a zero cost option for keeping within limits of a battery (depending on it's capability).
We've had Powerwall 2 for four years (next week) and found one of the big benefits of a battery is no longer needing to run things in cheap time overnight. I wouldnt be without it now, we only charge from Sun or in Go cheap period. However, a small amount of scheduling during the day can be required in winter (to keep under 5kW demand), but it is easy. From experience I would say always go for biggest flow in/out of battery that's in your budget. Many things don't take as much as you think, ovens for instance, big use during heating but once up to temperature the insulation is very good these days and consumption drops off massively. My personal preference is AC connected battery as the Inverter becomes SPOF if you have Hybrid (my understanding - happy to be corrected) resulting in loss of PV and battery if it fails (as I said, personal choice).
Yeah, I forgot to mention that in the video but staggering your appliances is always an option, of course. Although 2 mins of an extra 1 kW is 0.03 kWh, which is currently just over 1p, so I'm really not going to worry about that too much. Ideally I'd like to get a system that can cope with 5 kW peak, but it'll come down to availability and price at this stage, what with all the equipment delays right now. That would give us plenty of headroom in almost any situation. I do mention in the video about the oven only taking only a few minutes to heat up and that it's actually not that high a draw in the first place, so yeah, that's not too big a deal, thankfully. It's true that with a hybrid inverter you only have one place for your battery and solar to go through, but then you also have fewer items that could fail, so that could be seen as a plus. There are so many different pros and cons to the different setups I honestly don't know which is best. At this stage I'd be happy to get anything installed as it's been such a long delay! I'm glad you've had a positive experience with your Powerwall though, it sounds like you're making good use of it, which is the whole point of all this at the end of the day!
I guess peak is a luxury you look at after total consumption or kWh storage capacity is more important then single peak load when it comes to sizing your battery. Ie I’m having 5kwh installed soon it won’t matter if it can’t cover peak load it my daily load is above 5kwh as I know I’ll need some grid supply anyway.
Yes, exactly, that's a good way to think about it.
Like you we Boil the Kettle, make Toast and Porridge in the Microwave. Kettle is put on, when it has Boiled Microwave is started and when eating the Porridge the Toaster is put on, so if you spread the load the Battery has no problem copping.
Yup, we could do that but then our breakfasts would be ready at different times and we like to eat together. At the end of the day it's only a few minutes of grid usage so not the be all and end all, but I think it's useful to at least know when you're doing that in case you did want to change your behaviour to mitigate it at all, as you say.
The oven will switch on and off as it reaches temperature, each switch on and off will lead to drawing from the grid as the batteries are delayed by 30 seconds each time - then the pennies stack up pretty quickly and there is no way round it I think if you are connected to the grid - Good video and illustrates the problem of peak usage beyond the capacity of the batteries
Am I right that the charge and discharge rate will also effect how much you will be able to charge your storage during a cheap tariff window? so the 5kWh might be necessary if you have a 4 hour window and 20kWhs of storage?
Yes, exactly, and I cover that very thing in a couple of my previous videos ;)
Having 3.6Kw Inverter means that you can only draw 3.6kW usage from solar or battery at a time without having to draw from the grid. So on making breakfast etc first make your toast and then after it's done switch on the kettle to make your hot drink; in that way everything is free. Plan your usage.
That is certainly one way to do it. Depends if you'd rather adjust your lifestyle to eek out every watt, or you're happy to accept a bit of grid power for a few minutes a day.
It's amazing how all these systems makes you so aware of your power usage. We have gotten used to switching things on one after another where we can....eg boil the kettle, then switch on the microwave.
Just had Guv energy 6.4KW array plus 9.5KW and soon realised that you have to put high load items on one at a time rather than all at the same time. So no Kettle , microwave and oven in at the same time !
It depends how much you really want to limit grid draw. For the couple of minutes a kettle is running you'll only draw a small total amount if something else is running at the same time, so I'm not too worried about a couple of pence of grid draw per day. It doesn't have to affect your lifestyle at all, if you don't want it to. Unless you want it to, of course!
Our oven has a "boost" function (4kW) when pre-heating then it drops to about 2kW.
So a reasonable mealtime load in the kitchen is 4kW for a short time, the 900W microwave and the kettle for brief periods.
The peak could be kept at or below the 5kW Inverter output by not using either the kettle or the microwave while the oven is in boost mode.
Yup, staggering the use of different high draw appliances is a good way to help mitigate the peaks, for sure. Requires a bit of extra planning but would soon become habit, I think.
If you're grid tied, I really wouldn't worry about the odd peak load from a kettle or toaster, better off paying a few pence for the grid to pick it up than hundreds for the additional inverter capacity.
Yup, exactly.
Great video - apologies for the silly question but where do you get the meter from?
Our energy supplier provided it. If you have a smart meter you should be able to get your supplier to send you one.
I’m sure there is a gd reason you don’t put the chips in the oven along with lasagne so your not having an additional load of the air fryer 🤔
Yup, there sure is.
The masses are generally asses and want full use of their back systems but back is only as good as the users knowledge 😁
Sure
Can always stagger your use of hi load items so as not to exceed peak battery capability.
That's always an option if you absolutely want to prevent grid use. Or you don't stress it and accept a few minutes of grid use per day for an easy life!
HI KAT... WELCOME TO THE SHOW.😺
just starting to explore the bettery storage options with the energy prices now been off the scale so to speak so thanks for your video well done
Thank you, I hope it helps.
I i want to run everything on electricity (heating a hot water) and dont want solar just batteries to be charged off peak and discharge during day, what solution am i looking at? My daily consumption would be 50kWh tops, as no solar i would looking likely at AC coupled, something modular? Your input is much appreciated…thx
If you need to account for peaks an easy and expensive solution is powerwall. Each will provide a 5kw charge/discharge rate and you can stack up multiple (also stacks up both charge and discharge rates)
That's a huge daily usage, you'd struggle to find any system capable of charging up that much in the cheap overnight period. Unless you have a three phase supply and add a battery system to each phase separately. My advice is to consider a ZEB boiler for your heating and a timer on your immersion heater for your hot water. Then you might be able to cover the rest of your usual electricity usage using a standard battery system (see some of my other videos for examples, or the ones I mentioned in this one).
Or consider a heat pump system for your heating and hot water, which would dramatically reduce your electricity demand.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk
I don't think you'd need a three phase supply. You can probably stack up 4 poweralls and charge them during night which would cover you both in terms of capacity and charge/discharge rate. It's just expensive.
@@jason8966 on one phase you'd risk exceeding the 100A limit with multiple Powerwalls. And a DNO would have a fit! They'd probably insist you have three phase if you wanted more than a couple of Powerwalls (maybe even if you wanted only two!)
Have you decided on what PV system you are going get?
You mean in terms of panel type and array size? We're going for 18 JA Solar 395 W all-black panels, split into East and West arrays of 9 panels each. 7.11 kWp total.
Excellent, thanks
Am I right in saying that if your inverter is larger than 3.6kwh, then you need approval from your Distribution Network Operator as they may need to do some upgrades to the electrical network?
Yes, larger than 3.68 kW requires a G99 application from your DNO although usually your installer will sort that out for you. Smaller inverters need a G98 application but those are always granted as far as I know.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkThanks for confirming that Tim. I look forward to seeing your installation and operational videos!
Quick question please. With everyone running to get solar and battery s as they think it's the awnser to saving them from huge bills and to have electric when we have black outs.we have recently heard the possibility of more blackouts ,let's see. It's great to see these videos as they hopefully will give a real time understanding of your investment. Also as I like to ask a key point. When we are all in say January every day we wake up to ice outside, we have had a 2 day power cut and it's week day so you need to go to work. So in this rare instants, for me living rural it's actually reality , do you think your battery system will keep you going for 2 to 3 days . Bear in mind we are all being warned of power cuts in the press. For all those who are transitioning from focil to all electric go back to my question. Do you believe your solar and battery s will work out for you. Reality is NO . Your going to be cold , hungry , and cannot wash or use your ev to drive to work. You all need to think about reality , make sure you have some kind of heating available. For those who use focil boilers count your self lucky as a cheap petrol generator will happily fun your heating and hot water and cooking should not be an issue. You will not be able to use a cheap small petrol generator if your home is totally reliant on heat pumps as they need a lot more power to run them. Your solar will not work to charge your battery's as regs shut them down if there is no grid. You may now be thinking what planet is this person from lol. I am from the planet reality, I will always have gas and an heat pump, I will always have a generator spare in case with enough fuel for weeks and yes I have one generator ready just to charge my ev. I hope I never have to use them. I have 13 KW solar system, one off grid 1 bank of 5kw battery and 3kw on my off grid system . All fantastic in the summer, reality October to march not so good. But nothing wrong with having solar or heat pumps or EVs green is good, but when the whole country goes 88% electric this will be interesting on our reliance for electricity. All my eggs in one basket is not what I do.
Ok
Sounds sensible to me , I have a 5kw giv energy system and a 7.5 kw off grid backup system which will provide 7.5kw during any blackouts we may or may not experience
hi there, thank you for the content. I think power rating of the inverter/charger is a primary factor when deciding on the ESS (energy storage solution). According to the video you draw about 6 to 7 kWh during the morning and about 4 to 5 at night. There was no information about the day time use. However modern battery systems are made to power the whole house provided they fitted with the adequate inverter.
Well, not quite, this was a hypothetical demonstration of the sort of things you might want to consider when choosing home storage batteries, rather than an exact recreation of our day to day lives. There's no need for an inverter to be able to cover absolutely every watt, generally speaking these very high loads are short lived and infrequent so even if your inverter can only provide 3 kW you'll still be able to cover the vast majority of your needs with only minimal draw from the grid of a few pence per day. I'd say control over your system is more important than raw power capacity.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalkGreat video! I am off grid and we rely on a pump for irrigation and domestic water. The pump draws 1kW regardless of volume used. This is on one lead acid system (PWM 24v 3.2KVA) with its own battery bank..
Domestic, including Kitchen stuff, is on Lithium 24v (2nd hybrid MPPT SCC 3.2KVA)
Both have utility bypass (which is not available to me) but I am wondering what if I use the AC out from one hybrid system to boost the AC out of the other.
Are you talking about the 3.6kw or the 5kw
Both gen 2 hybrid inverters have a 3.6 kW max discharge rate.
I like your content and delivery style. To the point. Any news on the libbi availability and price ?
Thank you, I appreciate you saying so. I've got no more news on the libbi yet, unfortunately, aside from a vague price that appeared on the myenergi website just after I published my video (£4600 excluding installation, presumably for the 5 kWh system). As soon as I know more I'll do a quick update video.
We have a 5.5kw Hybrid Inverter and a 21kWh battery pack which handles all our needs, but we do have to monitor our useage because we don't have a Eddi. Your video is interesting to compare, but one thing you might want to include is the recharging of the battery pack, as the charging rate can vary between Inverters usually 60A - 100A DC. This will determin the time taken to charge the battery pack to 100% within the cheap tariff time frame of four or five hours. Our Inverter charges at 60A (DC) which translates into 3kw x 4 hours will provide 12kWh of stored energy. Plus our up rate house fuse is 80A so we can charge everything over night including 2 EV cars, one Battery Pack, and a Sunamp and a ASHP which can also kick in adding the final 2kw making it 18kw drawn from the grid at one time, which falls just below the house fuse limit at 78A. We can take measure to avoid this by swapping the car chargers over, as one of the cars can only charge at 3kw. We have a 7kw and a 3kw wall chargers and by swapping the plugs over so that the 7kw car charges at 3kw and the 3kw stays as is, so dropping the 78A down to safer level of 65A. Thinking ahead does save any unforceens!!
Yes, indeed, some of my previous videos cover this very thing.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk But you should still mention it in this video about your previous video and offer a link, because in my mind the two go hand in hand.
@@showme360 there is no should. If I kept repeating things I've said in previous videos they'd be very tedious and long. This video was about one particular subject and it works just fine as it is.
I've only just seen this video ... and yes, I have subscribed. The detail you mention in the video was exactly the same stuff I researched when I was deciding what type of system to go for. After speaking with two or three companies about solar panels and batteries I opted to go for the following. A Sunsynk 5kw hybrid Inverter with DC coupled DMEGC 405watt solar panels, 16 in number, in two arrays, SE and SW facing ... feeding 2 Sunsynk 5.12kw batteries, 10.24kw in total. Typical house base load is around 150-250watts without heavy loads.
The system was installed first week in Feb 2023 and even with cloudy days is holding its own very well with low winter sunshine. Even on overcast but bright days it generates in excess of 500watts and during very bright cloudless days even though the sun is still at low azimuth ... it recharges my batteries from a depleted level of 40% capacity back up to 100% by late lunchtime. It's max generation I've seen so far is roughly 4.3kwp and gaining as the sun rises higher in the sky. The Sunsynk batteries are fully BMS controlled and match the inverter perfectly ... with full comms via app or home computer. Incidently we never stagger anything, we just go for it ... The future looks good so far. Hope this helps.
That sounds like an excellent setup. Our E/W split array is hopefully getting installed this week (weather allowing) so I'm hoping to start benefitting from that springtime sunshine any day now.
@@TimAndKatsGreenWalk When your installation is complete make sure to get it bird-meshed ... pigeons living under the panels cause havoc with soiling the panels, my neighbour has that problem ... however since mine was all meshed in they don't bother with our panels. ;)
@@engineer17151 I'll certainly ask our installer about that, thanks for the tip.
It doesn’t have peak load just don’t use high wattage appliances at the same time simple! Common sense is needed when using battery back up and technical understanding.👍
You don’t have you use multiple appliances at the same time people must use common sense 😬
Ok