We have had our 13 x 370w (4.8 kw) south-facing panels for a month or so with a 10 kwh battery. We are retired and home in the West Midlands much of the day. Our worst day's production so far was 4 kwh, our best 25 kwh, with an average around 10 kwh. On many days our production rate is around 0.5 - 1.0 kwh at times in the middle of the day. Without a battery our house might be kept ticking over during the day but cooking and laundry washing and drying would have to be done on very sunny parts of days, and predictable guaranteed long periods of sun are few and far between as autumn bites. Our battery allows us to accumulate power to use it when we want to, and so far has got us through the evenings and nights nearly every day without using grid power. Our consumption is around 7 kwh most days, rising to 12 on laundry days. I feel that we are enjoying the tail-end of good weather for solar and will soon be using the grid far more. I suspect it may well be financially worthwhile to get onto an overnight EV tariff to charge the 10 kwh battery in the winter, if possible, although we do not have an EV. I am waiting to see how things pan out over the winter. So far my installation has met my expectations, and since my expectations for the winter are low that seems likely to continue to be the case.
Absolutely, you seem to be experiencing the same as us. I am just experimenting with the battery and having it charging during our cheaper rate for 1 hour, as it drains in to my car when I charge, leaving us with out any battery for the period between 04:30-09:00. Hopefully will get a video up about that too.
To indicate the fickle nature of solar, in the past week of sunnier weather our average production was around 15 kwh a day. Our 10kwh battery is normally recharged by around midday and stays at 100% until 5 p.m. when cooking dinner, TV, lights and other background use gradually over the next 16 hours brings the battery down to around 45% before it starts recharging at 9 a.m.and the daily cycle starts again. Our daily use of the grid amounts to about 0.5 kwh - this seems to mainly derive from the panels/inverter/battery software which is apparently normal. And of course we still pay a standing charge to the supplier. On a totally unrelated solar panel issue, I was interested to discover that north-facing panels still produce 50% as much as south-facing panels, and east- and west-facing produce 75% as much as south-facing.
Thankyou for sharing, mirroring ours although battery fully charged by 2pm. Ill be doing a video in a few weeks at our 3 months mark showing how its performed and how things have changed over the 3months in terms of production.
I was working with a road repair crew in N.S.W. and questioned fellows what were the black window-like boxes on numerous bungalow roofs. I was told they were solar panels. This was 1971, long before todays panels were made. Further questions revealed that a series of copper tubes were encased in an 18"x24" frame, painted matt-black and the frame glazed. With an inlet and outlet going back into a water system, with a circulating pump, and this provided enough hot water for the needs of the property owners. Even today in England a system like this could be a big help with the fuel costs affecting everone!
Yes the water thermal panels are a thing and still believe so. We are looking at a different way to heat our hot water, but utilising the immersion heater to heat the water with excess solar.
Solar hot water is much more efficient than PV, and less severely affected by shading. However hot water is a relatively small part of most people's energy budget. These days it's better to use your roof for PV.
Snap on the inverter experience! Every time the kettle goes on in the evening the inverter just about covers it at our place at 3.3kw Biggest learn was go bigger on the inverter. We went 13kw battery but were limited by discharge. We're still really happy with it, but I recommend a bigger inverter.
Thats exactly it, ours isn’t bad and more than useable just if we’d of known. Unfortunately we had already paid £470 to DNO for approval at 5x and the system was going to be 6kw. It was a last minute switch to go 8kw and I didn’t want to spend another £500 on the assesment
Enjoyed watching that, thank you. Our roof line is aligned North/South and we have an existing 4kW FIT system on the West side that generates a pretty consistent 3mW every year. Tomorrow we were due to start installation of a further 28 390w panels plus a 5.2kW and a 9.5kW battery. I’m maximising the panels we can get on the roof, most of them will now be on the East side, with just filling in the gaps on the West side. Our system was designed with 2x 5kW hybrid inverters so we should get a decent throughput and as you explained, I should be getting good charging throughout the day. The 4kW FIT system won’t feed into the batteries without changing the inverter, so something for a future upgrade and yet another payback calculation to be done. Annoyingly though I found out today that the installation had been called off as the installers haven’t got the DNO approval though. So another month’s delay 😢
Very informative real-world experience video with useful advice. We are in the process of buying a house with solar already installed. I dont know anything about the system yet, all i know is that it has 10 integrated panels on a west facing roof, so it is a learning curve for me. I'm looking forward to your future updates and knowledge.
Thanks for the video. I can't believe how many of these types of videos I am now watching each week. We moved into our place 3 years ago. it came with an east facing 4KW array with a FIT tariff which averages 1.5K a year. For the first two years, I was very happy as the FIT payment covered our entire electricity bill and left 200 in credit. We only have electric at our property, no gas or oil. The system is old however with no way to get real time performance except via the inverter, so I never knew for certain how much we were generating and exporting. Now with the increase in tariff, our FIT payment no longer covers the cost of electric. An EV thrown into the mix has also massively increased our consumption. That's why we then booked in a new south facing 4kw array, plus a powerwall 2 with gateway. The array has been in place now since the end of July, but the powerwall is not going to be fitted until mid December. So my interest in these types of videos is to understand what the likely impact is on my energy bills moving forward and to learn any lessons. My first lesson is simple, when I had our first EV I was offered an EV charger and accepted the first one put forward, a PodPoint charger. Nothing wrong with it, but it does not work with solar, and so if I tried to charge the car in the day whilst exporting, it would only work at 7KW regardless of the amount. So an additional 1K spend to replace it with a zappi was necessary. Happy with things currently. In august we did 1480 miles at a cost of £6.69 (over night charging on cheap rates), plus solar via the Zappi. This gives me a running cost of half a penny a mile. Things changed massively in September as very different generation, which has left me at 1.5p per mile. I am thinking next year of another 4kw, we could put on a west facing barn roof, or I may go for a ground mount setup with a solar tracker fitted to follow the sun. I need to look into more yet, but this will be needed as we are getting a second EV next year, plus my son is due to get his first car and he has indicated he only wants electric. So our usage will again increase significantly. Hoping to get vehicle to house set up soon as well so we can use our EV (Nissan Leaf) as a moving battery storage solution with its 40KW battery and Chademo connector. cheers J
You are very similar to us albeit at a much larger scale. We had an original 3 kw array coupled to a 3 kw inverter for which we receive FIT payments. It had no app so we didn’t know how much of the energy produced we actually used. The capital in the bank was earning nothing so we looked at adding solar and a battery. Whilst we could add quite a bit more the DNO got in the way so we ended up with an extra 1.3kw and new inverters totalling 3.6 kw. The battery , a Tesla Powerwall along with its app was the game changer. We realised that of our usual 3000kw production on the old array we were only using about 800 kw or 30%, the rest was exported. Prior to our first full year our grid use was 1601 kw. Adding the extra solar boosted our first full years production to 4024 but our yearly grid use was only 824 kw , all of which was at the Go Faster Cheap rate of ( currently for us 5.5p). Adding a full EV has further cut our export so at the moment we are using 75% of our production ( just ticked over 4000 for the year so far). The vast majority of car charging has been solar via the Zappi. We all make mistakes, when we got our hybrid the manufacturer had a deal running with BP Chargemaster who fitted a charger at a reduced rate. It’s was supposed to be smart but never was but as the in car charge software worked it want an issue. When we swapped to a full a EV the in car schedules charging software didn’t work ( and still doesn’t its a Skoda Enyaq on original software) so we ripped the Chargemaster out and fitted a Zappi. Had we gone for the Zappi when we got the Outlander we would also have had access to the MyEnergi app and some idea of what was happening to our production.
Fantastic, thank you for sharing. Iv never been up on the whole FIT situation but good to hear your experience. Hopefully my videos help share my experience in a clear honest way which I intend to give the information out there people like yourself are needing. Iv done a few videos now so feel free to have a view and any questions Ill always try and answer where I can. Your certainly on the right thought process from what I read regarding ev charger and understanding the systems, hope it all goes well for you.
Thankyou for sharing your experience, In fascinated by the efforts people are going to understand it all and share the lessons learnt, which is how Im intending to do this series of videos. Thankyou
@@lynnfisher4396 Hi Lynn, yes similar position. We did not know what was going on with our system until the zappi got fitted and we could see in real time what was happening. I assume your FIT payment is similar to mine, you get paid for the generation of each KW, my payment is 60p per KW, then 4p for a deemed export of 50% of what we have generated. like you, we found we were exporting for more than what we were getting paid for, particularly as the first two years we worked in an office before covid hit, so everything in the day was being exported. Now I turn on as much as possible when the car is full, even a ride on electric mower. cannot wait for the battery as I think that will be the game changer. The one down side of the zappi, and I think this is more for the myenergi range as a whole is that the electronic brains seems to be slow in responding. for example, I was exporting earlier in the day as well as using electric in the house, and yet it started to import a small amount of electric even whilst still exporting. I also seem to find it take a few seconds to catch up with what is going on and so pulls in from the grid even when I have enough solar. Some of the other UA-cam channels have found similar issues with the myenergi batteries etc. still its a lot better than not knowing and paying to charge the car.
@@juttley72 yes the Myenergi stuff is good but the app can be sluggish. The Zappi isn’t always very quick to switch back on when excess solar arrives again. Sometimes it could be because it’s sees the Enyaq has paused charge but other times not. It’s only a minor criticism as 99% of the time it just dies it’s stuff in the background. The battery as I said in my earlier post has been the game changer, not just for the saving of solar but access to Time of Use tariffs to supplement house use via the battery, rather than just car or white goods running in the off peak period.
We have a new south facing installation. At present, mid-October, West Midands, we start to recharge our battery from around 8.45 a.m. and on a good day are back to 100% by around midday and get good production until 4 p.m. I imagine in the summer when the sun is higher charging will start earlier and finish later.
South facing panels gather the most energy over the course of the day. His graph is misleading because he has 12 panels on the W-roof, and only 8 panels on the S-facing. The idea of placing panels on the E- and W-facing roof and avoiding the S- facing roof is completely ludicrous. The panels have to work with a battery that has the proper size to match the panels.
Nice one , thanks for sharing . We are 100% self sufficient March to October , no electric car but that’s running a house and heating all our water from a 3.6kw south facing property .
I have recently installed 10x 410w panels with 5kw givenergy gen1 inverter and 8.2kwh battery since we installed we are offgrid (we used just 1kw from the grid since 2 weeks) so full battery is fine for us at least 2 cloudy days. In peak I saw 3800w on panels. So not bad. I know bad days coming, trying sort out octopus go tarif but I need smart meter. Will see, very happy for now. We using yearly 4400kwh and I hope this system will reduce electricity bills for 80%
excellent point about a south face being best for noon and that is not much use for an empty house without storage. On-top of solar i'm charging the car & my DIY powerwall with Octopus intelligent. This runs a portable heatpump and kitchen for breakfast & dinner.
Interesting. We’re 10 days into our near identical Solaredge system in 4 bed 2 reception house. Has 21 415w panels :- 8 East, 3 South, 10 West. Nearly mid Oct and so far comfortably covering all our needs by having a battery and actually exporting a fair chunk. Battery’s been back to 100% by late lunchtime even on the duller days so far even while running appliances, computers etc. Got a Zappi 2 for an EV (yet to obtain), but friends charged theirs at a decent rate just by solar yesterday as a first test of it. Not many miles done by us usually and generally at home, so plugging in on a bright day each week will work with a 5kw inverter I think. Pleased with the rate of production so far but very early days. I’m positive an East/West orientation is no barrier to solar. Given solar production is going well, the tip from our installer is to consider using low energy infrared heaters in living areas we use during the day off the excess free solar in Autumn / early Spring. (and reduce expensive central heating times in the process).
It's a big pull out initially but it's clearly working how you wanted it to. Good video. It's the way to go really. More so the way the prices are rising.
I see you changed the adaptable box front cover for the Modbus to a clear one.. Did you replace the front cover yourself or Oval renewables. I asked my installer about the Modbus, and he’s having to find out, but everything tells me it is needed albeit not quoted..
Oval did it as a new standard they do. Easily done by yourself however, its only the lid. I believe the modbus is required to monitor and for exporting purposes if i remember correctly.
Absolutely, Exactly what we have just started to do, video on that soon. To fill the gap between 04:30 and 09:30 as the battery drains in to the car when that goes on charge at 00:30.
Great system. Thanks for the info. 👍 Something I've been toying with like many other people for a long time. I know it's a long shot, but I was waiting to see if the government had any new plans to help people to switch over to solar and battery in 2023. We don't have an electric car yet, but we use 1.00 MWH a month at the moment. Yes. I know. 3 kids pc's on. Plus hot-tub. (ill close tub down soon for winter) We were lucky regards to energy cost. Got a 4 year deal. 21p electricity. 4.2p gas. Just before prices started going mad. That finishes in August 2024. (shell energy) I think the most important point I've heard is the reduction in average kwh cost over the last few months. Something I wanted to know. Thanks.
Wow that is some usage without an EV 😃. Well done for fixing though. Its an absolute must for me, as without some huge system it would be impossible to be 100% self sufficient. To say our system was commissioned at the end of summer, Im over the moon with its performance, more so now that we are producing upwards of 15-20kwh per day. Ill be doing a video in the next few weeks on the performance of the first 3 months
Great video. Very helpful and simply explained. Totally agree about being able to charge a car from solar. I have done just that this weekend - about 100 miles added as well as also charging my SE battery. I have SW and SE facing panels and want to add some east and west for early morning and late evening sun. Even a few more each side would help. What do you think about panels on walls rather than roofs? Mixed feelings myself but interested in your thoughts. Thanks again.
Absolutely, all goes towards that goal bringing the pence/kwh down doesn’t it. Im not sure with wall mounted to be honest. I think that maybe because of the style of our house and where it sits in a village it would look out of place. Im think efficiency is best at an angle but as Im sure your realising any spare space needs panels to maximise production.
At last a video by a real person who I can relate to. I'm watching your videos back to front so apologies if the answer to this question is in your earlier one. I'm moving into a new house soon and I can get 16 panels on a south facing double garage. Its a brand new 4 bed but just 2 of us - underfloor heating and an airsource heat pump. I don't have an EV. Am I going to have get extra panels on the roof? PS Will install a battery as well?
Haha Ill take that as a compliment. To be honest Iv no experience with heat pumps, so not quite sure how often then need to be on. Now, 16x 400w panels if thats the route your take could give you 6.4kw. Which I feel would be suitable but as said its a guess. Today Iv had our 2kw fire blaring out since 11am to 4pm, completely ran from the sun while also filling our 10kw battery and sending 1kw back to the grid. What I would probably suggest is, if it affordable get as many panels as possible, or make provisions now for future expansion. We maxed the space available for panels, for the roofs that didnt require planning permission (explained in another video).
@@DIYJourney1 Does one of your videos show how you managed to hide the cables from your house roof to the garage. Our new garage will be detached so if I have roof panels, will I need to have an unsightly cable coming out of the roof, down the side of the house and into the garage?
I don’t believe my videos do, but I believe @ovalrenewables are doing a UA-cam video which detailed that. Our was ran in the loft space and various voids we have with rooms being in the roof area also. Id suggest trying to hide cables maybe behind a drainpipe or something if its not possible.
My comment elsewhere here 8 days ago may be helpful. We have 4.8 kwh panels with a 10 kwh battery. I think a battery, although making the installation much more expensive and the payback many years longer, is essential to meet the needs of high consumption cooking/washing/ironing etc. when the panels are not producing much, and of course panels produce nothing after the sun goes down so a battery is needed then! 4.8 kwh satisfies our needs at the moment, producing on average 10-15 kwh per day this past month - of course we have to export some of this, as once the battery is 100% charged anything we produce has to be used instantly or exported. However we do not anticipate the system covering our needs as the gloomy days of shorter daylight come along and production nosedives. Also we have oil heating (and hot water) so for heating only use electricity for the CH pump. If you are going to run underfloor heating and a heat pump you will be needing much more electricity than us. I think that 16 panels (we have13) will reduce your bills but you will still need a lot of grid power in the winter. Online tables suggest December solar production is 40% of October production (and 18% of July production) - which would bring our average production down from 10-15 kwh to 4-6 kwh. Obviously more panels would help. North-facing panels, I learned today to my surprise, produce half as much as south-facing, so that might be a thought?
Ev charging in the summer no problem I use a 3kw grannie charger if I'm producing 5kw I can charge the car and run the house and charge the solar batteries.The one thing I have found is a big drain on power is using the shower 8kw that's when I have to buy off the grid,also did you say you were getting 4.1p per kw feeding back to the grid
Yes fortunately I can easily adjust my charger to suit production. Yes export is 4p but to be honest we export very little in the grand scheme, I try and use it all is the goal.
Thank you, me too, Iv done some sums this evening and we are on target for a great return, but no better feeling than driving your car or utilising self made power
Hey buddy great video !! Question you total production changed from 7 something to six something I don’t quite understand! Love the channel been a great help 👍🏻👍🏻
@@DIYJourney1 well I think I’m right 🤪 at the start of your program you gave the total kWh per month and later on the totals changed and went lower in all honesty it might be me missing something sorry to be a pain !! Please keep up the good work as I’ve now ordered 12 kw of panels and 15 kw of batteries on the back of your thinking 👍🏻
Apologies, it was over 5 months ago this video was filmed so without watching it back I cant recall. Im sure its maybe a comment that was generalised, if its a difference in 6 and a 7 whatever it is, Im sure it wont make much difference to whatever is being referred to 👍🏼
Octopus agile tariff if your a customer for gas an electric 15p fixed or agile outgoing which is variable depending on the time of day, peak times today 8.00 to 8.30 29.7p kw 18.30 to 19.00 36.3p kw lowest is 16.4p kw but that's at 1 in the morning,I don't work for them I just think its a big investment and you should get the best returns possible
I was only looking at agile yesterday, and I feel would be a bad move for us, I charge my car at 7p/kwh worst case so having it alter all the time would be a nightmare for charging the car if I need it (I do circa 30k miles per year).
I do less than 5k so it's bit different for me ,thought I'd share it best export tariff I've seen for my situation. at the moment a good day 9kw export bad day 1kw that's the last few weeks can't wait for a good summer next year
@@DIYJourney1 thank you, really can’t wait to get started, just have to get approval as we’re in a conservation zone, we have an odd shaped roof with lots of dormer windows restricting the no of panels we can have, so only 12 in total, bit had concerned as 4 will be East facing, 4 South facing and 4 West facing, and I was concerned that we didn’t have enough South facing ones, but your video has confirmed that having different strings for different times of the day will work well for us. Getting a Zappi installed for our two EV’s and work from home a lot, so will be fun to see how much free juice we can deploy
We are also, so had to check with planning first. Thats good then, you should see a consistent production, unlike mine where mine peaks at one time of day. Of course both ways has its pro’s and con’s.
Great video and started following you - thank you for the time this all takes to produce and record.... Main queries that would be helpful, is why DC coupled and why SE battery as oppose to other more common AC coupled batteries ? I am looking to discuss with Oval too but dont think they are taking new enquieres at present.
Thankyou, The reason I went for solar edge was a few points: - Was slightly cheaper than AC coupled - DC is more efficient than AC coupled. - Excess solar can go in to the battery even if inverter is maxxed at 5kw but solar is producing 8kw, 3kw would go in battery - All my warranties are sat with one manufacturer so any issues is easier for me. - The app is all in one place rather than multiple. - As an eco system it all easily works together.
@@DIYJourney1 I am looking at broadly the same setup I think, for now anyway unless an installer has a better idea. Will contact some installers to get a view. It’s a smart install by oval top who I have been following for a while too. Thanks again. Need to think with my zappi too and how this fits in.
3 years in for us with a 10kw system. Car wise, we manage 60 to 70% of mileage over the year on solar, mind we are doing a lower mileage than you. Time of use tariff's are a game changer for payback. Excluding the solar generation, we averaged 8pkwh last year, this year it is likely to be 10pkwh. We designed our's to allow for 7kw discharge from the battery storage plus the 10kw of solar. This means that in the sunny months we can charge the car at 7kw in the middle of the day and have the washing machine etc running. Getting the design and balance right for the setup is not easy, I still think we made a couple of mistakes but all in all it has bene worth it. Payback is an interesting one, do you ask how much your new kitchen is going to pay back ? But more seriously, we are looking at a total pay back of 6 to 7 years for the whole system. The pure fact is, for the energy use we have and at current rates, we could not afford to use what we do without the solar and battery install. We use 1.1MWh a month, you can work the rest out from that.
Fantastic comment, couldn’t agree more, and absolutely mirrors what we are experiencing. Really good to hear your experience. I am currently experimenting with the battery charging during the cheaper times, as with it draining into the car we are not having any battery during 04:30-09:00, which has helps bring our average down. Im expecting 5-7 payback subject to where the energy pricing sits, but for me, I feel the money sat in the bank was earning £15 a month, that maybe would be £80 now, yet Im returning circa £250-£300 with solar, just from that stance its an absolute worthwhile exercise.
My battery is 9.7kw, so far yes big enough to be 100% self sufficient. Hard for me to determine as I charge my car and it drains in to the car, but taking that out of the equation, it would suffice for at least 1x day
Are you having issues with the SolarEdge battery bouncing at night with importing grid power to 10% then feed the house then rinse and repeat all night ? Ow and have you herd anything about what if any functionality your going to retain with the Anderson charger now that the companies gone bust ?
No issues so far with the solaredge battery. It drains in to the car normally at 00:30 when my car charges then charges no problem from 03:30-04:30 from the grid on my request to about 50%. Nothing heard yet and to be honest, its still working as it always had. Im expecting the app to stop at some point meaning ill have no control over schedules etc. If that happens, ill just swap it for a Solaredge charger.
Thanks for sharing, currently waiting for delivery of a 3 phase inverter for our 14 kw of panels (we have a ground source heat pump with a 3 phase motor and the building is 500m² ). In your output graph, was the red line perhaps 12am rather than noon? For me here in Scotland noon is 12:18 GMT Anyway, most informative, thank you!
….worth noting that wont help the understanding of the graph, due to number of panels the sun is actually seeing as it differs south to west on this graph.
You're doing sensible things there in the UK. I am English but moved to the USA (Ohio) 20 years ago and things are so different here still. $0.057077 per kWh. All the same, things WILL change and electricity will go up here too... so (much to the bafflement of others) I installed solar to offset electric bills and give us wiggle room in a power outage. I can add to my system if need be in the future (at present I have just a 3kW system) I think what YOU are doing is excellent.
Also... we had an electrical outage here of many hours recently. Our electricity just carried on, no problems (and none anticipated for a few days) You?
Very helpful video, thanks. We have a dc coupled system with battery as well, and we charge our EV with a zappi. It allows you to charge from solar only, avoiding the battery topping up to the 7kw. However you have to ask yourself is it worth the cost of £1k+ to upgrade to one.
Thats it, in hindsight I would of gone zappi to start with, as I very nearly did, but aesthetics got the better on me and went with the Andersen, albeit working much better than I expected with solar.
Two bits of advice. 1. Consider Octopus Go for the winter time only and Octopus Agile for the spring / summer months. This is what I do, and it maximises the value of your exports. I’ve exported 3MWH so far this year, and it’s earned £750. The export prices have worked out around 25p/kWh this year. So thus the price per kWh for electricity consumption for my house has actually been negative! That said, you did mention that you had a high monthly consumption. So do the maths, and consider the benefits of seasonal tariff changes. 2. Consider replacing the Anderson charger with a MyEnergi Zappi charger. This will trim the charge to your car to match the surplus from your solar panels. That way you don’t have the situation you’re in where you’re importing 2kW from the grid because your inverter is limited to 5kw. You’ll charger slower, but it will be cheaper. You might find that there’s a good 2nd hand value for the Anderson charger, and that might take the sting out of the upgrade. The Zappi will start charging with 1.4kw of solar surplus.
Thankyou for the advice. I wasn’t aware you can just switch with Octopus, given its a fixed tariff, will look into it, thanks. Absolutely, think I need to sit down and look at it, as we don’t actually export that much…I don’t think at the moment. Its hard to warrant a switch in car chargers as I did think about it. The Andersen was £1200, solar wasn’t in the radar then, and cant imagine I would return much second hand for it, a zappi was £800 when I got mine so large outlay for small gains. The Andersen can reduce the charge down to 1-4kwh if needed so to not cost me anything, just if I want a 7kw charge, it means I have to buy in, but to be fair it still an average of about 8p/kwh which isn’t bad I suppose
You must have a big solar system. We have an EV and need to charge from the grid. We'd be paying lots if this was using octopus agile. I hear what you are saying about summer Vs winter tariffs. If you're exporting mostly in summer, get agile.
@@Bondy1986 except Andersen have gone bust, so I could surmise from that that any app for the charger no longer works if the servers are switched off. You still have a “dumb” charger, assuming you can adjust settings such as schedules directly at the charge point, but if it’s via an app, then that would really diminish the value of the charger.
My situation is different in that I do not have Solar and am planning on 20+KW battery that will charge fully in the 4 hour GO window and was going to use a 5KW inverter until I started testing my peak KW usage which is around 7KW with 2 rings on the induction hob and an oven with a boost facility and about 500w of regular use so am now going for the 8.8KW Inverter so I do not have to use On peak grid electricity. It costs about £700 more for 8KW over 5KW but in the overall picture, it will allow me to charge my EV during On peak if necessary. And when you include 35p saving a day x 365 x 5 year plan = £640 saving so its buckshee🤣
Great video! I’ve a 4kw PV system at the moment and strongly considering a battery since my consumption is generally less than my generation, especially when in the office. Any thoughts on charging the home battery overnight as we get shorter days on a cheaper over night rate as generation may not exceed consumption?
We have literally just started this, and charge our battery between 03:30-04:30 which gives us about 48% to cover the time between 04:30 and 09:30 when solar starts. We actually only need about 20% but gives a bit of a buffer.
Good Vid makes sense what your saying but you really should have had Enphase micro inverters installed on each panel they connect straight to the battery as they output AC, also if your invertor goes down you loose everything, with micro invertors if one goes down you just lose that one panel. I think your right on getting panels on the east and west it maximises the solar day.
Interesting but suggest you view the new octopus tariffs inc. the 15p kWh export tariff and super cheap night time rates for charging cars. My calculations suggest buying batteries is not efficient with these much improved tariffs
Thank you, I have done a review and the export tariff is still 4p for us. My priority is to use up the energy than sell back at 40% of the cost we buy it at.
I have a very similar SolarEdge system with 18 panels, 8 east and 10 west facing. Ther have been problems with installation - the panels were installed in June but the battery in August, but on installing the battery the installer managed to blow all the optimisers so the total system was out for a few weeks! Now the app shows no watts per individual panel. I agree that without the battery its all a bit of a waste, in September my average cost per kWh was 7p. My optimum time is around 2pm, yesterday at this time it was generating at 2.7 kW.
Did they have to get scaffolding back in the replace the optimisers? The reliability of optimisers is something I'm worrying about (currently getting quotes) as it would be pretty terrible to have to get onto the roof for work more often than once a decade.
Interestingly, with our system, situation, etc., the best tariff for us is Outgoing Octopus (15p/unit export) not Octopus Go (7.5p/unit off peak). Sadly you can't have both. You can't generalise, every installation is different. Retired, one EV doing less than 5000 miles per year, non-EV electricity usage about 2800kWh per year, east/west roof, 14 400w panels on each roof, one 5kW Solis inverter for each bank of panels, 9.2 kW Givenergy battery, Zappi, Eddi.
Absolutely, thats an assessment I need to do, which I was planning after 12 months with solar so I know where we are at. You absolutely right, with these videos so hard to try offer my experience but generalise it so others can use the information, hopefully that comes across.
Hypervolt and Zappi car chargers have a solar only setting so they don't draw anything from the grid. They divert anything over 1.5kw being exported to the grid, into the car. No need for the grid to top up to 7kw.
The Andersen is the exact same. I’m referring to when you want a maximum 7kw charge, the inverter is 5kw, so you have to bring in from the grid regardless whether solar production is over 5kw. To combat that you have to reduce the charge rate, which is nit always useful if your needing to use the car soon
If I was in your situation I would be selling the solar edge inverter and buying a victron 10kw inverter. You could then charge your car and use appliances. A 10kw battery is quite small for a house that size, I would want to at least double that to take advantage of the pv power you are producing. You are actually quite close to being 100% self sufficient even with the EV.
I think we have to come to some realism here on funds. Its not just about selling an inverter. I would also need further DNO approval to be 10kw at a further £500 with no guarantees of acceptance. 10kw is doing us very well actually in winter and I would say our home usage from experience is 9-12kwh per day. Another battery would be nice, but again realism, thats a cost for £7k to keep everything integrated. We are not close to being self sufficient, I estimate we are at around 50% efficieny for the year with an EV, as I do circa 35k miles per year and the car is 74kw.
Very useful video. Do you think for a household where the occupants are at home most of the time having a battery still a good idea and worthwhile investment?
I'm looking to get solar myself (at home all day) and I think it makes sense to get a battery. 1, you can use your own excess at off peak or to smooth production dips during the day. 2, during the winter when not generating enough to meet demand can top the battery up from the grid at off peak prices, for me right now that is 35p peak and 18p off peak. I also think if you didn't want the investment of a battery but you have a hot water tank get a diverter so you can at least convert your excess electric to heat hot water. Assuming gas is about 10p per KWh and you get paid about 5p per KWh.
Im on the fence to be honest. I think it would be worthwhile, particularly with the 20% VAT taken off if bought with solar. What I would say, is it maybe more viable with a cheaper system, as ours was a large outlay if its not used to its maximum if that makes sense. What Im finding is the battery helps support the solar at times when there isn’t enough production (e.g 0.5kw being produced but 3kw needed, the battery can make up the difference). Again overnight it is useful as you wont buy in for any of the standby features etc. as the other gentlemen has said, hot water to heat is also a possibility which we are due to have fitted soon. Hope that helps, any further questions, by all means ill try help where I can, and Im sure the community will too.
@@DIYJourney1 I was quoted £3600 for 10kw of battery (Foxess). It does take a while to get that back, but as I'd seen on a recent Fully Charged video, no one says "what's the payback on your £20k kitchen"
Quick question, the graph at around the 1:30 mark has a red line for 'noon'. Is that 'noon' actual, midday BST, or is it noon real, solar noon which would be around 1pm BST depending on how far east or west of meridian? For instance, the sun is at it's highest for me at 12:20 BST as my house resides near the east coast of the UK (0.6degE)
Hi, Thankyou, I have done a full breakdown of cost on another video: HOW MUCH DOES A SOLAR & BATTERY SYSTEM COST? ua-cam.com/video/_qebTsI2554/v-deo.html
Did any suppliers/installers ask you to pay to survey your property requirements? I’m looking into solar and some are asking to pay up front for a survey, regardless of if you use them to purchase/install.
No we didn’t, however, I have heard this to be way given the demand and lots of time wasters. I get it, but would expect it to be removed from the final price.
@@DIYJourney1 yes I don’t mind if it’s taken off the price, however I expect to be able to get more than one quote to compare between. It’s obviously a sellers market at the moment and providers can be more choosy. Thanks for the reply.
I've had several people come to my house to have a look in the last month. Nobody charged. I've seen someone who says they would charge, they can stuff it.
In the grander scheme would everyone be better off having a big battery pack & using off peak to charge probably a better option than solar. Thanks for update
Iv been thinking about this a lot. My opinion, is that without an EV, and at current rates with only a battery you could with a 10kw battery guarantee your rate at 7.5p/kwh at my overnight rate. Adding in solar to that id be confident from my experience to say you would be 100% self sufficient for most of the year (for equivalent to my system) so its that balance of extra cost for solar panels. With an EV if you dont have a charger that can read what the battery is doing, then absolutely not, as the batteries will drain in to the car and need you to have the ability to charge it back up before the higher rate. Many variables and Im still on the fence until I do the sums
@@DIYJourney1 Battery would be a good start for most homes even if PV comes later. Hopefully EV’s will eventually become that battery store to feed back into the home during peak.
It certainly is a good starting point. My avg pence/kwh is around 3p, so I suppose its whether that 4.5p is enough to pay for suitable array of solar panels. I do anticipate if my usage was much less it would be nearer 0p/kwh.
Yes aware, and currently still works as normal and mentioned in the video. The loss of Andersen is not applicable to this video. I will assess what I need to do in the coming months.
I suppose there is a bit more to it also, but certainly agree max panels possible, 8kw-10kw if possible, battery Im unsure on, I use the battery mainly to top the house up and use excess to go in the car or eventually hot water, but again down to individual situations
You are very correct and I am very aware of differences. How else would you understand whats needed as a suitable system for you. need to be to figure whether a system is suitable for you. Unfortunately Im not perfect and find its not always easy to pick a camera up and talk (hence the reason for the channel) particularly when its a lot of talking trying to get a message across…sometimes people make small mistakes 👍🏼
Im absolutely aware of that & thankyou for highlighting as a couple of others have. As Im sure you can appreciate, it’s not easy picking a camera up, the reason I started youtube videos was because I struggle with speaking and portraying what is in my head and turn it to words. Fortunately, as you have, people 9/10 know what you mean/understand and move on 🙂
Here's the thing, you cannot go more than 10 kilowatts before the DNO wants you to upgrade your fuse. Because you don't want more than 10 kilowatts feeling back through a single phase. I'm thinking a bit more long-term than you. Eventually we'll have two electric cars, maybe three when the kids start driving. I don't know how but we're gonna have to get a heat pump. So my only option is three phase. Where you can feed 30 kW back into the grid and take 55kW So I have designed a three-phase off grid system grid coupled. Three 12 kilowatt inverters peak 24kW each 82 kW of battery storage ((£210 per kWh) 20 kilowatt solar panel Still in the build phase. Waiting to get the fuse upgrade to three phase
I assume the DNO’s demands depends on what is installed currently. I thought long term with mine thank you considering the roof space available, planning permission and being in keeping with our surrounding area: As we were having at the time of DNO approval a 5kw system with 5kw inverter to suit due to budget restraints. Our situation changed and 6 months later nearer to the install we could afford to increase the panels to 8kw to help on those worse days rather than for full capacity. Im very happy with my system and its production for the price I have paid, I am trying to share my experience to help others understand how it is working. Upgrading our system to 3 phase is not a viable option for us as our current supply is not an issue for the expense required to upgrade. This is a test bed for us for a future development so interesting to see how it is all working
This is more of a request for help than a comment. Our MySolaredge app is not showing our correct daily total production. Today for example has been very sunny and we recharged our 9.7 kwh battery fully by 2 p.m. from 0% this morning and used a fair amount of power during the day, but the app shows our total production today as 3.42 kwh whereas we have probably produced at least over 12 kwh. The lights on our inverter are constant blue and green, those on the battery flashing blue and constant green. Any suggestions anyone?
From my experience, the battery charging doesn’t record the production. Its only when that power is used that the production is recorded…is what Im finding. So its only at the end of the day you get a true reflection, and if you have battery left then that will be recorded when its used
Think of your solar/battery capital investment as that... An investment. For that £xk investment, how much are you saving each year? You're probably looking at 10% return at least. I did the install myself and looking at 15+% return easily.
I think (could be wrong but have seen them forsale) 8kw in the SolarEdge Inverter we have, for single phase. Would be subject to DNO approval which was the reason we didn’t go bigger as we already paid for approval for 5kwh
SolarEdge have a SE8000H, and a SE10000H, if you add the SolarEdge Home Battery (400) you will get a maximum of 5 kW discharge from the battery. If you wanted the battery to feed your 8 kW shower, then install 2 x SE5000H, and a battery on each, this will give you a maximum discharge of 10kW. You can have up to 3 batteries per inverter giving you a depth of 30 kW per inverter and a discharge of 5kWh per inverter/battery.
@@DIYJourney1 Doesn't G99 allow you to have larger kWh inverter, so long as it has software control for export (max output dictated by DNO) then the inverter can still direct a higher kWh for you own internal use?
Im not sure on the forms as it was done by the installer. It makes sense what you say, and yes we do have the ability to limit export as we have the solaredge modbus, so maybe we could upgrade to 8kwh and just limit the export to 5kwh. Too late now however 😃 unless we feel its an expense worthwhile down the line.
Hi, in your video you mention your saving at 34p per Kw. I don’t think you have figured in the standing charge per day. This will boost the cost up by quite a large amount.
Your very correct I haven’t included the standing day charge. I have a tariff regardless of solar being installed or not, I have to pay that either way, so it’s irrelevant to usage cost, which is based on a per unit cost of 34p/kWh. Mine actually is 38p/kWh for 20 hours and 7.5p/kWh for 4 hours. Hope that helps.
@@DIYJourney1 Hi again, yes I get your point, but you did give the actual cost per Kw which would be more if the day standing charge was included. I am thinking of putting in dollar by myself to cut down on the initial cost and your video was very helpful. I have a small system running on my allotment which allows me to run power for watering, security cameras, etc.
I still stand by my decision not to include the day charge, any figures mentioned do not include this. The standing charge is around £15 per month regardless, of whether I don’t have solar panels or whether I am 100% self sufficient from solar.
Of course you can. The battery charges from the solar at any opportunity and is managed by the solaredge system. Then it manages itself, so if the house demands more than the solar panels provide the battery will provide the additional. The house demand and usage is prioritised over battery charging. I have now set my house battery to charger from the grid from 03:30-04:30 as that is a cheap rate overnight and tops my battery up to 50%.
@@DIYJourney1 Thanks only had my Battery installed last week and I'm still getting my head around the cheapest time to charge, I'm still waiting for my DNO Acknowledgment letter, so unfortunately I'm not uploading Electric back to the grid yet 😢😢but I'm running the house all of the evening via the Battery, so I'm fairly pleased so far.
Thats the time iv found to be best for us. Your battery should just charge all day shouldn’t it from solar? Only reason I have mine charge from the grid is because it drains in to my car when that charges. Yes we are still waiting on our export connection after 10 weeks
@@DIYJourney1 I've just changed my Inverter settings to charge up 3.30-4,30 am I was topping the Battery up to 100% full from the grid instead of 50% Battery and 50% Solar really appreciate the advice 👍
I haven’t seen anything about your central heating set up. Is it gas? If you run a heat pump and EV would you need a three phase supply? If so how does that effect the whole set up?
Yes it is Gas so not applicable to our solar installation which is solely electricity. We are however installing a hot water energy diverter which will heat our hot water via the immersion heater with excess solar. As for three phase, Iv not yet needed to look in to this so cant help there. Their are many knowledgeable people in the comments section which hopefully can offer some correct advice.
We run an ASHP and an EV and we are on a single phase supply. If you have a Zappi, it will limit the supply if on at the same time so not to blow the fuse. We are solely on electric with electric cooker too.
Thankyou for sharing, Id be keen to learn what size system you have and what equipment? Im interested and starting to learn about heat pumps, how are you finding it?
It's not free either way. Any electricity that you use to charge your car, say, you could have exported at (current prices) 15p/kWh. This becomes apparent when you start trying to work out whether to use Octopus Go with a standard export guarantee rate or Outgoing Octopus on a flat rate tariff.... I do know what you mean though.
@@DIYJourney1 I assume the money used to bye the equipment to produce this free electricity was aquire by gainful employment not stolen or given ? Then it's not free .
My export is 4p/kwh, my buy in is 38p/lwh, my goal is solar for free or the 7.5p/kwh overnight, hence my comment in the video suggesting to reduce my average than to zero.
You are missing the point. When the system has returned to cost price in an estimated 5-7 years, does the solar not become free and after that point become more than free so yes ill stand by my comment and Im just averaging my hope of how it will work 😃
Hi you would NOT see much more power before 9am if you had east facing panels. I have dozens of systems that I monitor and can look down a list of them. None seem to really wake up until 9:30 which shocked me to see because on these days you could wear sunglasses at this time. I looked and the strings were only showing 70V over 8 panels which should be at least 250V
Its actually funny you comment saying that. As literally just been sent a photo by a friend who has south east facing panels and on the same day has fantastic production starting at 6am, 1kw by 07:30, 2kw by 8:30 3kw by 9:30 so very contrary to what you are seeing.
@@DIYJourney1 Thats really good. I have monitoring platforms for SolaX and Fox ESS (mostly) hybrid inverters. A customer pointed out to me yesterday that the inverter was idling at 140Watts until 9:30 and when i looked, they were all doing the same thing. This was the 11th of October but it was really sunny. I reported it to SolaX and they pointed out that the voltage was low which was odd because there are 16 panels over 2 strings equally. I then took a look at all of my other systems across both platforms and they were all doing under 900watts until 9:30. Oddly i looked at a system on a Solis hybrid and that was doing 1.2kW by 8am despite being 20 degrees off south to the west! What I am finding with these new hybrid inverters is they may need configuring by the manufacturer remotely after installation. Most have had to have firmware upgrades. its very annoying
That maybe the time of year hey, I know when I left home at 7am today it was still fairly dark. I must say, I’m referring to august rather than darker mornings.
If you do a search for "NEA how much electricity do solar panels produce" there is a comparison graph south v east v west facing panels at various times of day. Not very detailed but gives the overall picture.
I wish people would stop going on about payback with solar, it's a home improvment just the same as changing the kitchen or bathroom it will add value to your property. no one ever goes on about pay back on double glazing ect so why solar. Graet upload as ever.
Couldn’t agree more, inline with many many other variables that could be counted. For me, it just feels the right thing to do, not only from a financial stance being a young family, but also looking at the renewable element and helping the demand and countries need for gas supplied by others to help the bigger population.
@@DIYJourney1 Same here really, No brainer we had 9.3 KW array installed 8Kw inverter, I took alot of advise of other UA-camrs particularly regrets with their own installs think we got it right. Not gone down battery road, Not convinced about problems with warranty 5 years down the road. Took advantage of Government scheme wth heat pump instead.
This is a bit of test bed for us, for future plans down the line. As you may of seen we have a solaredge battery, currently with 9.7kw of capacity, they say its warranted to 70% @ 10 years, we shall see, but for us was a must with our usage being out if hours if you like.
After 2 years of 8kwh PV and 10kwh of batteries, I can tell you recouping money from solar really works, batteries sadly are not a very good proposition even with these electric prices, 10kwh batteries will at best save you £3.40 per day if you can manage to fill them and use all their capacity everyday, at a cost of £6k to buy (most are more + fitting) the repay period is 2352 days or 6.4 years and that is with no breakdowns or replacement parts
Thankyou for sharing your experience thats fantastic information. Would you mind detailing equipment and warranty attached with those for others to understand.
@@DIYJourney1 Well I have 2 sets of dual string 4kw dual mppt east west systems both with regular inverters, these feed different parts of my property, each has a growatt spa3000 fitted to manage their 5kwh growatt battery, lastly just before the meter I use a solic 200 to divert any power that was destined to go back to the grid into my immersion heater. This way once my batteries are full I never feed the grid. The entire system has been installed by myself and I've not bothered to get FiT as there really is no point at 4p per kwh. I've done all of this as a project, but by far the most expensive part is the batteries and it will take 5 years to recover the investment in them at best, but probably more like 8 years given low energy production in winter and on cloudy rainy days.
@@mikejoseph425 you def have to be in for the long hall, all I’m really trying to show is batteries are a tough repayment versus just having solar, using a diverter to feed excess power into a hot water tank for £300 would be a better investment if you have one
I seriously don't understand why people do t simply set up a few mining rigs to ensure they are getting paid for the energy when there not there.... Why does no one think beyond exporting...
People absolutely think beyond exporting thats why our aim is not to export, it can be better used elsewhere i.e electric car, hot water etc etc as many others consider. Maybe think about how many other people wont be interested in mining I know i’m certainly not.
I still don't see how this saves you that much or even any money. For arguments sake let's say with maintenance over a 20yr period this will cost you £20k that's before we even consider finance required. That's £1000 per year are you really going to be saving that much money per year? I've constantly been evaluating having solar panels fitted and I've never been convinced that the payback is worth it. Like another said I've always been waiting for the government to subsidise it (for the life of me I can't understand why they don't) Based on my usage for this month of 772 kwh for this month how much of that do you think realistically could have been saved by having a similar system? I predict I will use probably 10k kwh this year.
What maintenance is required? I am likely to be saving circa £1600-£2000 per year at todays prices. 10kWh at todays cap = £3400 if solar averages 50% of that, you’ve saved £1700 for the year. My video I have literally just posted may help answer your query.
@@DIYJourney1 I'm sure when watching other material on this they say that the system needs to be serviced similar to an annual boiler service. Also, I think I read that the inverter doesn't last as long as the panels do and may need replacing after 10 - 12 years.
That is why you have to choose products with specific with warranties to ensure if covers the products. As for maintenance apart from cleaning the panelsI believe it is just a tightness check of connections, very minimal. Even if compared to a boiler, at around £60 a service, 20 years is £1200. Remember inflation aimed at 2% per year also, when looking at energy prices. They dont stay at todays rates
@@DIYJourney1 do you have a 20yr warranty on all the panels, inverter and battery then? That's really good if you do, I'm guessing that's why you chose more expensive products in the first place. £18.5k + £1200 is pretty much £20k is it not? I could counter the 2% inflation with if I invested the same £20k I would get some return on that or if I had to finance the £20k then it would obviously have an interest cost to counter that. I'm really not trying shoot you down here, I'm just trying to gauge if it really does genuinely save you that much money.
KWh is kW for 1 hour. Im not sure your reasonings this comment, likely a smal mistake on my part (appreciate you need to be perfect/superhuman on youtube) however to clarify, the units are, if a appliance of 7kW was ran for 1hour, that would be 7kWh of usage. If it was ran for 30mins, that would be 3.5kWh.
I agree, and am aware of the differences as explained. Again unsure why your commenting this, must be a small mistake in my video. Knowledge of both is required to understand systems and how they will work for you.
@@DIYJourney1 I'm commenting because all these acronyms can be confusing for those new to all of this, and getting it wrong (which you did almost 50% of the time) can exacerbate that confusion. No offence intended, I was just trying to be helpful by pointing it out.
I can only apologise for that. I have an aim of getting people as close as possible but would be possible to get people 100% there and requires an element of self knowledge also. As Im sure you can appreciate videos aren’t easy to do, particularly to protray such a topic. I do these videos to improve myself with speaking publicly and would hope the assumption that people do get things slightly wrong when speaking in front of a camera and can adapt the information portrayed given this detail is the basics of understanding the solar pv systems. Thankyou for highlighting this failing on my part
We have had our 13 x 370w (4.8 kw) south-facing panels for a month or so with a 10 kwh battery. We are retired and home in the West Midlands much of the day. Our worst day's production so far was 4 kwh, our best 25 kwh, with an average around 10 kwh. On many days our production rate is around 0.5 - 1.0 kwh at times in the middle of the day. Without a battery our house might be kept ticking over during the day but cooking and laundry washing and drying would have to be done on very sunny parts of days, and predictable guaranteed long periods of sun are few and far between as autumn bites. Our battery allows us to accumulate power to use it when we want to, and so far has got us through the evenings and nights nearly every day without using grid power. Our consumption is around 7 kwh most days, rising to 12 on laundry days. I feel that we are enjoying the tail-end of good weather for solar and will soon be using the grid far more. I suspect it may well be financially worthwhile to get onto an overnight EV tariff to charge the 10 kwh battery in the winter, if possible, although we do not have an EV. I am waiting to see how things pan out over the winter. So far my installation has met my expectations, and since my expectations for the winter are low that seems likely to continue to be the case.
Absolutely, you seem to be experiencing the same as us.
I am just experimenting with the battery and having it charging during our cheaper rate for 1 hour, as it drains in to my car when I charge, leaving us with out any battery for the period between 04:30-09:00. Hopefully will get a video up about that too.
Thank you so much for real world data!
To indicate the fickle nature of solar, in the past week of sunnier weather our average production was around 15 kwh a day. Our 10kwh battery is normally recharged by around midday and stays at 100% until 5 p.m. when cooking dinner, TV, lights and other background use gradually over the next 16 hours brings the battery down to around 45% before it starts recharging at 9 a.m.and the daily cycle starts again. Our daily use of the grid amounts to about 0.5 kwh - this seems to mainly derive from the panels/inverter/battery software which is apparently normal. And of course we still pay a standing charge to the supplier. On a totally unrelated solar panel issue, I was interested to discover that north-facing panels still produce 50% as much as south-facing panels, and east- and west-facing produce 75% as much as south-facing.
@@nikkonch Thank you Sir. Screenshooting your info to help us plan our builds. Your work is inspiring us. Thank you
Thankyou for sharing, mirroring ours although battery fully charged by 2pm.
Ill be doing a video in a few weeks at our 3 months mark showing how its performed and how things have changed over the 3months in terms of production.
I was working with a road repair crew in N.S.W. and questioned fellows what were the black window-like boxes on numerous bungalow roofs. I was told they were solar panels. This was 1971, long before todays panels were made. Further questions revealed that a series of copper tubes were encased in an 18"x24" frame, painted matt-black and the frame glazed. With an inlet and outlet going back into a water system, with a circulating pump, and this provided enough hot water for the needs of the property owners. Even today in England a system like this could be a big help with the fuel costs affecting everone!
Yes the water thermal panels are a thing and still believe so. We are looking at a different way to heat our hot water, but utilising the immersion heater to heat the water with excess solar.
Solar hot water is much more efficient than PV, and less severely affected by shading. However hot water is a relatively small part of most people's energy budget. These days it's better to use your roof for PV.
Snap on the inverter experience! Every time the kettle goes on in the evening the inverter just about covers it at our place at 3.3kw Biggest learn was go bigger on the inverter. We went 13kw battery but were limited by discharge. We're still really happy with it, but I recommend a bigger inverter.
Thats exactly it, ours isn’t bad and more than useable just if we’d of known. Unfortunately we had already paid £470 to DNO for approval at 5x and the system was going to be 6kw. It was a last minute switch to go 8kw and I didn’t want to spend another £500 on the assesment
Enjoyed watching that, thank you. Our roof line is aligned North/South and we have an existing 4kW FIT system on the West side that generates a pretty consistent 3mW every year. Tomorrow we were due to start installation of a further 28 390w panels plus a 5.2kW and a 9.5kW battery. I’m maximising the panels we can get on the roof, most of them will now be on the East side, with just filling in the gaps on the West side. Our system was designed with 2x 5kW hybrid inverters so we should get a decent throughput and as you explained, I should be getting good charging throughout the day. The 4kW FIT system won’t feed into the batteries without changing the inverter, so something for a future upgrade and yet another payback calculation to be done.
Annoyingly though I found out today that the installation had been called off as the installers haven’t got the DNO approval though. So another month’s delay 😢
You might struggle to get DNO clearance for that many ADDITIONAL panels!
Thank you very much for this excellent round up.
Very informative real-world experience video with useful advice.
We are in the process of buying a house with solar already installed. I dont know anything about the system yet, all i know is that it has 10 integrated panels on a west facing roof, so it is a learning curve for me.
I'm looking forward to your future updates and knowledge.
Thankyou, great to hear it was helpful.
Any questions, by all means ask, always happy to help if I can.
Thanks for the video. I can't believe how many of these types of videos I am now watching each week. We moved into our place 3 years ago. it came with an east facing 4KW array with a FIT tariff which averages 1.5K a year. For the first two years, I was very happy as the FIT payment covered our entire electricity bill and left 200 in credit. We only have electric at our property, no gas or oil. The system is old however with no way to get real time performance except via the inverter, so I never knew for certain how much we were generating and exporting. Now with the increase in tariff, our FIT payment no longer covers the cost of electric. An EV thrown into the mix has also massively increased our consumption. That's why we then booked in a new south facing 4kw array, plus a powerwall 2 with gateway. The array has been in place now since the end of July, but the powerwall is not going to be fitted until mid December. So my interest in these types of videos is to understand what the likely impact is on my energy bills moving forward and to learn any lessons. My first lesson is simple, when I had our first EV I was offered an EV charger and accepted the first one put forward, a PodPoint charger. Nothing wrong with it, but it does not work with solar, and so if I tried to charge the car in the day whilst exporting, it would only work at 7KW regardless of the amount. So an additional 1K spend to replace it with a zappi was necessary. Happy with things currently. In august we did 1480 miles at a cost of £6.69 (over night charging on cheap rates), plus solar via the Zappi. This gives me a running cost of half a penny a mile. Things changed massively in September as very different generation, which has left me at 1.5p per mile. I am thinking next year of another 4kw, we could put on a west facing barn roof, or I may go for a ground mount setup with a solar tracker fitted to follow the sun. I need to look into more yet, but this will be needed as we are getting a second EV next year, plus my son is due to get his first car and he has indicated he only wants electric. So our usage will again increase significantly. Hoping to get vehicle to house set up soon as well so we can use our EV (Nissan Leaf) as a moving battery storage solution with its 40KW battery and Chademo connector. cheers J
You are very similar to us albeit at a much larger scale. We had an original 3 kw array coupled to a 3 kw inverter for which we receive FIT payments. It had no app so we didn’t know how much of the energy produced we actually used. The capital in the bank was earning nothing so we looked at adding solar and a battery. Whilst we could add quite a bit more the DNO got in the way so we ended up with an extra 1.3kw and new inverters totalling 3.6 kw.
The battery , a Tesla Powerwall along with its app was the game changer. We realised that of our usual 3000kw production on the old array we were only using about 800 kw or 30%, the rest was exported. Prior to our first full year our grid use was 1601 kw. Adding the extra solar boosted our first full years production to 4024 but our yearly grid use was only 824 kw , all of which was at the Go Faster Cheap rate of ( currently for us 5.5p). Adding a full EV has further cut our export so at the moment we are using 75% of our production ( just ticked over 4000 for the year so far). The vast majority of car charging has been solar via the Zappi.
We all make mistakes, when we got our hybrid the manufacturer had a deal running with BP Chargemaster who fitted a charger at a reduced rate. It’s was supposed to be smart but never was but as the in car charge software worked it want an issue. When we swapped to a full a EV the in car schedules charging software didn’t work ( and still doesn’t its a Skoda Enyaq on original software) so we ripped the Chargemaster out and fitted a Zappi. Had we gone for the Zappi when we got the Outlander we would also have had access to the MyEnergi app and some idea of what was happening to our production.
Fantastic, thank you for sharing. Iv never been up on the whole FIT situation but good to hear your experience. Hopefully my videos help share my experience in a clear honest way which I intend to give the information out there people like yourself are needing. Iv done a few videos now so feel free to have a view and any questions Ill always try and answer where I can.
Your certainly on the right thought process from what I read regarding ev charger and understanding the systems, hope it all goes well for you.
Thankyou for sharing your experience, In fascinated by the efforts people are going to understand it all and share the lessons learnt, which is how Im intending to do this series of videos. Thankyou
@@lynnfisher4396 Hi Lynn, yes similar position. We did not know what was going on with our system until the zappi got fitted and we could see in real time what was happening. I assume your FIT payment is similar to mine, you get paid for the generation of each KW, my payment is 60p per KW, then 4p for a deemed export of 50% of what we have generated. like you, we found we were exporting for more than what we were getting paid for, particularly as the first two years we worked in an office before covid hit, so everything in the day was being exported. Now I turn on as much as possible when the car is full, even a ride on electric mower. cannot wait for the battery as I think that will be the game changer. The one down side of the zappi, and I think this is more for the myenergi range as a whole is that the electronic brains seems to be slow in responding. for example, I was exporting earlier in the day as well as using electric in the house, and yet it started to import a small amount of electric even whilst still exporting. I also seem to find it take a few seconds to catch up with what is going on and so pulls in from the grid even when I have enough solar. Some of the other UA-cam channels have found similar issues with the myenergi batteries etc. still its a lot better than not knowing and paying to charge the car.
@@juttley72 yes the Myenergi stuff is good but the app can be sluggish. The Zappi isn’t always very quick to switch back on when excess solar arrives again. Sometimes it could be because it’s sees the Enyaq has paused charge but other times not. It’s only a minor criticism as 99% of the time it just dies it’s stuff in the background.
The battery as I said in my earlier post has been the game changer, not just for the saving of solar but access to Time of Use tariffs to supplement house use via the battery, rather than just car or white goods running in the off peak period.
You hit the nail on the head. South install only helps mid day ... Not morning or afternoon.
👍😀
We have a new south facing installation. At present, mid-October, West Midands, we start to recharge our battery from around 8.45 a.m. and on a good day are back to 100% by around midday and get good production until 4 p.m. I imagine in the summer when the sun is higher charging will start earlier and finish later.
@@nikkonch yes, my south facing starts early too, but it's only a few 100W, not the peak at morning.
South facing panels gather the most energy over the course of the day. His graph is misleading because he has 12 panels on the W-roof, and only 8 panels on the S-facing. The idea of placing panels on the E- and W-facing roof and avoiding the S- facing roof is completely ludicrous. The panels have to work with a battery that has the proper size to match the panels.
Nice one , thanks for sharing . We are 100% self sufficient March to October , no electric car but that’s running a house and heating all our water from a 3.6kw south facing property .
Fantastic, thats a great period, thank you for sharing.
I have recently installed 10x
410w panels with 5kw givenergy gen1 inverter and 8.2kwh battery since we installed we are offgrid (we used just 1kw from the grid since 2 weeks) so full battery is fine for us at least 2 cloudy days. In peak I saw 3800w on panels. So not bad. I know bad days coming, trying sort out octopus go tarif but I need smart meter. Will see, very happy for now. We using yearly 4400kwh and I hope this system will reduce electricity bills for 80%
Fantastic, thank you for sharing
excellent point about a south face being best for noon and that is not much use for an empty house without storage. On-top of solar i'm charging the car & my DIY powerwall with Octopus intelligent. This runs a portable heatpump and kitchen for breakfast & dinner.
Fantastic, so many varieties of usage Im seeing by people
Interesting. We’re 10 days into our near identical Solaredge system in 4 bed 2 reception house. Has 21 415w panels :- 8 East, 3 South, 10 West. Nearly mid Oct and so far comfortably covering all our needs by having a battery and actually exporting a fair chunk. Battery’s been back to 100% by late lunchtime even on the duller days so far even while running appliances, computers etc. Got a Zappi 2 for an EV (yet to obtain), but friends charged theirs at a decent rate just by solar yesterday as a first test of it. Not many miles done by us usually and generally at home, so plugging in on a bright day each week will work with a 5kw inverter I think. Pleased with the rate of production so far but very early days. I’m positive an East/West orientation is no barrier to solar. Given solar production is going well, the tip from our installer is to consider using low energy infrared heaters in living areas we use during the day off the excess free solar in Autumn / early Spring. (and reduce expensive central heating times in the process).
Couldn’t agree more. We are actually using our electric fire alot more now to heat our living rather than using the heating.
It's a big pull out initially but it's clearly working how you wanted it to. Good video. It's the way to go really. More so the way the prices are rising.
Thank you for doing your videos that was very information as we are going down the solar road with three properties
No problem, Really glad to hear it has been useful for you
I see you changed the adaptable box front cover for the Modbus to a clear one.. Did you replace the front cover yourself or Oval renewables.
I asked my installer about the Modbus, and he’s having to find out, but everything tells me it is needed albeit not quoted..
Oval did it as a new standard they do. Easily done by yourself however, its only the lid.
I believe the modbus is required to monitor and for exporting purposes if i remember correctly.
Very informative video. Do you have figures re the max charge rate of SolarEdge 400v? Data sheet says 5kw but I assume it’s only discharge. Thanks
5kw both charge and dis charge
Great Video loads of useful stuff hear still trying to get a reputable Solar company to quote for the job.
Very informative (especially about the size of the inverter) and explained in an easy to understand manner. Thank you.
Thank you for the feedback. Really glad it has come across in that way, as it can be really difficult to understand.
Winter you have to learn how to use solar, battery and cheap overnight tariff and get it right and you still save bundles
Absolutely, Exactly what we have just started to do, video on that soon. To fill the gap between 04:30 and 09:30 as the battery drains in to the car when that goes on charge at 00:30.
Great system. Thanks for the info. 👍
Something I've been toying with like many other people for a long time.
I know it's a long shot, but I was waiting to see if the government had any new plans to help people to switch over to solar and battery in 2023.
We don't have an electric car yet, but we use 1.00 MWH a month at the moment. Yes. I know. 3 kids pc's on. Plus hot-tub. (ill close tub down soon for winter)
We were lucky regards to energy cost. Got a 4 year deal. 21p electricity. 4.2p gas. Just before prices started going mad. That finishes in August 2024. (shell energy)
I think the most important point I've heard is the reduction in average kwh cost over the last few months. Something I wanted to know. Thanks.
Wow that is some usage without an EV 😃. Well done for fixing though. Its an absolute must for me, as without some huge system it would be impossible to be 100% self sufficient. To say our system was commissioned at the end of summer, Im over the moon with its performance, more so now that we are producing upwards of 15-20kwh per day. Ill be doing a video in the next few weeks on the performance of the first 3 months
Shut your PCs down. Not good for the pc or your electricity bill
Thanks pal. I’m just researching so your videos are super. Any i ask, what supplier/plan do you have? Octopus?
Thats really good to hear. Im currently with Octopus Go due to have an EV, so receive a cheaper rate overnight for 4 hours.
Great video. Very helpful and simply explained. Totally agree about being able to charge a car from solar. I have done just that this weekend - about 100 miles added as well as also charging my SE battery. I have SW and SE facing panels and want to add some east and west for early morning and late evening sun. Even a few more each side would help. What do you think about panels on walls rather than roofs? Mixed feelings myself but interested in your thoughts. Thanks again.
Absolutely, all goes towards that goal bringing the pence/kwh down doesn’t it.
Im not sure with wall mounted to be honest. I think that maybe because of the style of our house and where it sits in a village it would look out of place. Im think efficiency is best at an angle but as Im sure your realising any spare space needs panels to maximise production.
At last a video by a real person who I can relate to. I'm watching your videos back to front so apologies if the answer to this question is in your earlier one. I'm moving into a new house soon and I can get 16 panels on a south facing double garage. Its a brand new 4 bed but just 2 of us - underfloor heating and an airsource heat pump. I don't have an EV. Am I going to have get extra panels on the roof? PS Will install a battery as well?
Haha Ill take that as a compliment.
To be honest Iv no experience with heat pumps, so not quite sure how often then need to be on. Now, 16x 400w panels if thats the route your take could give you 6.4kw. Which I feel would be suitable but as said its a guess. Today Iv had our 2kw fire blaring out since 11am to 4pm, completely ran from the sun while also filling our 10kw battery and sending 1kw back to the grid.
What I would probably suggest is, if it affordable get as many panels as possible, or make provisions now for future expansion. We maxed the space available for panels, for the roofs that didnt require planning permission (explained in another video).
@@DIYJourney1 Does one of your videos show how you managed to hide the cables from your house roof to the garage. Our new garage will be detached so if I have roof panels, will I need to have an unsightly cable coming out of the roof, down the side of the house and into the garage?
I don’t believe my videos do, but I believe @ovalrenewables are doing a UA-cam video which detailed that. Our was ran in the loft space and various voids we have with rooms being in the roof area also. Id suggest trying to hide cables maybe behind a drainpipe or something if its not possible.
My comment elsewhere here 8 days ago may be helpful. We have 4.8 kwh panels with a 10 kwh battery. I think a battery, although making the installation much more expensive and the payback many years longer, is essential to meet the needs of high consumption cooking/washing/ironing etc. when the panels are not producing much, and of course panels produce nothing after the sun goes down so a battery is needed then! 4.8 kwh satisfies our needs at the moment, producing on average 10-15 kwh per day this past month - of course we have to export some of this, as once the battery is 100% charged anything we produce has to be used instantly or exported. However we do not anticipate the system covering our needs as the gloomy days of shorter daylight come along and production nosedives. Also we have oil heating (and hot water) so for heating only use electricity for the CH pump. If you are going to run underfloor heating and a heat pump you will be needing much more electricity than us. I think that 16 panels (we have13) will reduce your bills but you will still need a lot of grid power in the winter. Online tables suggest December solar production is 40% of October production (and 18% of July production) - which would bring our average production down from 10-15 kwh to 4-6 kwh. Obviously more panels would help. North-facing panels, I learned today to my surprise, produce half as much as south-facing, so that might be a thought?
@@nikkonch Thanks - v helpful
Ev charging in the summer no problem I use a 3kw grannie charger if I'm producing 5kw I can charge the car and run the house and charge the solar batteries.The one thing I have found is a big drain on power is using the shower 8kw that's when I have to buy off the grid,also did you say you were getting 4.1p per kw feeding back to the grid
Yes fortunately I can easily adjust my charger to suit production. Yes export is 4p but to be honest we export very little in the grand scheme, I try and use it all is the goal.
Great video good to see how other people are doing with solar im 4 months in and think I made the right choice
Thank you, me too, Iv done some sums this evening and we are on target for a great return, but no better feeling than driving your car or utilising self made power
Hey buddy great video !!
Question you total production changed from 7 something to six something I don’t quite understand! Love the channel been a great help 👍🏻👍🏻
Thank you apologies Im not sure which bit your referring to, but happy to explain if you can point me in the direction I can try to help
@@DIYJourney1 well I think I’m right 🤪 at the start of your program you gave the total kWh per month and later on the totals changed and went lower in all honesty it might be me missing something sorry to be a pain !! Please keep up the good work as I’ve now ordered 12 kw of panels and 15 kw of batteries on the back of your thinking 👍🏻
Apologies, it was over 5 months ago this video was filmed so without watching it back I cant recall. Im sure its maybe a comment that was generalised, if its a difference in 6 and a 7 whatever it is, Im sure it wont make much difference to whatever is being referred to 👍🏼
Octopus agile tariff if your a customer for gas an electric 15p fixed or agile outgoing which is variable depending on the time of day, peak times today 8.00 to 8.30 29.7p kw 18.30 to 19.00 36.3p kw lowest is 16.4p kw but that's at 1 in the morning,I don't work for them I just think its a big investment and you should get the best returns possible
I was only looking at agile yesterday, and I feel would be a bad move for us, I charge my car at 7p/kwh worst case so having it alter all the time would be a nightmare for charging the car if I need it (I do circa 30k miles per year).
I do less than 5k so it's bit different for me ,thought I'd share it best export tariff I've seen for my situation. at the moment a good day 9kw export bad day 1kw that's the last few weeks can't wait for a good summer next year
Its really interesting to see how different peoples usage is and how it works for them. Appreciate you sharing your findings, it all helps
Learning curve for a lot of us 👍
Really useful video, we’re scheduled to get ours installed end of Nov and gives me great confidence that we’re doing the right thing
Glad its been useful. Anyone questions, by all means ask away and ill try answer
@@DIYJourney1 thank you, really can’t wait to get started, just have to get approval as we’re in a conservation zone, we have an odd shaped roof with lots of dormer windows restricting the no of panels we can have, so only 12 in total, bit had concerned as 4 will be East facing, 4 South facing and 4 West facing, and I was concerned that we didn’t have enough South facing ones, but your video has confirmed that having different strings for different times of the day will work well for us. Getting a Zappi installed for our two EV’s and work from home a lot, so will be fun to see how much free juice we can deploy
We are also, so had to check with planning first. Thats good then, you should see a consistent production, unlike mine where mine peaks at one time of day. Of course both ways has its pro’s and con’s.
Great video and started following you - thank you for the time this all takes to produce and record....
Main queries that would be helpful, is why DC coupled and why SE battery as oppose to other more common AC coupled batteries ? I am looking to discuss with Oval too but dont think they are taking new enquieres at present.
Thankyou,
The reason I went for solar edge was a few points:
- Was slightly cheaper than AC coupled
- DC is more efficient than AC coupled.
- Excess solar can go in to the battery even if inverter is maxxed at 5kw but solar is producing 8kw, 3kw would go in battery
- All my warranties are sat with one manufacturer so any issues is easier for me.
- The app is all in one place rather than multiple.
- As an eco system it all easily works together.
@@DIYJourney1 I am looking at broadly the same setup I think, for now anyway unless an installer has a better idea. Will contact some installers to get a view. It’s a smart install by oval top who I have been following for a while too. Thanks again. Need to think with my zappi too and how this fits in.
Great video thank you for taking the time to make it and look forward to the next one 🤝
Very kind
Thanks for the video. Can you please tell us, is your inverter 1 or 3 phase? what car wall charger you are using 1 or 3 phase charger?
Single phase and as said in the video our car charger is 7kw
Great video thank you, please may I ask which tariff you are on for import / export?
Im with Octopus Go for the cheaper overnight rate and Octopus Outgoing for exporting
3 years in for us with a 10kw system. Car wise, we manage 60 to 70% of mileage over the year on solar, mind we are doing a lower mileage than you. Time of use tariff's are a game changer for payback. Excluding the solar generation, we averaged 8pkwh last year, this year it is likely to be 10pkwh. We designed our's to allow for 7kw discharge from the battery storage plus the 10kw of solar. This means that in the sunny months we can charge the car at 7kw in the middle of the day and have the washing machine etc running. Getting the design and balance right for the setup is not easy, I still think we made a couple of mistakes but all in all it has bene worth it. Payback is an interesting one, do you ask how much your new kitchen is going to pay back ? But more seriously, we are looking at a total pay back of 6 to 7 years for the whole system. The pure fact is, for the energy use we have and at current rates, we could not afford to use what we do without the solar and battery install. We use 1.1MWh a month, you can work the rest out from that.
Fantastic comment, couldn’t agree more, and absolutely mirrors what we are experiencing.
Really good to hear your experience. I am currently experimenting with the battery charging during the cheaper times, as with it draining into the car we are not having any battery during 04:30-09:00, which has helps bring our average down.
Im expecting 5-7 payback subject to where the energy pricing sits, but for me, I feel the money sat in the bank was earning £15 a month, that maybe would be £80 now, yet Im returning circa £250-£300 with solar, just from that stance its an absolute worthwhile exercise.
Excellent info for a potential installation. How about battery size. Is yours big enough?
My battery is 9.7kw, so far yes big enough to be 100% self sufficient. Hard for me to determine as I charge my car and it drains in to the car, but taking that out of the equation, it would suffice for at least 1x day
Are you having issues with the SolarEdge battery bouncing at night with importing grid power to 10% then feed the house then rinse and repeat all night ? Ow and have you herd anything about what if any functionality your going to retain with the Anderson charger now that the companies gone bust ?
No issues so far with the solaredge battery. It drains in to the car normally at 00:30 when my car charges then charges no problem from 03:30-04:30 from the grid on my request to about 50%.
Nothing heard yet and to be honest, its still working as it always had. Im expecting the app to stop at some point meaning ill have no control over schedules etc. If that happens, ill just swap it for a Solaredge charger.
Thanks for sharing, currently waiting for delivery of a 3 phase inverter for our 14 kw of panels (we have a ground source heat pump with a 3 phase motor and the building is 500m² ). In your output graph, was the red line perhaps 12am rather than noon? For me here in Scotland noon is 12:18 GMT
Anyway, most informative, thank you!
Thankyou,
The red line is 12 noon in August as a time stamp.
@@DIYJourney1 ah so it's 11:00 GMT, thought so.
….worth noting that wont help the understanding of the graph, due to number of panels the sun is actually seeing as it differs south to west on this graph.
really good video, thanks for sharing
Thankyou, I hope it helps
You're doing sensible things there in the UK. I am English but moved to the USA (Ohio) 20 years ago and things are so different here still. $0.057077 per kWh. All the same, things WILL change and electricity will go up here too... so (much to the bafflement of others) I installed solar to offset electric bills and give us wiggle room in a power outage. I can add to my system if need be in the future (at present I have just a 3kW system)
I think what YOU are doing is excellent.
Less than 6 cents per kWh? wow
Your power isn’t .05. Maybe before all the additional add ons
@@GiraffeChaser ... in the meantime you have NO offset?
Whose ahead?
I just see my electricity bills decreasing by significant degrees.
And you?
Also... we had an electrical outage here of many hours recently.
Our electricity just carried on, no problems (and none anticipated for a few days)
You?
Calm down I have Solar too and a bigger system. I’m stating that no one’s electricity is .057 in the USA
Very helpful video, thanks. We have a dc coupled system with battery as well, and we charge our EV with a zappi. It allows you to charge from solar only, avoiding the battery topping up to the 7kw. However you have to ask yourself is it worth the cost of £1k+ to upgrade to one.
Thats it, in hindsight I would of gone zappi to start with, as I very nearly did, but aesthetics got the better on me and went with the Andersen, albeit working much better than I expected with solar.
Two bits of advice.
1. Consider Octopus Go for the winter time only and Octopus Agile for the spring / summer months. This is what I do, and it maximises the value of your exports. I’ve exported 3MWH so far this year, and it’s earned £750. The export prices have worked out around 25p/kWh this year. So thus the price per kWh for electricity consumption for my house has actually been negative!
That said, you did mention that you had a high monthly consumption. So do the maths, and consider the benefits of seasonal tariff changes.
2. Consider replacing the Anderson charger with a MyEnergi Zappi charger. This will trim the charge to your car to match the surplus from your solar panels. That way you don’t have the situation you’re in where you’re importing 2kW from the grid because your inverter is limited to 5kw. You’ll charger slower, but it will be cheaper. You might find that there’s a good 2nd hand value for the Anderson charger, and that might take the sting out of the upgrade. The Zappi will start charging with 1.4kw of solar surplus.
Thankyou for the advice.
I wasn’t aware you can just switch with Octopus, given its a fixed tariff, will look into it, thanks. Absolutely, think I need to sit down and look at it, as we don’t actually export that much…I don’t think at the moment.
Its hard to warrant a switch in car chargers as I did think about it. The Andersen was £1200, solar wasn’t in the radar then, and cant imagine I would return much second hand for it, a zappi was £800 when I got mine so large outlay for small gains. The Andersen can reduce the charge down to 1-4kwh if needed so to not cost me anything, just if I want a 7kw charge, it means I have to buy in, but to be fair it still an average of about 8p/kwh which isn’t bad I suppose
You must have a big solar system.
We have an EV and need to charge from the grid. We'd be paying lots if this was using octopus agile.
I hear what you are saying about summer Vs winter tariffs. If you're exporting mostly in summer, get agile.
It changes a bit when you have an EV though....
Second hand car chargers hold their value very well if you do decide to switch.
@@Bondy1986 except Andersen have gone bust, so I could surmise from that that any app for the charger no longer works if the servers are switched off. You still have a “dumb” charger, assuming you can adjust settings such as schedules directly at the charge point, but if it’s via an app, then that would really diminish the value of the charger.
My situation is different in that I do not have Solar and am planning on 20+KW battery that will charge fully in the 4 hour GO window and was going to use a 5KW inverter until I started testing my peak KW usage which is around 7KW with 2 rings on the induction hob and an oven with a boost facility and about 500w of regular use so am now going for the 8.8KW Inverter so I do not have to use On peak grid electricity. It costs about £700 more for 8KW over 5KW but in the overall picture, it will allow me to charge my EV during On peak if necessary. And when you include 35p saving a day x 365 x 5 year plan = £640 saving so its buckshee🤣
Yes battery is a good option. We are now using our battery in that and charging our car at the same time.
Great video! I’ve a 4kw PV system at the moment and strongly considering a battery since my consumption is generally less than my generation, especially when in the office. Any thoughts on charging the home battery overnight as we get shorter days on a cheaper over night rate as generation may not exceed consumption?
We have literally just started this, and charge our battery between 03:30-04:30 which gives us about 48% to cover the time between 04:30 and 09:30 when solar starts. We actually only need about 20% but gives a bit of a buffer.
As long as you have an Off peak rate; absolutely and you will avoid any power cuts during the winter months
Great vlog and has really helped me decide if this is for us which it will be 👍🏻
Good Vid makes sense what your saying but you really should have had Enphase micro inverters installed on each panel they connect straight to the battery as they output AC, also if your invertor goes down you loose everything, with micro invertors if one goes down you just lose that one panel. I think your right on getting panels on the east and west it maximises the solar day.
Thanks Explained in another video. We have solaredge optimizers which segregates each panel 👍🏼. The battery is DC coupled not AC coupled
Interesting but suggest you view the new octopus tariffs inc. the 15p kWh export tariff and super cheap night time rates for charging cars. My calculations suggest buying batteries is not efficient with these much improved tariffs
Thank you, I have done a review and the export tariff is still 4p for us. My priority is to use up the energy than sell back at 40% of the cost we buy it at.
Really interesting video and looking at the overall pence per kw makes so much sense 👍
Thank you, I hope it helps. Im finding it works much better for me considering I do have to buy in from the grid.
I have a very similar SolarEdge system with 18 panels, 8 east and 10 west facing. Ther have been problems with installation - the panels were installed in June but the battery in August, but on installing the battery the installer managed to blow all the optimisers so the total system was out for a few weeks! Now the app shows no watts per individual panel. I agree that without the battery its all a bit of a waste, in September my average cost per kWh was 7p. My optimum time is around 2pm, yesterday at this time it was generating at 2.7 kW.
Ahhh thats a shame, hopefully all sorted now. Thankyou for sharing your experience
Did they have to get scaffolding back in the replace the optimisers? The reliability of optimisers is something I'm worrying about (currently getting quotes) as it would be pretty terrible to have to get onto the roof for work more often than once a decade.
If you have a loft space, I believe. They can be mounted accessible in there. Unfortunately we dont.
@@DIYJourney1 Thank you, I will investigate this option.
@@RichardABW They brought scaffolding but managed without setting it up!
I assume there is no restriction on the size of the inverter in England? I've been told 3.8kw is the max size in Northern Ireland
3.68kwh is the limit. Anything above this with export require approval by the DNO, explained in other videos.
@@DIYJourney1 which video did you explain it in?
If i remember correctly it was one of the first Solar videos I had done explaining our system that was installed.
Interestingly, with our system, situation, etc., the best tariff for us is Outgoing Octopus (15p/unit export) not Octopus Go (7.5p/unit off peak). Sadly you can't have both.
You can't generalise, every installation is different.
Retired, one EV doing less than 5000 miles per year, non-EV electricity usage about 2800kWh per year, east/west roof, 14 400w panels on each roof, one 5kW Solis inverter for each bank of panels, 9.2 kW Givenergy battery, Zappi, Eddi.
Absolutely, thats an assessment I need to do, which I was planning after 12 months with solar so I know where we are at.
You absolutely right, with these videos so hard to try offer my experience but generalise it so others can use the information, hopefully that comes across.
Hypervolt and Zappi car chargers have a solar only setting so they don't draw anything from the grid. They divert anything over 1.5kw being exported to the grid, into the car. No need for the grid to top up to 7kw.
The Andersen is the exact same. I’m referring to when you want a maximum 7kw charge, the inverter is 5kw, so you have to bring in from the grid regardless whether solar production is over 5kw. To combat that you have to reduce the charge rate, which is nit always useful if your needing to use the car soon
enjoyed your videos on this. have subscribed.
Thankyou
Thanks for the information! Very helpful
No problem, hope it helps.
If I was in your situation I would be selling the solar edge inverter and buying a victron 10kw inverter. You could then charge your car and use appliances. A 10kw battery is quite small for a house that size, I would want to at least double that to take advantage of the pv power you are producing. You are actually quite close to being 100% self sufficient even with the EV.
I think we have to come to some realism here on funds.
Its not just about selling an inverter. I would also need further DNO approval to be 10kw at a further £500 with no guarantees of acceptance.
10kw is doing us very well actually in winter and I would say our home usage from experience is 9-12kwh per day. Another battery would be nice, but again realism, thats a cost for £7k to keep everything integrated.
We are not close to being self sufficient, I estimate we are at around 50% efficieny for the year with an EV, as I do circa 35k miles per year and the car is 74kw.
Any video on the paperwork eg G98 and G99 etc? Also how much was the setup and fees along with payback period?
Please see my channel for a quick look on what videos are available
Very useful video. Do you think for a household where the occupants are at home most of the time having a battery still a good idea and worthwhile investment?
I'm looking to get solar myself (at home all day) and I think it makes sense to get a battery. 1, you can use your own excess at off peak or to smooth production dips during the day. 2, during the winter when not generating enough to meet demand can top the battery up from the grid at off peak prices, for me right now that is 35p peak and 18p off peak. I also think if you didn't want the investment of a battery but you have a hot water tank get a diverter so you can at least convert your excess electric to heat hot water. Assuming gas is about 10p per KWh and you get paid about 5p per KWh.
@@chrisblunt7627 Thanks for the reply. What you say makes sense. Having a diverter to heat the hot water cylinder seems a really good option.
Im on the fence to be honest. I think it would be worthwhile, particularly with the 20% VAT taken off if bought with solar. What I would say, is it maybe more viable with a cheaper system, as ours was a large outlay if its not used to its maximum if that makes sense.
What Im finding is the battery helps support the solar at times when there isn’t enough production (e.g 0.5kw being produced but 3kw needed, the battery can make up the difference). Again overnight it is useful as you wont buy in for any of the standby features etc. as the other gentlemen has said, hot water to heat is also a possibility which we are due to have fitted soon.
Hope that helps, any further questions, by all means ill try help where I can, and Im sure the community will too.
@@DIYJourney1 I was quoted £3600 for 10kw of battery (Foxess). It does take a while to get that back, but as I'd seen on a recent Fully Charged video, no one says "what's the payback on your £20k kitchen"
Absolutely, it just seems right to me and will always be an addition on other houses we have in the future. The payback is just an extra benefit hey
Great video, thanks.
Thankyou
Quick question, the graph at around the 1:30 mark has a red line for 'noon'. Is that 'noon' actual, midday BST, or is it noon real, solar noon which would be around 1pm BST depending on how far east or west of meridian?
For instance, the sun is at it's highest for me at 12:20 BST as my house resides near the east coast of the UK (0.6degE)
The graph has a red line at noon.
Great video
What is the total cost of your installation
Hi,
Thankyou, I have done a full breakdown of cost on another video:
HOW MUCH DOES A SOLAR & BATTERY SYSTEM COST?
ua-cam.com/video/_qebTsI2554/v-deo.html
Great video thanks 👍🏻
No problem, hope it helps.
Did any suppliers/installers ask you to pay to survey your property requirements? I’m looking into solar and some are asking to pay up front for a survey, regardless of if you use them to purchase/install.
No we didn’t, however, I have heard this to be way given the demand and lots of time wasters. I get it, but would expect it to be removed from the final price.
@@DIYJourney1 yes I don’t mind if it’s taken off the price, however I expect to be able to get more than one quote to compare between. It’s obviously a sellers market at the moment and providers can be more choosy. Thanks for the reply.
I've had several people come to my house to have a look in the last month. Nobody charged. I've seen someone who says they would charge, they can stuff it.
In the grander scheme would everyone be better off having a big battery pack & using off peak to charge probably a better option than solar. Thanks for update
Iv been thinking about this a lot. My opinion, is that without an EV, and at current rates with only a battery you could with a 10kw battery guarantee your rate at 7.5p/kwh at my overnight rate. Adding in solar to that id be confident from my experience to say you would be 100% self sufficient for most of the year (for equivalent to my system) so its that balance of extra cost for solar panels. With an EV if you dont have a charger that can read what the battery is doing, then absolutely not, as the batteries will drain in to the car and need you to have the ability to charge it back up before the higher rate. Many variables and Im still on the fence until I do the sums
@@DIYJourney1 Battery would be a good start for most homes even if PV comes later.
Hopefully EV’s will eventually become that battery store to feed back into the home during peak.
It certainly is a good starting point. My avg pence/kwh is around 3p, so I suppose its whether that 4.5p is enough to pay for suitable array of solar panels. I do anticipate if my usage was much less it would be nearer 0p/kwh.
40kWh in August?? BLIMEY! :) very nice.
Yes, peaked at 41.4kWh in August
Just one point, not sure if you were aware Andersen EV Chargers went out of business this week.
Yes aware, and currently still works as normal and mentioned in the video. The loss of Andersen is not applicable to this video. I will assess what I need to do in the coming months.
yea if you have a car then 12k panels and 10k inverter and min 30k batt is a good place to start.
I suppose there is a bit more to it also, but certainly agree max panels possible, 8kw-10kw if possible, battery Im unsure on, I use the battery mainly to top the house up and use excess to go in the car or eventually hot water, but again down to individual situations
Don’t substitute kW for kWh. One is power the other is energy. Nice setup.
You are very correct and I am very aware of differences. How else would you understand whats needed as a suitable system for you. need to be to figure whether a system is suitable for you. Unfortunately Im not perfect and find its not always easy to pick a camera up and talk (hence the reason for the channel) particularly when its a lot of talking trying to get a message across…sometimes people make small mistakes 👍🏼
Please consider the difference between kW (power) and kWh (energy). You buy energy from the grid which is in pence per kWh (energy) not per kW.
Im absolutely aware of that & thankyou for highlighting as a couple of others have. As Im sure you can appreciate, it’s not easy picking a camera up, the reason I started youtube videos was because I struggle with speaking and portraying what is in my head and turn it to words. Fortunately, as you have, people 9/10 know what you mean/understand and move on 🙂
Here's the thing, you cannot go more than 10 kilowatts before the DNO wants you to upgrade your fuse. Because you don't want more than 10 kilowatts feeling back through a single phase.
I'm thinking a bit more long-term than you.
Eventually we'll have two electric cars, maybe three when the kids start driving.
I don't know how but we're gonna have to get a heat pump.
So my only option is three phase. Where you can feed 30 kW back into the grid and take 55kW
So I have designed a three-phase off grid system grid coupled.
Three 12 kilowatt inverters peak 24kW each
82 kW of battery storage ((£210 per kWh)
20 kilowatt solar panel
Still in the build phase.
Waiting to get the fuse upgrade to three phase
I assume the DNO’s demands depends on what is installed currently.
I thought long term with mine thank you considering the roof space available, planning permission and being in keeping with our surrounding area: As we were having at the time of DNO approval a 5kw system with 5kw inverter to suit due to budget restraints. Our situation changed and 6 months later nearer to the install we could afford to increase the panels to 8kw to help on those worse days rather than for full capacity. Im very happy with my system and its production for the price I have paid, I am trying to share my experience to help others understand how it is working.
Upgrading our system to 3 phase is not a viable option for us as our current supply is not an issue for the expense required to upgrade.
This is a test bed for us for a future development so interesting to see how it is all working
This is more of a request for help than a comment. Our MySolaredge app is not showing our correct daily total production. Today for example has been very sunny and we recharged our 9.7 kwh battery fully by 2 p.m. from 0% this morning and used a fair amount of power during the day, but the app shows our total production today as 3.42 kwh whereas we have probably produced at least over 12 kwh. The lights on our inverter are constant blue and green, those on the battery flashing blue and constant green. Any suggestions anyone?
From my experience, the battery charging doesn’t record the production. Its only when that power is used that the production is recorded…is what Im finding. So its only at the end of the day you get a true reflection, and if you have battery left then that will be recorded when its used
Are you not using solar to heat your water,
Not yet, we are waiting on the hot water energy diverter to arrived so the immersion heater can heat it
Think of your solar/battery capital investment as that... An investment.
For that £xk investment, how much are you saving each year?
You're probably looking at 10% return at least.
I did the install myself and looking at 15+% return easily.
I estimate, and can only go on how its produced this far, we are looking around 17% return per year, so think thats pretty good myself.
I don't think you could get a single phase inverter with a output high enough to run a standard 8kW electric shower?
I think (could be wrong but have seen them forsale) 8kw in the SolarEdge Inverter we have, for single phase. Would be subject to DNO approval which was the reason we didn’t go bigger as we already paid for approval for 5kwh
@@DIYJourney1 We have 2x 5kw solar and 2x3.6kw ac coupled and they can and do run an 8kw shower on a single phase supply.
SolarEdge have a SE8000H, and a SE10000H, if you add the SolarEdge Home Battery (400) you will get a maximum of 5 kW discharge from the battery. If you wanted the battery to feed your 8 kW shower, then install 2 x SE5000H, and a battery on each, this will give you a maximum discharge of 10kW. You can have up to 3 batteries per inverter giving you a depth of 30 kW per inverter and a discharge of 5kWh per inverter/battery.
@@DIYJourney1 Doesn't G99 allow you to have larger kWh inverter, so long as it has software control for export (max output dictated by DNO) then the inverter can still direct a higher kWh for you own internal use?
Im not sure on the forms as it was done by the installer. It makes sense what you say, and yes we do have the ability to limit export as we have the solaredge modbus, so maybe we could upgrade to 8kwh and just limit the export to 5kwh. Too late now however 😃 unless we feel its an expense worthwhile down the line.
If you got a Zappi charger it will put daytime surplus in your car.
Most car chargers allow solar integration. My Andersen EV does also…for now as they went bust last week.
Hi, in your video you mention your saving at 34p per Kw. I don’t think you have figured in the standing charge per day. This will boost the cost up by quite a large amount.
Your very correct I haven’t included the standing day charge. I have a tariff regardless of solar being installed or not, I have to pay that either way, so it’s irrelevant to usage cost, which is based on a per unit cost of 34p/kWh. Mine actually is 38p/kWh for 20 hours and 7.5p/kWh for 4 hours. Hope that helps.
@@DIYJourney1 Hi again, yes I get your point, but you did give the actual cost per Kw which would be more if the day standing charge was included. I am thinking of putting in dollar by myself to cut down on the initial cost and your video was very helpful. I have a small system running on my allotment which allows me to run power for watering, security cameras, etc.
I still stand by my decision not to include the day charge, any figures mentioned do not include this. The standing charge is around £15 per month regardless, of whether I don’t have solar panels or whether I am 100% self sufficient from solar.
Can I be nosey and ask what Time settings do you set your inverter to charge your battery from your Solar Panels please 👍
Of course you can. The battery charges from the solar at any opportunity and is managed by the solaredge system. Then it manages itself, so if the house demands more than the solar panels provide the battery will provide the additional. The house demand and usage is prioritised over battery charging. I have now set my house battery to charger from the grid from 03:30-04:30 as that is a cheap rate overnight and tops my battery up to 50%.
@@DIYJourney1 Thanks only had my Battery installed last week and I'm still getting my head around the cheapest time to charge, I'm still waiting for my DNO Acknowledgment letter, so unfortunately I'm not uploading Electric back to the grid yet 😢😢but I'm running the house all of the evening via the Battery, so I'm fairly pleased so far.
Thats the time iv found to be best for us. Your battery should just charge all day shouldn’t it from solar? Only reason I have mine charge from the grid is because it drains in to my car when that charges.
Yes we are still waiting on our export connection after 10 weeks
@@DIYJourney1 I've just changed my Inverter settings to charge up 3.30-4,30 am I was topping the Battery up to 100% full from the grid instead of 50% Battery and 50% Solar really appreciate the advice 👍
I haven’t seen anything about your central heating set up. Is it gas? If you run a heat pump and EV would you need a three phase supply? If so how does that effect the whole set up?
Yes it is Gas so not applicable to our solar installation which is solely electricity. We are however installing a hot water energy diverter which will heat our hot water via the immersion heater with excess solar.
As for three phase, Iv not yet needed to look in to this so cant help there. Their are many knowledgeable people in the comments section which hopefully can offer some correct advice.
We run an ASHP and an EV and we are on a single phase supply. If you have a Zappi, it will limit the supply if on at the same time so not to blow the fuse. We are solely on electric with electric cooker too.
Thankyou for sharing, Id be keen to learn what size system you have and what equipment?
Im interested and starting to learn about heat pumps, how are you finding it?
Great video, however I wish people would refrain from calling it Free electricity
It's not free either way. Any electricity that you use to charge your car, say, you could have exported at (current prices) 15p/kWh. This becomes apparent when you start trying to work out whether to use Octopus Go with a standard export guarantee rate or Outgoing Octopus on a flat rate tariff....
I do know what you mean though.
@@DIYJourney1 I assume the money used to bye the equipment to produce this free electricity was aquire by gainful employment not stolen or given ? Then it's not free .
My export is 4p/kwh, my buy in is 38p/lwh, my goal is solar for free or the 7.5p/kwh overnight, hence my comment in the video suggesting to reduce my average than to zero.
You are missing the point. When the system has returned to cost price in an estimated 5-7 years, does the solar not become free and after that point become more than free so yes ill stand by my comment and Im just averaging my hope of how it will work 😃
Hi you would NOT see much more power before 9am if you had east facing panels. I have dozens of systems that I monitor and can look down a list of them. None seem to really wake up until 9:30 which shocked me to see because on these days you could wear sunglasses at this time. I looked and the strings were only showing 70V over 8 panels which should be at least 250V
Its actually funny you comment saying that. As literally just been sent a photo by a friend who has south east facing panels and on the same day has fantastic production starting at 6am, 1kw by 07:30, 2kw by 8:30 3kw by 9:30 so very contrary to what you are seeing.
@@DIYJourney1 Thats really good. I have monitoring platforms for SolaX and Fox ESS (mostly) hybrid inverters. A customer pointed out to me yesterday that the inverter was idling at 140Watts until 9:30 and when i looked, they were all doing the same thing. This was the 11th of October but it was really sunny. I reported it to SolaX and they pointed out that the voltage was low which was odd because there are 16 panels over 2 strings equally. I then took a look at all of my other systems across both platforms and they were all doing under 900watts until 9:30.
Oddly i looked at a system on a Solis hybrid and that was doing 1.2kW by 8am despite being 20 degrees off south to the west!
What I am finding with these new hybrid inverters is they may need configuring by the manufacturer remotely after installation. Most have had to have firmware upgrades. its very annoying
That maybe the time of year hey, I know when I left home at 7am today it was still fairly dark. I must say, I’m referring to august rather than darker mornings.
If you do a search for "NEA how much electricity do solar panels produce" there is a comparison graph south v east v west facing panels at various times of day. Not very detailed but gives the overall picture.
I wish people would stop going on about payback with solar, it's a home improvment just the same as changing the kitchen or bathroom it will add value to your property. no one ever goes on about pay back on double glazing ect so why solar. Graet upload as ever.
Couldn’t agree more, inline with many many other variables that could be counted.
For me, it just feels the right thing to do, not only from a financial stance being a young family, but also looking at the renewable element and helping the demand and countries need for gas supplied by others to help the bigger population.
@@DIYJourney1 Same here really, No brainer we had 9.3 KW array installed 8Kw inverter, I took alot of advise of other UA-camrs particularly regrets with their own installs think we got it right. Not gone down battery road, Not convinced about problems with warranty 5 years down the road. Took advantage of Government scheme wth heat pump instead.
This is a bit of test bed for us, for future plans down the line.
As you may of seen we have a solaredge battery, currently with 9.7kw of capacity, they say its warranted to 70% @ 10 years, we shall see, but for us was a must with our usage being out if hours if you like.
Unless the system provides all electricity each day, what is the point?
To Save money ?????
having your own power, no blackouts, you will not get affected by inflating energy prices, save money, etccc...
For me i’d rather spend £50 per month on electric than £360
@@DIYJourney1 what? So your not in favor of solar?
Sorry, What suggests that? Im certainly in favour of solar. Which is why I prefer my
Bill to be £50 instead of £360
After 2 years of 8kwh PV and 10kwh of batteries, I can tell you recouping money from solar really works, batteries sadly are not a very good proposition even with these electric prices, 10kwh batteries will at best save you £3.40 per day if you can manage to fill them and use all their capacity everyday, at a cost of £6k to buy (most are more + fitting) the repay period is 2352 days or 6.4 years and that is with no breakdowns or replacement parts
Thankyou for sharing your experience thats fantastic information.
Would you mind detailing equipment and warranty attached with those for others to understand.
@@DIYJourney1 Well I have 2 sets of dual string 4kw dual mppt east west systems both with regular inverters, these feed different parts of my property, each has a growatt spa3000 fitted to manage their 5kwh growatt battery, lastly just before the meter I use a solic 200 to divert any power that was destined to go back to the grid into my immersion heater. This way once my batteries are full I never feed the grid. The entire system has been installed by myself and I've not bothered to get FiT as there really is no point at 4p per kwh. I've done all of this as a project, but by far the most expensive part is the batteries and it will take 5 years to recover the investment in them at best, but probably more like 8 years given low energy production in winter and on cloudy rainy days.
If you consider £3.40 x 365 x 5 year plan + £6205 and electricity prices only going one way, it is still not a bad proposition
@@mikejoseph425 you def have to be in for the long hall, all I’m really trying to show is batteries are a tough repayment versus just having solar, using a diverter to feed excess power into a hot water tank for £300 would be a better investment if you have one
I seriously don't understand why people do t simply set up a few mining rigs to ensure they are getting paid for the energy when there not there.... Why does no one think beyond exporting...
People absolutely think beyond exporting thats why our aim is not to export, it can be better used elsewhere i.e electric car, hot water etc etc as many others consider. Maybe think about how many other people wont be interested in mining I know i’m certainly not.
I still don't see how this saves you that much or even any money. For arguments sake let's say with maintenance over a 20yr period this will cost you £20k that's before we even consider finance required. That's £1000 per year are you really going to be saving that much money per year?
I've constantly been evaluating having solar panels fitted and I've never been convinced that the payback is worth it. Like another said I've always been waiting for the government to subsidise it (for the life of me I can't understand why they don't)
Based on my usage for this month of 772 kwh for this month how much of that do you think realistically could have been saved by having a similar system? I predict I will use probably 10k kwh this year.
What maintenance is required?
I am likely to be saving circa £1600-£2000 per year at todays prices.
10kWh at todays cap = £3400 if solar averages 50% of that, you’ve saved £1700 for the year.
My video I have literally just posted may help answer your query.
@@DIYJourney1 I'm sure when watching other material on this they say that the system needs to be serviced similar to an annual boiler service. Also, I think I read that the inverter doesn't last as long as the panels do and may need replacing after 10 - 12 years.
@@DIYJourney1 I will certainly watch that video.
That is why you have to choose products with specific with warranties to ensure if covers the products.
As for maintenance apart from cleaning the panelsI believe it is just a tightness check of connections, very minimal. Even if compared to a boiler, at around £60 a service, 20 years is £1200.
Remember inflation aimed at 2% per year also, when looking at energy prices. They dont stay at todays rates
@@DIYJourney1 do you have a 20yr warranty on all the panels, inverter and battery then? That's really good if you do, I'm guessing that's why you chose more expensive products in the first place.
£18.5k + £1200 is pretty much £20k is it not?
I could counter the 2% inflation with if I invested the same £20k I would get some return on that or if I had to finance the £20k then it would obviously have an interest cost to counter that.
I'm really not trying shoot you down here, I'm just trying to gauge if it really does genuinely save you that much money.
I exclude my EV charging. That's charged at cheap rate.
I include ours as the battery charges it also.
@@DIYJourney1 How big is your battery????? ! :)
Only 9.7kw but overnight it drains in to the car normally around 4-5kw.
Also in the day my EV charges which 10kw can be easily doable.
kW ≠ kWh
KWh is kW for 1 hour. Im not sure your reasonings this comment, likely a smal mistake on my part (appreciate you need to be perfect/superhuman on youtube) however to clarify, the units are, if a appliance of 7kW was ran for 1hour, that would be 7kWh of usage. If it was ran for 30mins, that would be 3.5kWh.
@@DIYJourney1 kWh is a measurement of energy. kW is a measurement of power. They are different things and shouldn't be used interchangeably.
I agree, and am aware of the differences as explained. Again unsure why your commenting this, must be a small mistake in my video. Knowledge of both is required to understand systems and how they will work for you.
@@DIYJourney1 I'm commenting because all these acronyms can be confusing for those new to all of this, and getting it wrong (which you did almost 50% of the time) can exacerbate that confusion. No offence intended, I was just trying to be helpful by pointing it out.
I can only apologise for that. I have an aim of getting people as close as possible but would be possible to get people 100% there and requires an element of self knowledge also. As Im sure you can appreciate videos aren’t easy to do, particularly to protray such a topic. I do these videos to improve myself with speaking publicly and would hope the assumption that people do get things slightly wrong when speaking in front of a camera and can adapt the information portrayed given this detail is the basics of understanding the solar pv systems. Thankyou for highlighting this failing on my part
Charge the car on Octopus Go cheap-rate @ 8p/kWh
I do, well 7.5p but due to my mileage I do both solar and overnight octopus rate, bringing my averages down as mentioned in the video.