Solar PV Quote seems excessive

jimmyboy420

Hi Ray,

I was wondering if you could check your SolarEdge portal for me, as I am having some problems and trying to see if there's anyone else in the same boat.

My "life time energy", available on the overview section of the following page is showing as different from my yearly energy (available if I click "year" option at the top of the chart and then available just below where you clicked "year".

http://monitoring.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/main

For me, lifetime energy shows as 248kWh, but "Year" shows as 270kWh. Something's obviously not right! I've been trying to liase with
SolarEdge and they apparently have "corrected the counters" on a number of occasions, but it keeps going wrong again!

Do you have any similar discrepancies?

PS - the correct figure is the higher "Year" figure, but for some reason "lifetime" seems to be missing something?

Ageing_Stick_Insect

Hi Jimmy,

I appear to have the same problem. Lifetime shows 126.77 whereas clicking on the Year tab shows Production is 138.708. Adding the two monthly production figures does equal 138.708 but clearly something is still wrong with the Lifetime figure.

I will mention this to my installer next week when he returns from a holiday. Good luck with Solar Edge.

Sterlingtimes

I have speed ready over this thread. I have a question to ask.

Some multi roof posters are staying wthin 4.0kWp in total. Other posters have multi-roof systems that exceed 4.0 kWp.

Was are the decision drivers and consequences of going over 4.0 kWp?

The surveyor who visited my home told me that special permissions are required to exceed 4.0 kWp.

Ageing_Stick_Insect

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

I have speed ready over this thread. I have a question to ask.

Some multi roof posters are staying wthin 4.0kWp in total. Other posters have multi-roof systems that exceed 4.0 kWp.

Was are the decision drivers and consequences of going over 4.0 kWp?

The surveyor who visited my home told me that special permissions are required to exceed 4.0 kWp.

The limit for domestic installs is 4kWp. FIT payments are limited to that so any extra panels will gain you more energy but not any extra income.

I'm not aware of any special permission being required.

EricMears

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

The surveyor who visited my home told me that special permissions are required to exceed 4.0 kWp.

Not quite. You'd simply need confirmation from the regional distribution network operator that their cables can accept your input if it's likely to be more than 16 amps (which is actually a bit less than 4kWp)

Ageing_Stick_Insect wrote: »

The limit for domestic installs is 4kWp. FIT payments are limited to that so any extra panels will gain you more energy but not any extra income.

No !

There isn't a limit as such (perhaps apart from the area you have available )

4kWp is the limit for getting paid at the highest rate.

4.001 - 10 kWp gets you a slightly lower rate but not that much lower and there are a couple more bands before you get down to 'wholesale prices' (check the FAQs for exact figures - there are far too many rate bands to explain quickly !)

Martyn1981

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

I have speed ready over this thread. I have a question to ask.

Some multi roof posters are staying wthin 4.0kWp in total. Other posters have multi-roof systems that exceed 4.0 kWp.

Was are the decision drivers and consequences of going over 4.0 kWp?

The surveyor who visited my home told me that special permissions are required to exceed 4.0 kWp.

In addition to what Eric said, if you install across multiple rooves, then they won't generate peaks at the same time, so it would be possible to say install 5kWp of panels, but run them through a 3.68kW capped inverter. That way prior permission from the DNO wouldn't be needed.

No idea if it's clever thinking or a pure coincidence, but with UK roof sizes, the small FiT rate drop for 4-10kWp systems (10% lower), and the DNO 3.68kW rule all roughly coinciding, people often mistakenly think 4kWp is a maximum.

Mart.

tunnel

Martyn1981 wrote: »

so it would be possible to say install 5kWp of panels, but run them through a 3.68kW capped inverter. That way prior permission from the DNO wouldn't be needed.
Mart.

I'm not entirely sure that's right Mart, my parents couldn't exceed the 4k threshold on an E/W split, i asked about 5-6k of panels with a capped inverter and was told in no uncertain terms that that couldn't happen and that it went on the panel size.
Probably better to advise people to get the DNO approval for anything over 4k to be on the safe side

Ageing_Stick_Insect

Eric. I stand corrected.

tunnel

Hi Ray,
How's the system performing these days? How many times have you flown around the globe on your own leccy?

Edit, just seen your other posting, 2500kWh+ in 6 months aint too bad at all

Ageing_Stick_Insect

Hi tunnel,

It's been great! When it's sunny and warm I'm more likely to be in the garden but even light cloud doesn't prevent enough being generated to run the sim.

Here's the latest state of play. You can see it's performed above the estimates made by my installer over the summer.