Absolute Renewable Energy (formerly Absolute Wind & Solar)

Happytimers

Anyone heard of them? I'm thinking of working for them very soon as they sound like a reasonable company. I asked how much they charge for a 4kw and they said £7,500. They also offer additional products as part of a bundle, (battery pack etc.)


Let me know what you think please as i have worked for other less reputable companies that sell their systems too high with little returns. Would actually feel good knowing i'm giving my customers a good deal.

If they use Barclays like most do and set the payments across 120 months, it would work out at roughly £98 a month.

System

What exactly is the added value of the 'bundle'? Surely, the important things for the customer are:

1. What is the projected annual output in kWhs of the proposed PV installation?

2. What are the projected returns/savings? (FITs/export/usage)

3. Guarantees

What is clear is that someone paying nearly £1200 a year for 10 years is going to have to use some of their income to cover the monthly repayments.

Discuss.

Happytimers

I can't post a web link but a google search will bring it up. Anyways as for the battery it says on their webpage and i quote:

THE ABSOLUTE SOLAR BATTERY SYSTEM FOR SOLAR POWER DAY AND NIGHT
SOLAR AS IT IS TODAY...
Energy generation through solar photvoltaic panels is now established and the number of installations continue to grow, thanks to the fantastic energy bill savings and Government backed Feed In Tariff earnings for homeowners. However, the savings could be even better, as typically, only about half of the power generated is used directly by the homeowner!

TOMORROW'S SOLAR - TODAY...!
We now have the solution to that wasted energy, as we introduce the revolutionary Absolute Solar Battery System (ASB System). In the past, battery storage for solar PV systems have been uneconomical for most households and lifestyles, with short life spans and very bulky lead based batteries. However, with the revolutionary ASB System that's no longer the case. For the first time in the UK, it represents a leap in inverter and lithium battery technology making household power storage a reality.

So, in conjunction with your Solar PV Panel System, investing in the system means you maximise both the returns from the government's FIT scheme and the free renewable energy you have generated!

THE ABSOLUTE SOLAR BATTERY SYSTEM
We've put together a package that's going to complement most domestic size installations and provide sufficient energy storage for most lifestyles. Here's what's in the package:

SPECIAL HYBRID INVERTER / CHARGER UNIT
It's more than the usual standard inverter. Of course, it handles the conversion of direct current (DC) from the PV panels to appliance friendly alternating current (AC), but it does much more. This state of the art hybrid inverter complements a typical 4kW system by directing spare solar power through a charging unit to top up the storage batteries and also back to the grid (if there is any left!).

Remote Monitoring as Standard - The unit provides an intergrated remote monitoring facility to any WiFi (or 3g) enabled device giving you control. !

A SPECIAL SOLAR LITHIUM BATTERY PACK
These are no ordinary batteries. They are high performance lithium and have been developed to withstand the particularly rigorous regime of discharging and recharging over a prolonged period of time. The 2 lithium battery pack offers storage up to 4.8kWh (3.9kWh usable) - enough for an typical household's low / mediumwattage appliances throughout an evening.!

EASY TO EXPAND
The system is expandable too - a further 4 batteries giving an extra 9.6kWh can be simply installed into the storage cabinet - so charging an electric car in the future will be no problem!

STORAGE CABINET
The lithium batteries are housed safe and securly in an attractive ventilated charcoal steel cabinet. With space to hold more batteries the cabinet is robust enough to carry 1000kg's (dia. 600mm L x 600mm W x 800mm H).



The concept is simple: while your solar panels are generating energy during daylight, the system will firstly power your usage, subsequently the extra generation will charge the ASB System. Once fully loaded, if there is any extra it will be fed back into the national grid. When the panels cease to generate electricity, the inverter will pull the free stored energy from the ASB System to power your usage. Only when the System is 'empty', does the system take power from the grid.!

For a typical household that currently only uses 50% of the energy generated, the ASB System should increase this to around 85%. Or in other words the system will only give 15% of the energy generated to the electricity companies!

BENEFITS OF THE ABSOLUTE SOLAR BATTERY SYSTEM
Save money on electricity bills by increasing the proportion of 'self-use' electricity generated by your solar panels from 50% to 85% plus
Become independent from ever increasing energy price inflation!
Peace of mind with 10 year battery life expectancy
Future proofed expandable storage – add more batteries as your electricity demand rises
Can be retro fitted to any existing (MCS registered) solar PV system
PEACE OF MIND - GUARANTEED
While our system is a first in the UK it is already widely used in Germany, Australia, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark and Austria. The inverter has a 10 year warranty. What's more, the lithium batteries have a life expectancy of 10 years ]- that's an impressive 4000 cycles!

UP TO STANDARD
The system has been approved by a number of authorities in several countries including MCS in the UK.

System

I fear that this thread will now get moderated as the above post will be seen as advertising. Two final points:

The life of lithium batteries reduces with cycles/use.

Using a projected output figure of 3600kWhs, then I estimate that I would be repaid £585 in FITs/export with usage savings of £380: total of £965 in Yr 1. I would still end up paying Barclays £235 out of my own pocket.

Happytimers

Nothing in life is for free. From those calculations i am actually really happy. Bare in mind this is an investment therefore £19.58 a month is hardly going to take the beans off your toast and this is calculated with a nil deposit. Fantastic!

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Happytimers wrote: »

...I asked how much they charge for a 4kw and they said £7,500...

Various posters are reporting prices as low as £5k for a 4kWp system these days on The Green & Ethical MoneySaving Board

System

The use of batteries for PV storage tweaked my interest. It would seem that the headline figures do not really stack up for the man in the street looking for a PV Solar investment. This is a quote from a German technological article written recently for the US market:

First of all, the amount of energy the battery can absorb during its cycle life and pass on again needs to be calculated. For example, the company Deutsche Energieversorgung’s conventional lead-acid battery system may have 3,000 cycles for a capacity of 24 kilowatt hours, equaling 72,000 kilowatt hours in total. A 50% depth of discharge at which this cycle life can be achieved must be deducted. Another 80% must be deducted to cover the loss of efficiency to the whole system. During its cycle life, the battery has a capacity of around 30,000 kilowatt hours. At €6,300 for the system, storage costs come to 21 cents per kilowatt hour. If you add the 12 cents it costs to produce power on-site, the total cost comes to 33 cents. This sum is considerably higher than the current domestic electricity cost of 25 cents – meaning the system is not economical. Modern lithium-ion batteries offer even less value for money, according to Sauer’s calculations. Storage costs alone come to at least 35 cents for current systems.

Looking at various PV solar installers' sites. A battery of the size quoted above - with an 8 to 10 year life - could cost as much as £1680 plus £320 for the 3 bay storage box. Diverting spare PV solar to the HW cylinder would seem to make better sense. I note that some countries are now considering a one-off battery grant for new installations. To my knowledge, this has not been mooted in the UK.

Martyn1981

Hengus, if you're interested I've been avidly following the subject of domestic storage for years. I think your numbers are fair and reasonable for a plug n play system.

However, when chatting with off-gridders, the economics change quite a lot. If you know what you're doing and where to buy batts (I don't), then I'm assured the cost falls to around €0.06 to €0.08 per kWh. But (BIG BUT) that includes the scrappage value of the lead.

The costs for Lithium are higher, but this is where the subject gets much more interesting, as it's a friendlier technology for domestic use.

As you state there are schemes to support storage (Germany due to PV saturation & Japan due to leccy shortage issues with the nuclear shutdowns, also the US, but more private experimentation than state funded (I think)).

I think we are still years away on the economics, but things are moving fast, since domestic PV storage can piggy back onto the huge EV battery development investment.

Whilst costs still won't be sorted in 2 years, it's still probably a key date as the Elon Musk/Tesla/Panasonic GigaFactory will be producing Lithium batteries on a scale larger than all current production combined. At that point we should be able to make some better conclusions on the viability of PV storage by looking at cost projections/trajectories.

This very recent article looks at the issue, again, more from the EV side, but also with mentions of PV.

Mart.

System

Martyn - this is an interesting debate and, whilst the possibility of free electricity is an attractive marketing ploy, early adopters will need to sit down with a calculator and work out the sums for themselves over a 20 year period (noting that the inverter and battery will need to be replaced after 10 years - if not earlier). What doesn't stack up for me is the £2000 delta for the battery pack paid for with a 10 year unsecured loan.

Interesting to compare this package with the purchase of an EV car where OLEV will provide a grant of £5K and a free home charger.