Battery's to power the home ?

Minrich

Right...

We are due to have a SolarPV installed in the next few weeks and signed up today ... Is it possible to use some of the extra energy provided to charge batteries or similar to run the house or certain products in the house ?
How and what would it cost ? Nothing drawing too much power say 1000w maximum , i'm sure we could set up a system like you get in a caravan ?

groovyf

I personally had thought of using a server-grade UPS battery backup unit, (APC SmartUPS or similar) to charge small items overnight after turning the unit off from mains, (so it resorts to battery power only) - then supply mains power to it again the following morning

A hair-brained idea in actuality I think

G_M

TomSmith1985 wrote: »

Hi! I read nowadays an article about recyclable houses. The light steel frame houses are very environment friendly. If I am gooing to build a house I use Mexisteelhomes technology.

Check the poster's other post.

:spam:

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Minrich wrote: »

Right...

We are due to have a SolarPV installed in the next few weeks and signed up today ... Is it possible to use some of the extra energy provided to charge batteries or similar to run the house or certain products in the house ?
How and what would it cost ? Nothing drawing too much power say 1000w maximum , i'm sure we could set up a system like you get in a caravan ?

There are a few companies going down this route but it's not really economical at the moment. Perhaps in a few years.

pinnks

SMA make a product which I think includes the inverter but costs thousands of pounds for quite small capacity.


On the assumption that you could put 4 kWh into you batteries every day and use that overnight for your base load and lights etc you could save about 50p per day, or £180 per year. This is far too simplistic as some days will not provide anything to charge batteries and on others they will be fully charged with excess still going to the grid. Anyway this is probably the max you could save with a 4kWp system.


If your battery system cost "only" £5000, it would take a lifetime to pay for itself - well 30 years ignoring inflation etc.

Andy_WSM

pinnks wrote: »

If your battery system cost "only" £5000, it would take a lifetime to pay for itself - well 30 years ignoring inflation etc.

In actuality, it will never pay for itself as the cost of replacing the batteries every x hundred cycles will outstrip the energy savings.

tunnel

The futures not batteries, the future is net metering. Unfortunately it's not profitable for the utilities to adopt the concept so until they're forced to we have to look for alternatives, ie..batteries.
I'd happily lose my export part of the FiT if it became available, maybe when smart metering becomes compulsory we may move towards it, who knows?

jimjames

tunnel wrote: »

The futures not batteries, the future is net metering. Unfortunately it's not profitable for the utilities to adopt the concept so until they're forced to we have to look for alternatives, ie..batteries.
I'd happily lose my export part of the FiT if it became available, maybe when smart metering becomes compulsory we may move towards it, who knows?

Net metering works if your meter goes backwards - or at least if I've understood what net metering is

tunnel

jimjames wrote: »

Net metering works if your meter goes backwards - or at least if I've understood what net metering is

That's exactly it JJ, but as you well know, the energy companies don't want you to have a meter that goes backwards because you get paid for export
As I said, take away the export part of the FiT and give us net metering. It would in effect take my electric bill down to Zero AND for the ones who oppose solar, it would reduce green taxes imposed on everyones bills

[Deleted User]

groovyf wrote: »

I personally had thought of using a server-grade UPS battery backup unit, (APC SmartUPS or similar) to charge small items overnight after turning the unit off from mains, (so it resorts to battery power only) - then supply mains power to it again the following morning

A hair-brained idea in actuality I think

Use a couple of APC UPS units here, well one is IBM branded..., but they are more to do with protecting cordless phones, voip ata phones, routers, cell repeaters etc from intermittent power cuts out here in the sticks. For that purpose they work well. If anything, the solar covers the extra running cost. Nothing fancy I'm afraid...