On-grid domestic battery storage

Zarch

Davo456 said:

Zarch said:

I know you all like install photos.
Sadly, nothing much to show here.  Its up a storage area in the loft space.  Cabling back down the consumer unit via external conduit.
No racks, no need.  No one will be going in there.  Enough space to add a few more batteries later down the line.
Little white thing at the front is a Xaomi temperature sensor linked to Home Assistant to measure ambient temps in there.
Although Jake at Infinity says there is little worry about temperature wise.  If they can last in an Australian summer they should be fine in Sheffield.

Looks nice and tidy. You may want to consider some spacing between the batteries as specified in the manual.
Warning re. temperature, if the temperature goes below zero, the batteries switch themselves off.
Mine was originally in the loft (not as nice as the one above), and they shut down a lot over winter.
Only issue now there in the house, is the sofar comms card drops as its always done - a restart fixes it, but can't do remotely of course.

I'm not worried about low temps as on the other side of the wall where the Lux is, is a bedroom with a radiator in it.

Thanks for tip on the spacing, I could always slide the batteries along a bit to give them some clearance.

Wireless should be ok as i've got an AP literally just a few metres away on the floor below.

chamelion

Davo456 said:

chamelion said:

I still really really want battery storage especially after receiving daily updates of this thread and seeing all the fun geekery all you guys experience. But based on above post, it still makes absolutely no financial sense... 

really depends on your usage of electricity - I have 2 NAS drives that use 550W 24x7, so for me with 3kw solar panels and 9.6kWh batteries made sense for the best summer we had in 2018, running the house without any import for nearly 2 months continuous. In winter of course, the saving in nearly zero.
I'll see if I can dig out my calculator.
I'm a geek btw, so tech brain probably got in the way of economics too :-)
If you have no real load, then you're right.

I'm going to do some quick math on that in the most 'in favour of battery' method possible:
550w = 13.2kwh/day; * 6.5p/kwh (agile octopus, my average for today) = 85.8p/day saved. Imagine you had this 365 days a year charging full on from solar rather than grid, that's £313 per year. that's still well over 10 years break even for a 9.6kwh system...... 
in reality, half that savings given your solar won't charge the whole thing up... so still over 20 years break even.

mickyduck55

Cannot argue with the calculator, but I have a good FIT rate so decided to enhance my 9 year old PV system ...

Will probably move to Octopus when my existing contract expires then charge batteries overnight in the darker months

I just like the idea and now I'm retired and at home much more I expect to use all or most of my generated power...

Just been sent the LUX maintenance configuration manual in PDF.. not a lot wiser !

Martyn1981

Can't argue with the last two posts. Just re-read the opening post, and have to admit losing a lot of optimism over the 3yrs. I saw the prices of large batts then, assumed a steady price reduction, and got excited. But instead prices seem to have gone up a bit, perhaps due to massive automotive demand, with perhaps the Pylontech kit saving the day for many.

My leccy consumption just seems to be too small to make this work, and via heat pumps for the shoulder months, and hopefully a BEV(s) for the sunny months, I might be able to lift demand to make better use of generation, rather than the storage route.

But, I have to admit to getting a vast amount of enjoyment vicariously from this thread and the postings of others, and I'm still 100% behind the idea of domestic batts, for those that can make it work, or just want to get geeky (my main driver I think, looking back) and widen their 'powerstation' status.

Fingers crossed that prices/costs will tumble eventually, and perhaps more DNO linked schemes, sharing the costs?

chamelion

Martyn1981 said:

Can't argue with the last two posts. Just re-read the opening post, and have to admit losing a lot of optimism over the 3yrs. I saw the prices of large batts then, assumed a steady price reduction, and got excited. But instead prices seem to have gone up a bit, perhaps due to massive automotive demand, with perhaps the Pylontech kit saving the day for many.

My leccy consumption just seems to be too small to make this work, and via heat pumps for the shoulder months, and hopefully a BEV(s) for the sunny months, I might be able to lift demand to make better use of generation, rather than the storage route.

But, I have to admit to getting a vast amount of enjoyment vicariously from this thread and the postings of others, and I'm still 100% behind the idea of domestic batts, for those that can make it work, or just want to get geeky (my main driver I think, looking back) and widen their 'powerstation' status.

Fingers crossed that prices/costs will tumble eventually, and perhaps more DNO linked schemes, sharing the costs?

Absolutely dying to join the geek train - i have some serious data flows going on around the house with custom self built code push/ pulling data from domoticz, octopus, bright, my pv inverter, loop energy, and pushing to telegram monitoring my gas and electric usage and cost in crazy detail! Would love to add another api with batteries and see how it impacts all flows, and its not that this is a stupid amount of money, its just not a good economical situation for now...

One thing to add versus increasing battery prices are decreasing electricity costs which is unexpected. I pay half today what i did even last year thanks to octopus agile. 

EVandPV

chamelion said:

Davo456 said:

chamelion said:

I still really really want battery storage especially after receiving daily updates of this thread and seeing all the fun geekery all you guys experience. But based on above post, it still makes absolutely no financial sense... 

really depends on your usage of electricity - I have 2 NAS drives that use 550W 24x7, so for me with 3kw solar panels and 9.6kWh batteries made sense for the best summer we had in 2018, running the house without any import for nearly 2 months continuous. In winter of course, the saving in nearly zero.
I'll see if I can dig out my calculator.
I'm a geek btw, so tech brain probably got in the way of economics too :-)
If you have no real load, then you're right.

I'm going to do some quick math on that in the most 'in favour of battery' method possible:
550w = 13.2kwh/day; * 6.5p/kwh (agile octopus, my average for today) = 85.8p/day saved. Imagine you had this 365 days a year charging full on from solar rather than grid, that's £313 per year. that's still well over 10 years break even for a 9.6kwh system...... 
in reality, half that savings given your solar won't charge the whole thing up... so still over 20 years break even.

Difficult to quantify on Agile but there will be further savings to made by grid charging at the cheapest times of day.  And at times, even being paid for your useage. You'll also avoid the more expensive peak rate period.

chamelion

EVandPV said:

chamelion said:

Davo456 said:

chamelion said:

I still really really want battery storage especially after receiving daily updates of this thread and seeing all the fun geekery all you guys experience. But based on above post, it still makes absolutely no financial sense... 

really depends on your usage of electricity - I have 2 NAS drives that use 550W 24x7, so for me with 3kw solar panels and 9.6kWh batteries made sense for the best summer we had in 2018, running the house without any import for nearly 2 months continuous. In winter of course, the saving in nearly zero.
I'll see if I can dig out my calculator.
I'm a geek btw, so tech brain probably got in the way of economics too :-)
If you have no real load, then you're right.

I'm going to do some quick math on that in the most 'in favour of battery' method possible:
550w = 13.2kwh/day; * 6.5p/kwh (agile octopus, my average for today) = 85.8p/day saved. Imagine you had this 365 days a year charging full on from solar rather than grid, that's £313 per year. that's still well over 10 years break even for a 9.6kwh system...... 
in reality, half that savings given your solar won't charge the whole thing up... so still over 20 years break even.

Difficult to quantify on Agile but there will be further savings to made by grid charging at the cheapest times of day.  And at times, even being paid for your useage. You'll also avoid the more expensive peak rate period.

Yes - that was the original math i had done, using best case (100% pv charged for free, saving 22p/kwh for peak) at 8 years break even, and realistic which was 40 years! 

Martyn1981

chamelion said:

Absolutely dying to join the geek train 

Yep so am I, or I was, since I have to accept defeat now. Forgot to mention that my DNO will not allow any more export due to my PV limit, so no headroom whatsoever for any battery storage unless it was G100 compliant and couldn't discharge/export (even by mistake) that would lift total export above 3.68kW. [PV has 5.9kW approval, but they now regret giving me that, but thankfully won't rescind permission either.]

I'm only guessing, but hopefully the future all in one kit will not only be cheaper but will also have G100 compliance so battery installs (DNO compliance) won't have to add battery discharge capability to PV potential.

But I'm not bitter, and twisted, and grumpy ........ no. ;-)

joefizz

chamelion said:

One thing to add versus increasing battery prices are decreasing electricity costs which is unexpected. I pay half today what i did even last year thanks to octopus agile. 

Count yourself lucky, mine have increased 50% since installing the solar! Which is why the calculators are only just a guide.

Since putting the batteries in Ive doubled my usage (all detailed previously) but its a chicken and egg thing.

FWIW I think the way things are currently going is moving away from the end user doing the battery stuff and more to integrating it on a local level with the grid so as I mentioned here and in the EV thread I have never thought the battery prices would drop much beyond what they were when I bought my set (and subsequent batteries). As with other tech the getting cheaper myth is always disguised by the getting more for your money fiddle factor - i.e. the actual units dont get cheaper but you may get more bells and whistles or slightly larger capacity, or more dod or... anything except price reduction and usually more to do with ongoing development or cost reductions with the manufacturers.

For a lot of people (already mentioned here) when you compare prices of a home battery system compared to what some of us were paying 20 years ago for a UPS its a no brainer, particularly as my old UPS used lead acid batteries and had to be replaced (usually after they had just failed during a power out ;-)) or just the geek factor. Im holding off going into my pylontechs with the CLUI for a while yet but at some point the urge will be overwhelming ;-)

chamelion

joefizz said:

chamelion said:

One thing to add versus increasing battery prices are decreasing electricity costs which is unexpected. I pay half today what i did even last year thanks to octopus agile. 

Count yourself lucky, mine have increased 50% since installing the solar! Which is why the calculators are only just a guide.

Since putting the batteries in Ive doubled my usage (all detailed previously) but its a chicken and egg thing.

FWIW I think the way things are currently going is moving away from the end user doing the battery stuff and more to integrating it on a local level with the grid so as I mentioned here and in the EV thread I have never thought the battery prices would drop much beyond what they were when I bought my set (and subsequent batteries). As with other tech the getting cheaper myth is always disguised by the getting more for your money fiddle factor - i.e. the actual units dont get cheaper but you may get more bells and whistles or slightly larger capacity, or more dod or... anything except price reduction and usually more to do with ongoing development or cost reductions with the manufacturers.

For a lot of people (already mentioned here) when you compare prices of a home battery system compared to what some of us were paying 20 years ago for a UPS its a no brainer, particularly as my old UPS used lead acid batteries and had to be replaced (usually after they had just failed during a power out ;-)) or just the geek factor. Im holding off going into my pylontechs with the CLUI for a while yet but at some point the urge will be overwhelming ;-)

I should clarify  
My price per unit has halved. My usage has significantly increased especially give I have mining rigs...