On-grid domestic battery storage

chamelion

Martyn1981 said:

mickyduck55 said:

chamelion said:

mickyduck55 said:

Hi chamelion

Sadly that is a misconception... I paid a LOT for my system, it was obviously no coincidence  that system prices fell in line with the cut in FIT.  Broke even at year 8 as expected so only been in the black for a couple of years.. I do however expect to make a good ROI for the remaining FIT period

Ahh that's valid. Prices of installs did fall through the floor... I do forget that! 

Fell by about 50% almost overnight

**Boring Warning** But sometimes nice to see how far we've come.

Very roughly, for a 4kWp system, the figures at the better end, but not the very best deals:
Early 2010 - £15k-£20k
Summer 2011 - £12k
Nov/Dec 2011 - £9k
Mch 2012 - £8k
July 2012 - £7k
Prices then continued down towards about £5k, with a hiccup when the government 'destroyed' the solar industry, but then on again towards and below £5k, with additional kWp costing ~£1k or even less.

It's pretty annoying that suppliers add the cost of subsidies into their pricing. It's like that today with the ev home chargers - all suppliers basically add the gov't subsidy to their pricing 

mickyduck55

Martyn1981 said:

mickyduck55 said:

chamelion said:

mickyduck55 said:

Hi chamelion

Sadly that is a misconception... I paid a LOT for my system, it was obviously no coincidence  that system prices fell in line with the cut in FIT.  Broke even at year 8 as expected so only been in the black for a couple of years.. I do however expect to make a good ROI for the remaining FIT period

Ahh that's valid. Prices of installs did fall through the floor... I do forget that! 

Fell by about 50% almost overnight

**Boring Warning** But sometimes nice to see how far we've come.

Very roughly, for a 4kWp system, the figures at the better end, but not the very best deals:
Early 2010 - £15k-£20k
Summer 2011 - £12k
Nov/Dec 2011 - £9k
Mch 2012 - £8k
July 2012 - £7k
Prices then continued down towards about £5k, with a hiccup when the government 'destroyed' the solar industry, but then on again towards and below £5k, with additional kWp costing ~£1k or even less.

bang on for mine £12 K Summer 2011

joefizz

Just a quick timely reminder for those who havent yet set their home batteries up as ups yet...

late last week there was near 40% chance of power cuts in GB due to drop off in wind power and it was coal stations and eu interconnects keeping the lights on.

Its probably likely that thats it near enough for the winter but something to be mindful of to get sorted before next winter.

Zarch

Zarch said:

EVandPV said:

Was having a look at the Github page on controlling a Lux inverter and it got me wondering if it might be possible somehow to get it to control the amount of overnight grid charging based on the weather forecast for the following day ?? I believe the Powerwall already does this.
Been a long time since I did any coding so I'm pretty out of touch and wouldn't know where to start.
Could see it being using useful particularly during the months when pv generation is not likely to completely charge the batteries.

This is something i've already been talking about with Chris (the man behind the Lux code).  He's been trialling using Solcast to forecast day-ahead solar generation and using that as a guide how to much charge overnight.

All tricky logic though.  Similarly, through my Twitter account (@energystatsuk) i've been mulling the same subject with followers.  There is already work happening, but all very disparate.   People with Powerwalls doing, Chris with his Lux etc.

Needs everyone to come together and make something open-source that will plug-in to various energy tariffs, weather/solar predictions and battery APIs.

Not sure if github is the best place to start this conversation, but i've created this as an opening gambit.
https://github.com/zarch1972/openenergeia/blob/master/README.md

EVandPV

Zarch said:

Zarch said:

EVandPV said:

Was having a look at the Github page on controlling a Lux inverter and it got me wondering if it might be possible somehow to get it to control the amount of overnight grid charging based on the weather forecast for the following day ?? I believe the Powerwall already does this.
Been a long time since I did any coding so I'm pretty out of touch and wouldn't know where to start.
Could see it being using useful particularly during the months when pv generation is not likely to completely charge the batteries.

This is something i've already been talking about with Chris (the man behind the Lux code).  He's been trialling using Solcast to forecast day-ahead solar generation and using that as a guide how to much charge overnight.

All tricky logic though.  Similarly, through my Twitter account (@energystatsuk) i've been mulling the same subject with followers.  There is already work happening, but all very disparate.   People with Powerwalls doing, Chris with his Lux etc.

Needs everyone to come together and make something open-source that will plug-in to various energy tariffs, weather/solar predictions and battery APIs.

Not sure if github is the best place to start this conversation, but i've created this as an opening gambit.
https://github.com/zarch1972/openenergeia/blob/master/README.md

Nice one Zarch !
Following this with interest.
Like I say, I won't be much use to you for coding but if you need anyone for testing, I'm more than happy to help. 

chamelion

Folks, what are the actual tangible differences between lux, sofar, solis, solax? 
Lux seems to be the favourite here, but any reason why?

Presumably all of them allow you to do real time monitoring, schedule charges / discharges, sip from solar PV when you have surplus, and have an API where I can pull data out of for my own use?

mickyduck55

Anyone know why my PV is delivering 3kW but batteries seem to top out at a charge rate of 2kWh

 with rest going to the grid

EVandPV

mickyduck55 said:

Anyone know why my PV is delivering 3kW but batteries seem to top out at a charge rate of 2kWh

 with rest going to the grid

Hi Mick, what sort of temperature is it in your garage ?
Could well be due to low temps, assuming your garage isn't heated.

EVandPV

chamelion said:

Folks, what are the actual tangible differences between lux, sofar, solis, solax? 
Lux seems to be the favourite here, but any reason why?

Presumably all of them allow you to do real time monitoring, schedule charges / discharges, sip from solar PV when you have surplus, and have an API where I can pull data out of for my own use?

Lux has excellent monitoring and allows remote control over all settings via a web portal and app. There's a ton of data available on the web portal which can be exported to excel.
It allows up to 3.6kw output and can be paralled with another unit to double this to 7.2kw.
There's a demo of the web portal available minus the configuration screens .....
http://server.luxpowertek.com/WManage/web/monitor/inverter
Lux also has a 10 year warranty.

mickyduck55

EVandPV said:

mickyduck55 said:

Anyone know why my PV is delivering 3kW but batteries seem to top out at a charge rate of 2kWh

 with rest going to the grid

Hi Mick, what sort of temperature is it in your garage ?
Could well be due to low temps, assuming your garage isn't heated.

I guess just a little above ambient... but the charge rate has not changed from day one.. 44.4 %