On-grid domestic battery storage

joefizz

You think you lot have problems with solar and the batteries?...

I changed electricity suppliers 6 weeks ago. The meter reading guy made a mistake and gave the last digit as 3 units higher than it was. I havent imported 3 units in 6 weeks.
Try explaining that when they keep sending me estimated bills and their system wont accept a lower subsequent reading ;-)

EVandPV

Turns out there's an Android alternative to the Windows app Batterview.
Works on android phones and tablets with an OTG adapter and FDTI serial cable .
The app is called Serial USB Terminal and allows you to check the individual status of each Pylontech battery in your stack. Much handier than hooking up a laptop for a quick check on your Pylons.
There's a ton of different terminal commands that can be used but the one that seems the most useful and shows much the same info as Batteryview is simply 'pwr'.
Take care with it as there are commands which alter settings on the Pylontechs.

Solarchaser

Just thought I'd add in that in the month of April I had my lowest ever Electricity bill.
42kwh for the entire month, just over £10 including the standing charge.

Some of you will think that's quite normal I guess, but when I say that I used over 600kwh, I think that's pretty cool.

I can only imagine how great the lux would be if I had the actual parallel model, and not been missold the normal ones  

EVandPV

Just got our bill in for April, £12 including standing charge.
Decembers leccy bill prior to having batteries installed and switching to Octopus Go was £45 so quite a difference.

mickyduck55

No surprises that this thread is so quiet.. the sun is shining almost daily so batteries full and everyone happy 

Ectophile

I have found over the last year that through spring and summer, I average about 1kWh from the grid per day.

It's not so great in the winter when short grey days are all too common.  Even on sunny winter days, the long evenings mean my little battery can be flat by bedtime.

martin2020

importing 0.3kw per day average using 2 xpylontechs and a lux - my baseload is about 90watts in the day and 300w at night.
i carnt really check how accurate it is because my smart metre is always broke and octopus reckon they are having technical issues so they  carnt display the online data either.  thats my gas,export and import tarrif data not available !!!!!!

Solarchaser

Nice to see some sun today, last two days have had two flat battery banks for first time since start of April.

diveleader

Good morning all!

I have spent the last few days, working my way through this thread and thank you all for your insight and data.
I am looking to install Solar PV on my roof and am also looking at having battery storage (possibly pylon x 2 but ideally x 3) with A Lux hybrid fitted from the outset.

We moved last year. Our previous home had a 2.9kWP array fitted and this worked well for us.
I miss not having 'free' electricity, so started investigating the case for solar (plus battery storage) in a post FIT world.

There are 2 of us in the house, We are retired, so are home alot. We also have an apartment abroad, so (post Covid), we would be away from the main home approx 3 months per year (mainly winter).

We used to have electric vehicles, but sadly no more. Moving forward, I can see us owning one again in the next few years.

Ideally, I would fit a 4 (ish) kWP on my SSW roof pitch (Energy trust calcs this as 3,220 kWHrs PA).

My paybacks appear to vary between 13-17 yrs, based on a 5kW battery and 4kWP array. This is based on an estimated install cost of £6-8.8K.

I haven't obtained firm quotes yet, so the above is an estimate. I also feel the install costs may be higher - I'm trying to apply man maths perhaps to justify the outlay!

What are you thoughts of an supply and install cost (Staffordshire, normal pitched roof)?

As an additional 'difficult to justify the outlay' factor. We are currently not big electricity users. We have gas CH, LED lighting, low power PC's etc. I have been monitoring our electricity usage over the last few weeks (May) and we are only consuming approx 7kWHrs daily. 

Energy supplier is Utility Point. Flat rate tariff @13.720p / unit and standing charge of 12.22p / day 

chamelion

diveleader said:

Good morning all!

I have spent the last few days, working my way through this thread and thank you all for your insight and data.
I am looking to install Solar PV on my roof and am also looking at having battery storage (possibly pylon x 2 but ideally x 3) with A Lux hybrid fitted from the outset.

We moved last year. Our previous home had a 2.9kWP array fitted and this worked well for us.
I miss not having 'free' electricity, so started investigating the case for solar (plus battery storage) in a post FIT world.

There are 2 of us in the house, We are retired, so are home alot. We also have an apartment abroad, so (post Covid), we would be away from the main home approx 3 months per year (mainly winter).

We used to have electric vehicles, but sadly no more. Moving forward, I can see us owning one again in the next few years.

Ideally, I would fit a 4 (ish) kWP on my SSW roof pitch (Energy trust calcs this as 3,220 kWHrs PA).

My paybacks appear to vary between 13-17 yrs, based on a 5kW battery and 4kWP array. This is based on an estimated install cost of £6-8.8K.

I haven't obtained firm quotes yet, so the above is an estimate. I also feel the install costs may be higher - I'm trying to apply man maths perhaps to justify the outlay!

What are you thoughts of an supply and install cost (Staffordshire, normal pitched roof)?

As an additional 'difficult to justify the outlay' factor. We are currently not big electricity users. We have gas CH, LED lighting, low power PC's etc. I have been monitoring our electricity usage over the last few weeks (May) and we are only consuming approx 7kWHrs daily. 

Energy supplier is Utility Point. Flat rate tariff @13.720p / unit and standing charge of 12.22p / day 

My view - first check out alternative energy suppliers. I'm on Octopus energy, my average per kwh price is about 6p without factoring in solar / batteries since I joined start of the year. Given your low usage it could make more sense. 

Not sure how you've calculated your break even point, whether it includes export tariff and energy savings based on your unit price? Lot of the people who have solar / batteries fall in the camp of "we could make use of incentives (e.g. FIT) and have decent enough usage (e.g includes immersion heaters) to make this a financially viable option" or fall in the camp of "its not financially viable, break even point is over 10 years, but we're geeky / passionate about living green or off grid much as possible."

The first camp are typically those who've been on this journey for years and years, when incentives existed.