On-grid domestic battery storage

EVandPV

madswitcher said:

Hi All,

my first post on this forum and looking for some advice:

Has anyone had experiences (good or bad) with the LUX squirrel pod battery controllers.  I am contemplating having 2 of these in parallel to get over the 3.6KW limit on the standard LUX box.  It also has the capability of hunting for the lowest tariffs on Octopus Agile.

Thanks and regards

Mike

I don't have a squirrel pod but going by some of the posts here, it might be wise to go with Pylontech batteries instead of Uhome which seem to be hard to come by and a good bit more expensive for not much benefit.
You might also want to consider the earlier Lux 3600ACS battery controller which basically does everything the squirrel pod does and can be controlled with a raspberry pi to charge at the cheapest Agile times.

Further discussion on Lux gear here > https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6113817/lux-ac-battery-controller#latest

madswitcher

Thanks for the prompt reply.

The plan does include  a set of 4 Pylontech batteries as part of the package from ASK Renewables along with a pair of Lux Battery controllers - It seemed easier to get a system that has the automatic acquisition of rates etc. as programming with a Raspberry Pi is not one of my skiills :-)   I was just wondering if I was working at a bleeding edge on this, but it appears not to be the case.

We are also going to have a local electrician re-configure our distribution panel and add a sub-panel specifically for the circuits that we will need when the mains fails and the Lux will then flip over to power them if (when) it happens

Thanks for the link to the Lux forum.

flyinggoose

So i'll be having a Tesla Powerwall installed soon with solar panels and i've been looking into SEG and Economy 7 tarrifs (i'm not eligible for Octopus Go unfortuantely as i do not have an EV).

I came across the Octopus Agile Outgoing tarriff and looking at the latest priceon on the energy stats website the exports rates for the past few months (north west) seem to hardly ever dip below 10p per unit, at one point going as high as £2.41 (obviously a super rare event), I can at the same time also be on a different import tarriff from what i've read, is anyone else here with Agile Outgoing? I'm thinking of collecting energy from the solar panels and then selling to the grid if the price climbs high enough on the day and i don't need it for the house, any other SEG/Economy 7 tarrif recommendations would be welcome aswell.

QrizB

flyinggoose said:

So i'll be having a Tesla Powerwall installed soon with solar panels and i've been looking into SEG and Economy 7 tarrifs (i'm not eligible for Octopus Go unfortuantely as i do not have an EV).

I don't know the details - you might need a Tesla car as well as a Powerwall - but do you qualify for the Octopus Tesla tariff?

I came across the Octopus Agile Outgoing tarriff ... is anyone else here with Agile Outgoing?

I think @Spies is? It's the best export tariff I know of but you can't have it together with Go / Go Faster (which isn't a problem for you).

flyinggoose

QrizB said:

flyinggoose said:

So i'll be having a Tesla Powerwall installed soon with solar panels and i've been looking into SEG and Economy 7 tarrifs (i'm not eligible for Octopus Go unfortuantely as i do not have an EV).

I don't know the details - you might need a Tesla car as well as a Powerwall - but do you qualify for the Octopus Tesla tariff?

Yeah i qualify for the Tesla Energy Plan but i've decided against it for now as i don't want to give up total control of the battery to Tesla/Octopus, it might make sense in the winter months though when my solar pv isn't generating much but during the summer from i've seen i'm better off just selling to the grid myself with something like the Agile tarriff as i could sell at certain times when export rates are at the highest points.

michaels

flyinggoose said:

So i'll be having a Tesla Powerwall installed soon with solar panels and i've been looking into SEG and Economy 7 tarrifs (i'm not eligible for Octopus Go unfortuantely as i do not have an EV).

I came across the Octopus Agile Outgoing tarriff and looking at the latest priceon on the energy stats website the exports rates for the past few months (north west) seem to hardly ever dip below 10p per unit, at one point going as high as £2.41 (obviously a super rare event), I can at the same time also be on a different import tarriff from what i've read, is anyone else here with Agile Outgoing? I'm thinking of collecting energy from the solar panels and then selling to the grid if the price climbs high enough on the day and i don't need it for the house, any other SEG/Economy 7 tarrif recommendations would be welcome aswell.

I guess it depends what your incoming E7 rates are - would you be ablt to make a profit sellign energy bought at night back at peak times?  Obviously only makes sense if you have covered all your own usage or the sell rate is higher than the incoming rate.

flyinggoose

michaels said:

flyinggoose said:

So i'll be having a Tesla Powerwall installed soon with solar panels and i've been looking into SEG and Economy 7 tarrifs (i'm not eligible for Octopus Go unfortuantely as i do not have an EV).

I came across the Octopus Agile Outgoing tarriff and looking at the latest priceon on the energy stats website the exports rates for the past few months (north west) seem to hardly ever dip below 10p per unit, at one point going as high as £2.41 (obviously a super rare event), I can at the same time also be on a different import tarriff from what i've read, is anyone else here with Agile Outgoing? I'm thinking of collecting energy from the solar panels and then selling to the grid if the price climbs high enough on the day and i don't need it for the house, any other SEG/Economy 7 tarrif recommendations would be welcome aswell.

I guess it depends what your incoming E7 rates are - would you be ablt to make a profit sellign energy bought at night back at peak times?  Obviously only makes sense if you have covered all your own usage or the sell rate is higher than the incoming rate.

Possibly yes, i would have to take the round trip efficiency into account of course, thinking about it though i really don't want the hassle of checking daily prices and then working out when to import / export either but if the other options aren't great i won't have much of a choice i guess.

From my calculations i shouldn't need to import anything from the grid for atleast six months in the year, so the cheaper nightime tarriff would be extremely useful in the other months (especially November to January) but strangely enough i'm finding it difficult to find E7 tarrifs, alot of comparison sites seem to have taken them down, another thing is that my daily usage in the winter can be 15kwh, so i'm gonna have to be quite careful and make sure i don't get burnt by the daily rates on these E7 tarrifs.

Reed_Richards

flyinggoose said:

From my calculations i shouldn't need to import anything from the grid for atleast six months in the year, 

I never achieved this in the years before I got electric heating.  I managed to cut down from around 8 kWh per day to around 1 kWh per day.  But despite having 4.8 kW worth of panels and a 6.4 kWh battery there were times when it was too cloudy for too long and my battery cannot respond quickly enough to a surge in power demand to avoid a brief period of import. 

mickyduck55

Reed_Richards said:

flyinggoose said:

From my calculations i shouldn't need to import anything from the grid for atleast six months in the year, 

I never achieved this in the years before I got electric heating.  I managed to cut down from around 8 kWh per day to around 1 kWh per day.  But despite having 4.8 kW worth of panels and a 6.4 kWh battery there were times when it was too cloudy for too long and my battery cannot respond quickly enough to a surge in power demand to avoid a brief period of import. 

Totally agree I import almost nothing for many months but like you my inverter is not quick enough to ramp up to cover surges, its the same when things switch off there is some export while it all settles down... I am talking about low imports.  Some weeks less than  1 kWh

First post in this thread mentions Inverter issue

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6260671/how-low-can-you-go-daily-weekly-monthly-whatever-electricity-grid-import/p1

[Deleted User]

flyinggoose said:

QrizB said:

flyinggoose said:

So i'll be having a Tesla Powerwall installed soon with solar panels and i've been looking into SEG and Economy 7 tarrifs (i'm not eligible for Octopus Go unfortuantely as i do not have an EV).

I don't know the details - you might need a Tesla car as well as a Powerwall - but do you qualify for the Octopus Tesla tariff?

Yeah i qualify for the Tesla Energy Plan but i've decided against it for now as i don't want to give up total control of the battery to Tesla/Octopus, it might make sense in the winter months though when my solar pv isn't generating much but during the summer from i've seen i'm better off just selling to the grid myself with something like the Agile tarriff as i could sell at certain times when export rates are at the highest points.

I hate to rain on your parade but Tesla doesn’t allow owners to manually export power from their PW2s to the Grid. It follows that Agile Outgoing will be of no benefit to you as far as the PW2 is concerned. In sum, PW2s are probably the most restricted battery on the market. It follows that it is the Tesla Energy Plan or nothing. As far as Octopus SEG is concerned, make sure that your array is MCS-certified; you have a smart meter and can provide Octopus with DNO sign off on your installation.

PS I post this as a PW2 owner.