Solar - what do I need to know?

charles_b_2

Why can't they site the Inverter in the loft and the Battery on the rear wall of your house?  If it's a DC connected battery (e.g Solaredge 400V) then the battery can be upto 40 metres from the Inverter.  

Battery in loft is now a no-no according to building regs, so this will be a problem for a lot of people, finding a suitable location for the battery.

pete-20-11

charles_b_2 said:

Why can't they site the Inverter in the loft and the Battery on the rear wall of your house?  If it's a DC connected battery (e.g Solaredge 400V) then the battery can be upto 40 metres from the Inverter.  

Battery in loft is now a no-no according to building regs, so this will be a problem for a lot of people, finding a suitable location for the battery.

Not sure the new regs are live yet. Still in design and consultation?

Plus you might be able to build a plant room in the loft to achieve the requirements. 

Screwdriva

I am surprised to hear of this outcome. It sounds like a case of the wrong installer for the job - utility companies are very formulaic in their design/ installation approach and anything even remotely out of the ordinary triggers a flashy red alert. 

Fitting a PV only battery-less system is still a great option for you, even if the inverter lives in the loft. No guidelines against this location at all. If you'd like to give it another try, I would be happy to help connect you to the right installer. Feel free to DM me.

EssexHebridean

Apparently the issue in the loft with the inverter is that "it can only go on the party wall" but surely that would be the case for most ordinary terraced houses? I suspect what they mean is that they aren't certain that it's not just a single skinned "fire break" wall - and yes, that IS possible, but it does have a boiler mounted on it so I would expect that would be a similar sort of weight to the inverter, and that's staying put OK!  As for the battery, that was always ruled out of being in the loft due to the weight anyway. I really have smelled a rat over the way things that weren't an issue before very much now apparently are - and it is annoying that we've not got any straight answers on it. 

We've discussed the possibility of going panels-only for now, and for us, if we were looking at it for green reasons only, rather than wanting "some" money saving aspects too, then absolutely, it might be viable. As it is though, with the amount we are out during weekdays (when most of the generation would be taking place) we would a lot of the time barely get the benefit of actually running our own home from the energy we generate, load shifting to a time when the panels could be generating and offsetting energy isn't much of a possibility a lot of the time, and with the likelihood that MrEH will have to return to even more days in the office at some stage, that situation is only likely to get worse. The point of the battery was that by using a combination of the generation and flux, we would realistically be able to entirely run the house from it most of the time, with there just being a few odd days in winter where that might not be workable. 

There is definitely "something" going on in the background, but we've not really fathomed what. I am tempted to wait for the refund to land and then contact them again and ask for a full report clarifying exactly what the problems were, and why it was not possible to a) fit the inverter in the loft, and b) site the inverter and the battery separately. I suspect I won't get anything back, though. 

Screwdriva

EssexHebridean said:

We've discussed the possibility of going panels-only for now, and for us, if we were looking at it for green reasons only, rather than wanting "some" money saving aspects too, then absolutely, it might be viable. As it is though, with the amount we are out during weekdays (when most of the generation would be taking place) we would a lot of the time barely get the benefit of actually running our own home from the energy we generate, load shifting to a time when the panels could be generating and offsetting energy isn't much of a possibility a lot of the time, and with the likelihood that MrEH will have to return to even more days in the office at some stage, that situation is only likely to get worse. The point of the battery was that by using a combination of the generation and flux, we would realistically be able to entirely run the house from it most of the time, with there just being a few odd days in winter where that might not be workable. 

This is a common thought process I come across regularly when batteries are considered by homeowners. If I may, I thought I'd share wise words from another forum member, shared on here last year. It puts the battery vs. non battery debate into perspective better than I ever could, especially when a disruptive tariff like Octopus Flux comes along. (Please note that Flux pays ~10-15% less this Summer than the #'s shared below).

It's safe to say that even with a large 13.5kW battery, you will almost never be using your own PV generation to run the household in the Winter months and will require importing from the grid to top them up. The best part of the PV only approach is that you can always add a battery to your PV only system at a later date, with no penalty now thanks to a recent change in the VAT regulations by this government. 

Qyburn

EssexHebridean said:

There is definitely "something" going on in the background, but we've not really fathomed what. I am tempted to wait for the refund to land and then contact them again and ask for a full report clarifying exactly what the problems were, and why it was not possible to a) fit the inverter in the loft, and b) site the inverter and the battery separately. I suspect I won't get anything back, though. 

I know exactly what you mean and as I've said before I think the solar power industry is where the double glazing salesmen have gone.

We had two installation dates cancelled at short notice, one literally the day before, both because they'd discovered a design error which meant we would have to carry some considerable work ourselves before they started. The second cancellation was because they realised, the day before, that their correction of their previous error was in fact also wrong, and the work we were required to had been incorrectly described.

Another thing that bugs me is the use of childish language instead of explicit terms. For example we're told it connects to "our WiFi" but it actually needs Ethernet. 

MeteredOut

I concur with the above. We enquired about a solar/battery package. The supplier sent people out twice to do the survey (roof, electrics, logistics for placement of inverter and battery, wire runs etc) and we thereafter agreed to the quote we received. Got the invoice and paid the deposit.

The roofer turned on installation day and said they needed scaffolding (we're in a bungalow style house and the survey had stated no scaffolding needed) and the supplier tried to add £1,200 onto the price. Thankfully (or luckily), the inverter and battery had not been installed at that point, due to the wiring run between the two being too long for the products specified as part of the package!

Due to the scaffolding cost, the ROI became too small so the I pulled out. Took 2 weeks to get my deposit back, including them sending over the wrong amount in the first instance (in their favour obviously).

I did think about pushing them, but was frankly fed up with them at that point so we will look elsewhere.

Reed_Richards

I have a battery.  A feature I really value is the smoothing function that provides but this is an advantage that generally gets overlooked. 

Suppose I want to use my old freestanding vacuum cleaner.  That draws quite a bit of power, my solar panels can cope in full sun but not if the sun goes behind a cloud.  I don't want to have to keep one eye on the floor and one eye out the window so I can switch off the vacuum every time the sun gets obscured in order to avoid importing some electricity to make up the difference between that the vacuum wants and what my solar panels can give.  And doing this could make for slow progress.  But I don't have to do that, if the sun goes behind a cloud my battery kicks in and makes up the difference.  Or if my OH decides to boil a kettle at the same time then the solar panels and the battery working together can provide enough power to cover that as well.  

EssexHebridean

I'm incredibly grateful that I am still getting useful information given here! I have decided that once the refund lands, I will indeed be asking for a detailed report and explanation of the issues. 

The mentioned of connection via ethernet is interesting - definitely no chance that we would be able to do that! 

MallyGirl

Edited as I was wrong!

our battery is on the outside wall as is the inverter but it doesn't have any sort of canopy. The gateway is in the cellar (thought that was the inverter)