Solar panels and battery. Do these sound OK?

Mikeyboy01443

I knew nothing about solar until I decided to get it installed and started researching a lot,  it is a minefield and there is a lot to understand, I'm still not an expert but i knew what I wanted. 
For me i started by looking at what my maximum power consumption was, i have an EV, aircon, water tank, and the usual other bits. I can space the usage of these out but in reality not everyone in my house will take the same approach. So i wanted to make sure my inverter could handle the 5kw+ power draw! This ruled out,  at the time, GE kit.
I had about quotes from about 6 different installers, asked a lot of questions, and if the installer didnt listen to what I want, i discounted them.
I wasnt too bothered about the make of panel, as all quotes i had seemed to specify either trina or JA, so i thought either would be OK. 
I also wanted full blackout coverage so wanted EPS, which pushed me towards solax kit, and I'm happy with my purchase so far (nearly 1 year in and all OK). Some installers wouldn't entertain EPS, some said they would just fit a plug in the garage (what good is that to anyone) and the installer i chose agreed with the EPS setup i wanted.
I also wanted to see install pics of wiring etc,  so i asked them all to supply me with recent install pics - again some did, some didnt ( amazing how many people have an iron mounting in their garage, !!!!!!).
I also where possible, had a look at what the app / user interface was like for each manufacturer, as this is important too. GE have a test login i think,  solaredge have a demo portal, not sure about others, maybe that's something we could get on a post in here to help people??
So i guess my point is, work out what matters most to you, speak to each installer and check how long they have been trading, read reviews and hopefully you can work out who is the right installer for you! 

Officer_Dibble

How much more did you spend though getting a all singing all dancing 5kW system to cover the brief periods where you're consuming at that rate? Also I'd suspect that at the moment you'd struggle to find 6 installers with the time to answer lots of questions - all the sensibly priced ones have got more than enough work. There are still shortages from some manufacturers. I went with what I could get with, installed by the ones who could get it fitted quickly. OK, I know a bit more now and wouldn't have exactly the same set-up, but it's all chugging along very nicely for now.

Mikeyboy01443

Officer_Dibble said:

How much more did you spend though getting a all singing all dancing 5kW system to cover the brief periods where you're consuming at that rate? Also I'd suspect that at the moment you'd struggle to find 6 installers with the time to answer lots of questions - all the sensibly priced ones have got more than enough work. There are still shortages from some manufacturers. I went with what I could get with, installed by the ones who could get it fitted quickly. OK, I know a bit more now and wouldn't have exactly the same set-up, but it's all chugging along very nicely for now.

It wasnt that much difference in cost, and it may not be important to everyone, it was just one of the factors for me...
At the time the GE kit was only capable of delivering i think 2.8kw which is basically a kettle or oven, anything else over that would have pushed me onto grid usage. 
Also at the time there was a long wait on the GE batteries so those factors were enough to put me off. 
Like you i just wanted it fitted asap!
Its a shame i didn't discover this forum until after i had installed, a great source of info and knowledgeable people on here

Polly05

So our preferred installer have agreed to switch out the Growatt battery for a solis one. 
Also going for the EPS although apparently it only provides 2.5kw during a power cut.. I'm not sure what that would actually cover but it's better than nothing? 

Mikeyboy01443

Someone i know has a solis inverter and i think you have to buy some extra dongle to enable remote management, so might be worth checking that will be done for you? 
2.5kw would cover lights basic plugs etc just not any high usage stuff like oven,  kettle etc... is that a limit of battery or the EPS do you know? And how will that EPS be provided? I was told by some installers that they could wire to certain circuits in my consumer unit,  or just everything... 

Screwdriva

Polly05 said:

Think we are going with this quote which includes; 14 x 410W JA Solar panels, a Givenergy 3.0 and a 9.5kW Battery Storage system (AC-Coupled) and Growatt 6000TL inverter.

In your initial post, you shared a GiveEnergy battery and a Growatt inverter. You've now shared that the Growatt battery was swapped out for a Solis? What have we missed?

GivEnergy > Solis > Growatt

Polly05

Screwdriva said:

Polly05 said:

Think we are going with this quote which includes; 14 x 410W JA Solar panels, a Givenergy 3.0 and a 9.5kW Battery Storage system (AC-Coupled) and Growatt 6000TL inverter.

In your initial post, you shared a GiveEnergy battery and a Growatt inverter. You've now shared that the Growatt battery was swapped out for a Solis? What have we missed?

GivEnergy > Solis > Growatt

Oops meant solis inverter. 

Screwdriva

Polly05 said:

Oops meant solis inverter. 

I would continue to push for a GivEnergy inverter if I were you. They will eventually agree or charge you a bit more but it's a better marriage to their battery. 

Waywardmike

Is there a reason they're going for two inverters, PV inverter and AC coupled?  Wonder why they're not using a GivEnergy hybrid which would do the job of both (with some limitations).

The only thing I can think of is the GivEnergy Gen 1/Gen2 supply problems.  A Gen 1 GE hybrid will only output at 2.6kW from the battery (even if it's 5kW) which is largely useless in the evening/night, if you want to put on the oven and anything else.  The A/C coupled gives you a bit more at ~3kW (my non GE A/C inverter outputs at 3.2 even though it says 3, maybe GE is the same), the Gen 2 outputs at 3.6 from the battery, but you may be waiting a while for that to be installed, as they're fairly new to the market.

If you go the A/C coupled route, during the day you'll be able to use whatever you're producing from solar as well as whatever the AC coupled outputs from the battery, so in the middle of a sunny day that could be 7+kW!  Which means no staggering of appliance use which I find very useful.  That's the one big benefit I've found with having A/C coupled.  The downside being two pieces of equipment that could potentially fail.

2nd_time_buyer

... and lower round trip efficiency