Solar batteries

stig1of2the3dump

Hi All what if any experience have people had with Solar batteries. ?? I already have solar panels on my roof , and have had a quote for a battery pack to be fitted along side my monitor in my store. I currently export excess electric to the grid. The company that is quoting me already services the system. This setup would consist of Battery Control unit Pylontech battery 2.4kw 10Years manufacturers warranty, 10Years workmanship warranty. Once a year inspection. All for £4,250.    

YoungBlueEyes

I’d ask on this board Stig, very knowledgeable people there. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/in-my-home-includes-diy-moneysaving

Or the Energy board 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/energy

MSE_ForumTeam5

we've moved this thread

dunstonh

May be better asked in the Green & ethical MoneySaving section.  There are some solar posters in this section but nowhere near as many solar posters as in the Green & ethical MoneySaving section.

matt_drummer

It sounds like a lot to me for a small battery capacity.

You could spend just a bit more and get a more useful battery capacity.

You could also add some extra panels and save VAT on the battery installation, the batteries are VAT free if fitted at the same time as solar panels.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

stig1of2the3dump said:

Hi All what if any experience have people had with Solar batteries?? I already have solar panels on my roof , and have had a quote for a battery pack to be fitted along side my monitor in my store. I currently export excess electric to the grid.

Can I ask how long you have had these solar panels? Long enough that you are in receipt of feed-in tariff (FIT) payments (so, fitted before 2019)? Or fitted more recently?

If you are receiving FIT payments, it imposes some restrictions on what sort of battery you can have.

stig1of2the3dump said:

The company that is quoting me already services the system.

This sentence worries me.

Solar panel systems don't generally require any routine servicing. There are a few wide-boys around who cold-call or leaflet solar panel owners, telling them that their installers have gone out of business (often true), their systems might not be working properly (possibly true) but that for a low, low cost of £10 a month or so they will "service" their panels annually.

These "services" often result in attempts to sell add-on prodicts like "voltage stabiliers" or battery storage systems.

One notorious providers of such services is ESE Solar and various associated businesses.

See this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5789208/ese-solar-panel-free-health-check

stig1of2the3dump said:

This setup would consist of Battery Control unit Pylontech battery 2.4kw 10Years manufacturers warranty, 10Years workmanship warranty. Once a year inspection. All for £4,250.    

I think that is an outrageous price for what is about £2k-worth of equipment (this plus this plus a few cables) plus fitting.

You can buy an equivalent system, fitted and with warranty etc., for £2995 here. (This is not intended as a recommendation; while the Luxpower inverter is fine, there's a bit of distruct of Uhome batteries on this board.)

QrizB

There's a very long thread (260 pages) about on-grid battery storage on the "Green & Ethical" forum here. Plus a separate 150-page thread specifically about Luxpower storage inverters here.

I don't think you should need to read the entirety of those threads, but you might like to dip in and see how other people are getting on with their batteries?

1961Nick

£4250 is more than enough to buy a Pylontech US5000C battery, inverter & pay for the installation including switchgear. It's nearly enough for 2 x US3000C batteries.

Heedtheadvice

As per those recent posts.

orrery

Ask for the US5000 battery - a more recent update with deeper discharge allowed. I have a Lux 3600 AC coupled inverter, which is excellent.

The battery capacity is a difficult decision, depending if you have an EV and can justify moving to a cheap overnight tariff - you can then timeshift almost all your usage away from ~30p/kWh to ~7.5p/kWh: the "ideal" would be enough to provide for a full day plus enough to sink a full day of solar - in my case it would need about 40kWh of storage, which is silly. I compromised on just under 20kWh, which is x4 US5000's. Can you justify it financially? Who knows - where are electric prices going over the next few years?

The best justification is probably with a small battery, used to smooth the PV generation over short periods, but make sure you can extend your battery capacity progressively over the years. I've got the US5000's in a server rack in the garage - I started with one and now up to  4, with space to add one more.