Solar & Battery Advice

theboylard

1961Nick said:

My choice today would be a Sunsynk Ecco hybrid inverter & Fogstar batteries.

https://www.sunsynk.org/5kw-hybrid-inverter

https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/solar-battery-storage/products/server-rack-battery-48v-5-12kwh

Which is exactly what I have

Solaredge 3680 with 4kw of panels on the roof.

I have just had fitted a Sunsynk 5kw ecco Hybrid inverter, with 15kWh of Fogstar batteries, connected on the AC side as I didn't want to mess with the SolarEdge install (due to FiT).

Took an age to get them installed, but they are running now and are starting to earn their keep.

I paid £4k last year for the batteries (3x 5.12kWh), which came with a cabinet.

Same product (batts and cab) is now £3k retail

https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/solar-battery-storage/products/fogstar-energy-48v-15kwh-rack-battery-bundle

The batteries are self heating if the temp drops, so I have them in the garage with the inverters.

They also now offer a much neater, 15kWh solution, that is even cheaper at £2.5k

https://www.fogstar.co.uk/collections/solar-battery-storage/products/fogstar-energy-48v-15kwh-rack-battery-bundle

It is almost a complete no brainer in my opinion, they are compatible with the pylontech protocol, so any inverter that supports that will work with the batteries.

A bit of fiddling with the Sunsynk inverter on the daily at the moment, maximising solar usage and trying to minimise any import.

That took an awful lot of cross reading lots of posts on different forums to figure out what I was doing, I may not be correct in what I'm doing but its working for me!

My installer had to travel lots miles to me and was with me for over 12 hours on the day, I'll name them after a get my G99, as they are still helping with that, but I'm very happy with what they've done and the follow up support.

Jonboy1889

Newbie_John said:

Am I right that while on Octopus Go you only get 8p per kW exported? 
https://octopus.energy/smart/outgoing/

Then your set up will generate about 4500kWh a year worth up to £360 (at 8p) depending on how much you export.

Is 4.5MW the normal annual production for a 4.3KW system?

That seems at odds with everything I google.

is that a pure south facing output?

Screwdriva

Jonboy1889 said:

Newbie_John said:

Am I right that while on Octopus Go you only get 8p per kW exported? 
https://octopus.energy/smart/outgoing/

Then your set up will generate about 4500kWh a year worth up to £360 (at 8p) depending on how much you export.

Is 4.5MW the normal annual production for a 4.3KW system?

That seems at odds with everything I google.

is that a pure south facing output?

It is not in my experience (Unless we're talking about bifacial panels) on a E/W aspect roof. 4.1mW is more realistic.

Jonboy1889

Screwdriva said:

Jonboy1889 said:

Newbie_John said:

Am I right that while on Octopus Go you only get 8p per kW exported? 
https://octopus.energy/smart/outgoing/

Then your set up will generate about 4500kWh a year worth up to £360 (at 8p) depending on how much you export.

Is 4.5MW the normal annual production for a 4.3KW system?

That seems at odds with everything I google.

is that a pure south facing output?

It is not in my experience (Unless we're talking about bifacial panels). 4.1mW is more realistic.

Thanks, that’s what i thought- apparently the average is around 80-90% of the peak KW number. Massively depends on the orientation, shading, how far south you live etc. I guess

https://www.renewableenergyhub.co.uk/main/solar-panels/how-much-electricity-does-a-solar-panel-produce

this article completely contradicts itself 😂 apparently a 4KW system can produce 4.5MW, but a 1KW just 850KW 😂

Netexporter

this article completely contradicts itself 😂 apparently a 4KW system can produce 4.5MW, but a 1KW just 850KW 

Proportionately more inverter losses fort a small array. South(ish) facing arrays on the south-west peninsula regularly exceed 1MW/kWp/annum, IME.

Jonboy1889

Netexporter said:

this article completely contradicts itself 😂 apparently a 4KW system can produce 4.5MW, but a 1KW just 850KW 

Proportionately more inverter losses fort a small array. South(ish) facing arrays on the south-west peninsula regularly exceed 1MW/kWp/annum, IME.

Sorry I should have put the whole quote in

• A 1kW system can produce around 850 kWh/s per year on average, a 2kW system 1,700kWh/s per year, and a 5kW system 4,500kWh/s per year.

Either way, doesn’t tie up with the quote further up that says a 4KW system generates 4.5MW. A typo methinks 

mnewtonuk

I originally thought I had the option of 10 panels on a SW aspect but I had a survey done today and after measuring everything up they have suggested 11 panels on the SW aspect and 10 panels on NE taking the whole system to 8.92kWh with an 8kW inverter.

The panels will apparently be facing 70° and 250° which they have said should generate a good amount from both aspects. The report produced only details expected production of the panels combined so I have asked if the different aspects can be separated so that I can see if it is worth it.

Comments I've seen on this board seem to suggest that people wish they'd have maximised their roof space when getting panels fitted initially so I'm quite tempted to do this if having panels on the NE aspect makes financial sense.

Has anybody had NE panels fitted and do they generate enough to make it worthwhile? I had a play on the PVGIS tool and it seemed to suggest they'd generate a decent amount but I'm not 100% sure I was using it correctly.

Screwdriva

70 degrees is ENE really (pure East is 90). When you drop below 45 degrees, it gradually becomes harder to justify the spend. 

This is why we have panels facing the same 70 ENE/ 250WSW bearing (as well as 170 SSE). SolarEdge highlights annual  generation is comparable between the SSE/ ENE aspects, which came as a pleasant surprise. As did the early morning generation to cover our consumption from sunrise to sunset.  

I would recommend going for the dual aspect layout. 

mnewtonuk

That's reassuring to know. The PVGIS tool suggested that the annual generation of the ENE panels would not be too dissimilar to WSW but I questioned it as all of the quotes I've had so far just concentrated on the WSW aspect.

Screwdriva

mnewtonuk said:

That's reassuring to know. The PVGIS tool suggested that the annual generation of the ENE panels would not be too dissimilar to WSW but I questioned it as all of the quotes I've had so far just concentrated on the WSW aspect.

This is why an in person survey is essential. Based on the information you've shared, I expect annual generation to hover around 7500-8000 kWh per annum, which a great outcome!