Solar install less then a month ago, battery between 0% and 4%

debitcardmayhem

Are you totally electric? Have you looked at the weekly reports from Givenergy they will help to see what is going where.

Reed_Richards

Alexin1970 said:

I checked through my Octopus app and the daily consumption is between 15.00 and 20.00 KkW, but it looks to me it is still the same after we installed the Solar panels, unless I am missing something.

And the battery between 0% and 4% is not reassuring either , now it is at 6%.

I know we do spend a bit in elecricity but my aim was to reduce the cost with solar panels , not paying for the solar install to make no difference at all with my electricity bills . I even got a bigger battery.

See the pic attached of the Power Graph for yesterday.

Your house seems to use over 500 W of power all the time, that would be over 12 kWh per day so the 15 to 20 kWh per day that the app tells you is not surprising.  But the peak output from your solar panels was under 1 kW.  That's perfectly possible on a day of solid cloud but very low if there was ever any direct sunlight on the panels.    

Alexin1970

matt_drummer said:

At that moment in time you were generating 322W, the house was using 2.83kW, 2.8kW was coming from the grid and 291W was going to your battery.

All good, you are generating electricity but not enough to satisfy your demand at that point in time.


What settings do you have for you battery

You should be on the eco setting.

Your battery will charge from solar generation that you are not consuming and power your house if there is sufficient charge in it up to about 3.5kW


If what you have shown here is typical then your battery will never get to a high state of charge and any charge it does have will be quickly used.


How much electricity do you generate and consume in a typical day in September?


What electricity tariff are you on?

You probably need to think about charging the battery when you have cheaper electricity available.

You would need to schedule a charge or control it manually.

The battery is set at the Eco mode.

I am on the Loyal Octopus 12 Months fixed tariff.

Normally the daily consumption is between 15kW and 20kW. I have checked on my Octous app from July and there has been no difference, therefore I am still paying for 15 and 20kW daily.

According to the chart from the solar company, the electricity production level should have been estimated 12kW per day,

I just want to make sure that everything is running as it should , but it does not look like the solar panels are producing much , unless I am missing something here.

Also still I can't explain why the battery twice were calibrated to 100% and the battery level dropped to 0% within less then 12 hours, is that normal?? as I doubt very much we have used all that energy in 12 hours while sleeping.

And is it normal to produce such a low amount of energy with 14 panels ??

I might look at the options of charging the battery but want to make sure there is no issues first .

Thanks for your help.

matt_drummer

Your solar panels don't generate very much compare to your usage.

Most the solar generation goes to your house with very little left over to charge your battery.

As you don't generate very much, you won't see much of a reduction in your bills, how could you?

To use the battery you need to charge it from the grid. To do that, you need to have times where you can buy electricity for considerably less than you have to pay when you are using most.

There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the installation apart from was it worth it?

Reed_Richards

Alexin1970 said:

Also still I can't explain why the battery twice were calibrated to 100% and the battery level dropped to 0% within less then 12 hours, is that normal?? as I doubt very much we have used all that energy in 12 hours while sleeping.

You appear to have a 9.5 kW h battery and you use 15 to 20 kWh per day so 7.5 to 10 kWh per 12 hours.  So yes, mathematics indicates that that is perfectly normal.  

matt_drummer

Alexin1970 said:

matt_drummer said:

At that moment in time you were generating 322W, the house was using 2.83kW, 2.8kW was coming from the grid and 291W was going to your battery.

All good, you are generating electricity but not enough to satisfy your demand at that point in time.


What settings do you have for you battery

You should be on the eco setting.

Your battery will charge from solar generation that you are not consuming and power your house if there is sufficient charge in it up to about 3.5kW


If what you have shown here is typical then your battery will never get to a high state of charge and any charge it does have will be quickly used.


How much electricity do you generate and consume in a typical day in September?


What electricity tariff are you on?

You probably need to think about charging the battery when you have cheaper electricity available.

You would need to schedule a charge or control it manually.

The battery is set at the Eco mode.

I am on the Loyal Octopus 12 Months fixed tariff.

Normally the daily consumption is between 15kW and 20kW. I have checked on my Octous app from July and there has been no difference, therefore I am still paying for 15 and 20kW daily.

According to the chart from the solar company, the electricity production level should have been estimated 12kW per day,

I just want to make sure that everything is running as it should , but it does not look like the solar panels are producing much , unless I am missing something here.

Also still I can't explain why the battery twice were calibrated to 100% and the battery level dropped to 0% within less then 12 hours, is that normal?? as I doubt very much we have used all that energy in 12 hours while sleeping.

And is it normal to produce such a low amount of energy with 14 panels ??

I might look at the options of charging the battery but want to make sure there is no issues first .

Thanks for your help.

There aren't any issues other than you use far more electricity than you generate.

You won't see a massive reduction in your bills because you are still importing nearly the same amount of electricity as you were before.

If you have shading issues from trees they will usually be most apparent when the sun is low in the sky.

Your on a standard tariff, the rate is the same all day.

Charging the battery from the grid on that tariff will just make it worse due to charging and discharging losses.

Your charging and discharging losses are more than they could have been because you have an AC coupled inverter for the battery rather than a hybrid inverter that you should have had.

Qyburn

Alexin1970 said:

Hi, Thanks for that.

I am not sure about the exporting etc. as I don't have much knowledge , but with a battery level between 0% , 2% and 4% there is no much to export I believe. 

It's very likely your smart meter will be registering export even though you don't have the formalities in place. Ours did. Pressing buttons you should (or might) see a register "Total active export" or similar. Have look and see if that ever increases.

Alexin1970

matt_drummer said:

The trees have nothing to do with it.

You didn't need two inverters, one correct one would have done the job.

The optimisers are a good idea though.

What they did mention to me, that if they were going to use Micro Inverters for each panel the cost will be higher, and the Solarhedge with optimizer will be on budget and do the same job.

matt_drummer

Alexin1970 said:

matt_drummer said:

The trees have nothing to do with it.

You didn't need two inverters, one correct one would have done the job.

The optimisers are a good idea though.

What they did mention to me, that if they were going to use Micro Inverters for each panel the cost will be higher, and the Solarhedge with optimizer will be on budget and do the same job.

Yes, but so would a single GivEnergy hybrid inverter.

You have a Solaredge inverter for the panels and a GivEnergy inverter for the battery, you only needed one hybrid inverter.

Alexin1970

debitcardmayhem said:

Are you totally electric? Have you looked at the weekly reports from Givenergy they will help to see what is going where.

right now we mainly use electricity, radiators are still off . and majority of cooking is done via the Airfryer. The shower connected to the boiler and pump I guess it will consume a bit each day.

I am trying to get my bearing here, but still not sure why the battery level dropped from 100% to 0% in less then 12 hours, is that normal?