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

Reed_Richards

You have 14 panels, I presume these generate 400 Watts peak per panel so your total peak output should be 5.6 kW.  Last Wednesday I had full sun and I had 3 hours of over 3 kW from a system with a peak output of 4.8 kW.  Given that my base load is only about 200 W then that would have been enough to fully charge a 9 kWh battery.

In your case, either

• Some of your panels are not working
• You have had very little sun since they were installed
• Your roof is so shaded that some of your panels will be shaded most or all of the time.  

matt_drummer

Alexin1970 said:

matt_drummer said:

Alexin1970 said:

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?

Yes, you used it all after the calibration process and you have never charged the battery since.

That 9.5kWh battery will provide you with about 8.5kWh of electricity as some is lost in the wires of your house and the inverter as heat.

You use 8.5kWh of electricity in less than 10 hours.

You have consumed all the solar generation in your house.

How do you think the battery will get charged?

You are not going to get any more `free' electricity than the panels generate, and if you use it all the battery will never charge.

Isn't it obvious?

Not expecting that , but it looks like the panels might not be generating a lot afterall, I am not sure as we just had them installed a month ago with all those promises of generating tot solar energy but not sure if it is going to happen. If everything is working perfectly , fair enough but that is not is shown on the guidance for year 1 I was supplied.

You are judging the annual performance at the wrong time of year.

You will  get the most in May, June and July.

Same as all of us with solar panels, but because of the trees, you won't get much in the other months by the look of it, much less than panels without shading issues.

matt_drummer

Alexin1970 said:

matt_drummer said:

Reed_Richards said:

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.    

Something is missing from this graph though.

The house load doesn't appear.

It should follow the red line and then be reduced but the yellow line.

Your house load should be the import minus any solar generation. The battery is not going to show much as it is fully discharged.

On the app there are lots of graphs available which will show different options.

I know, I have it.

Your house load is not showing on that graph, did you disable it?

You can show as many or as few of the elements of you desire.

I ask because you may have an issue with the house load not being measure correctly.

Everything else looks OK, just the house load is missing.

If there is a problem and you have a charged battery then it won't work properly unless it knows what the house load is.

Alexin1970

matt_drummer said:

What was your reasoning behind getting a battery installed?

How did you envisage you would use it?

At the moment it is a total waste of money sitting there doing nothing!

The idea was to use the energy generated in the battery, and if required I am aware that I have the option to charge the battery from the provider on their cheaper tariffs.

bare in mind that the solar company supplied a graph with electricity production level of 4,418.00kWh per year , so not really sure how accurate that will be.

Thanks again for your help.

matt_drummer

Your installers estimation looks optimistic.

In a perfect installation, assuming something like 430W panels, the best would be 6,000kWh

You shading looks quite severe and it will have a big impact.

Qyburn

Alexin1970 said:

bare in mind that the solar company supplied a graph with electricity production level of 4,418.00kWh per year , so not really sure how accurate that will be.

Thanks again for your help.

Do you have a Solaredge login? Their app or web page will show generation, and also how much energy each panel has produced. 

matt_drummer

What optimisers do you have?

I think you have gas?

The solar iBoost is a waste of time.

You are buying electricity at the SVR to pay for solar generation to heat your hot water.

Much cheaper to do it with you gas boiler and use the solar generation for house loads or to charge your battery for use when the sun isn't shining.

Reed_Richards

One option, particularly for winter, is to find a tariff that gives you cheap electricity overnight and use that charge your battery.  The cheapest overnight tariffs seem to be reserved for those who have an EV but you may be able to find something else suitable.

badmemory

My base load during the day is about 500 & at night around 200.  My battery is much smaller.  We won't mention today because the panels aren't even producing enough to do the base load which has been a rare thing so far.  So using normally around 20kwh per day.  After a normal day my battery doesn't run out until around 5am so far.  I will always use a minimum of 2kwh during the day as we need a power shower due to water pressure.  I must confess to a very bad day today with several things having to be done that I would probably leave if I could.  Even so I look like using about 16 rather than the 25kwh that I would have expected before.  I will take that as a win.  The energy companies should be pleased as they have had over £60 worth foc.

badmemory

Reed_Richards said:

One option, particularly for winter, is to find a tariff that gives you cheap electricity overnight and use that charge your battery.  The cheapest overnight tariffs seem to be reserved for those who have an EV but you may be able to find something else suitable.

How do they know you have an EV & not charging a solar system.