[Technology] Solar Panel Installation Recommendations

[Boroseagull]

We have a 3.8kw system (10 panels), but that never goes over 3.25 due to the way some of the panels face. Each year we generate about 3800kwh from that and we export about 2800 of that, as we don't have a battery. Having spent hours/days pondering the maths of it all, I still don't think a battery is worth it for us. There's only two of us and we use maybe 2-3kwh a day from the grid in the summer months, 5-6kwh in the winter months. I work shifts, so can use all the white goods during the day. (it's a moot point anyway, as I can't afford a battery at the moment).

I know I'm in Spain and have battery back up, but a few of the electricity suppliers (ours is Nordic) offer a cloud storage for excess electricity that you can draw back during cloudy/winter time. Maybe worth checking?

 

[Grizz]

I know I'm in Spain and have battery back up, but a few of the electricity suppliers (ours is Nordic) offer a cloud storage for excess electricity that you can draw back during cloudy/winter time. Maybe worth checking?

Cheers for that, never heard of it, not even sure they do that over here. I'll investigate, as it might be more suited to our needs.

 

[drew]

Interesting - literally no-one else on our road had them included. They were an optional extra. One of our neighbours has made a killing retro-fitting wire netting around them.

Agree. Had ours retrofitted last year. Some quotes were ludicrous due to scaffolding but I found someone who just uses a rope system (he's a mountaineer) and saved about £2k.

 

[Elbow750]

Octopus Energy have announced a new
Intelligent smart tariff for solar PV and battery owners.

https://www.businessgreen.com/news/...nergy-giant-promises-slash-bills-smart-tariff

They are offering to maximise solar and battery exports rates and minimise grid imports. Think it only works with their preferred battery supplier at the moment, but other makes (I'm Moxia) promised to follow. Worth a look?

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Octopus Energy have announced a new
Intelligent smart tariff for solar PV and battery owners.

https://www.businessgreen.com/news/...nergy-giant-promises-slash-bills-smart-tariff

"The new functionality means solar and battery owners no longer have to manually programme their technology to charge and discharge at certain times. "IOF removes this hassle - allowing customers to automatically receive the best rates for both the power they use (import) and the power they sell back (export) to the grid," Octopus said. "

If I'm reading this correctly, this "Kraken technology" would need to 'talk' directly to the inverter to advise it to charge the batteries when green energy is abundant (and cheap)? so this may be restricted not only by the choice of batteries but also the make (GivEnergy?) and model of inverter.

 

[middletoenail]

Are 'smart solar panels' a thing in residential properties? The collection of data (current, voltage, tilt, temperature, asset owner etc) from PV is vast over time and generally speaking, this tends to be aggregated across all of the units on your roof and totalled up at the inverter level? Are you able to read the data per panel?

 

[Elbow750]

"The new functionality means solar and battery owners no longer have to manually programme their technology to charge and discharge at certain times. "IOF removes this hassle - allowing customers to automatically receive the best rates for both the power they use (import) and the power they sell back (export) to the grid," Octopus said. "

If I'm reading this correctly, this "Kraken technology" would need to 'talk' directly to the inverter to advise it to charge the batteries when green energy is abundant (and cheap)? so this may be restricted not only by the choice of batteries but also the make (GivEnergy?) and model of inverter.

Yes, Octopus take control of the system, charging and discharging to optimise use to suit them and they pay you for the privilege. I believe they're starting with their own battery supplier, but promise to role out others. I'm with Moxia so hope this comes soon.. I think the inverters all 'talk' to the grid system as they all export. I presume the smart meter needs to be configured to control all this, which is the clever bit. Octopus advise its a beta system and somethings might trip over for short times, which is fair enough given the complexity.

 

[Elbow750]

Are 'smart solar panels' a thing in residential properties? The collection of data (current, voltage, tilt, temperature, asset owner etc) from PV is vast over time and generally speaking, this tends to be aggregated across all of the units on your roof and totalled up at the inverter level? Are you able to read the data per panel?

I can read the data for each of my 12 panels. Some are better orientated than others ( shaded by the chimney and distant trees as the sun goes down), so there is a difference. The supplier had fancy charts to work out the expected outputs given my roof angle and south westerly facing direction.

 

[middletoenail]

I can read the data for each of my 12 panels. Some are better orientated than others ( shaded by the chimney and distant trees as the sun goes down), so there is a difference. The supplier had fancy charts to work out the expected outputs given my roof angle and south westerly facing direction.

The reason I ask is that there is a widespread problem in the industry, with misreporting of energy generation at source vs what someone like Octopus records.

National grid should democratise things, like open banking has done to financial services. Allow you to sell energy to your neighbour and cut out the middle man!

Taking things to a lower level, if the average person wants to invest in solar, they have to own their property and have PV, or invest in a Solar company. Solar will kick off when PV generate meta data to blockchain that is immutable. Allow someone in UK (for example) to own a solar asset in a farm in say, Australia, a commodity if you like.

With ESG and Carbon Credits being a big thing, there needs to be transparency with Solar energy generation.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Agree. Had ours retrofitted last year. Some quotes were ludicrous due to scaffolding but I found someone who just uses a rope system (he's a mountaineer) and saved about £2k.

Mountaineer you say? I hope he didn't leave your roof looking like this:

 

[Elbow750]

The reason I ask is that there is a widespread problem in the industry, with misreporting of energy generation at source vs what someone like Octopus records.

National grid should democratise things, like open banking has done to financial services. Allow you to sell energy to your neighbour and cut out the middle man!

Taking things to a lower level, if the average person wants to invest in solar, they have to own their property and have PV, or invest in a Solar company. Solar will kick off when PV generate meta data to blockchain that is immutable. Allow someone in UK (for example) to own a solar asset in a farm in say, Australia, a commodity if you like.

With ESG and Carbon Credits being a big thing, there needs to be transparency with Solar energy generation.

I think the data on solar PV generation will improve massively in the next few years. When Solar PV was a new emerging industry the inverters and systems weren't smart enough to allow easy access to real data on how much was being generated/ used in house/ exported to the Grid. Owners were paid for exports to the grid at an rate of 50% of generation, it was assumed the remaining 50% was used by the householder. So you can see how data is not consistent, and that tends to get compounded when reports use figures from assumed generation as well as theoretical from how many panels are installed.

But this is now changing and my contract will soon move to me being paid for actual exports to the grid. Sadly I'll lose out, as I use nearly 90% of what I generate. But hey I've had a good run and the new deal now will be selling access to my battery for when Octopus, or others need it.

Solar has already kicked off big time, just look at the roofs around you, and big industrial places like shoreham port. Many local schools have panels all over their roof! And there are already companies out there offering investment bonds in solar PV projects (I've got some paying good rate of returns). No doubt more will join in as Solar PV is a no brainer. Once installed, solar panels generate a great return on investment, and will continue all the time the sun shines.

Selling electricity to your neighbour is complicated as there needs to be standards, especially if its done via a connection to the grid. Sadly the power industry has been slow to allow certain connections and this is an area where I agree improvements can be made.

 

[nicko31]

"The new functionality means solar and battery owners no longer have to manually programme their technology to charge and discharge at certain times. "IOF removes this hassle - allowing customers to automatically receive the best rates for both the power they use (import) and the power they sell back (export) to the grid," Octopus said. "

If I'm reading this correctly, this "Kraken technology" would need to 'talk' directly to the inverter to advise it to charge the batteries when green energy is abundant (and cheap)? so this may be restricted not only by the choice of batteries but also the make (GivEnergy?) and model of inverter.

Thanks for sharing, good analysis here



Seems like a good option for GivEnergy battery users when there’s plenty of solar excess about, 27p export is great

If you’re a heavy EV user probably less desirable as the import rate is a bit high.

 

[nicko31]

I think the data on solar PV generation will improve massively in the next few years. When Solar PV was a new emerging industry the inverters and systems weren't smart enough to allow easy access to real data on how much was being generated/ used in house/ exported to the Grid. Owners were paid for exports to the grid at an rate of 50% of generation, it was assumed the remaining 50% was used by the householder. So you can see how data is not consistent, and that tends to get compounded when reports use figures from assumed generation as well as theoretical from how many panels are installed.

But this is now changing and my contract will soon move to me being paid for actual exports to the grid. Sadly I'll lose out, as I use nearly 90% of what I generate. But hey I've had a good run and the new deal now will be selling access to my battery for when Octopus, or others need it.

Solar has already kicked off big time, just look at the roofs around you, and big industrial places like shoreham port. Many local schools have panels all over their roof! And there are already companies out there offering investment bonds in solar PV projects (I've got some paying good rate of returns). No doubt more will join in as Solar PV is a no brainer. Once installed, solar panels generate a great return on investment, and will continue all the time the sun shines.

Selling electricity to your neighbour is complicated as there needs to be standards, especially if its done via a connection to the grid. Sadly the power industry has been slow to allow certain connections and this is an area where I agree improvements can be made.

Industrial buildings are low hanging fruit. Huge roofs with minimal shading and largely untapped. Makes business sense, 10 percent plus annual return is very achievable

 

[Fungus]

We're currently looking at solar + battery systems, and the whole process is quite a learning curve.

Does anyone on here have "backup", which enables them to use the system during a power cut? If so, what brand?

I'm trying to work out if that's over-the-top, and one of the companies told me that 'no-one had asked for that before", but I'd be pretty p***ed off if we didn't have lighting or heating because we hadn't spec'd backup.