Domestic solar PV quotes 2018

pale rider

unkel wrote: »

Sounds extremely optimistic if I'm honest. A 4kwp system is producing about 20kWh per day on relatively good days like the last few days

If you use all of this for daytime consumption (that you could not have used night rate electricity for) and nothing goes to heat your water and nothing goes back to the grid, your saving is 20 kWh * 18c (unit price) = €3.60

In practice a lot of electricity would have gone to the grid even with a 6kWh battery. And you said you also use immersion? That's only worth 5c (unit price)

With your system you'd do very well to save €2 per day on a good day

I’ll look at it again, based on comments it may be optimistic like myself.

unkel

Don't want to be a spoil sport and I have 4kwp PV myself, as well as 40 tubes thermal and the family car is an EV. And building a 19kWh home attached battery storage. And it is far from all about money. Yet we have to be realistic with our sums...

Coltrane

pale rider wrote: »

I’ll look at it again, based on comments it may be optimistic like myself.

I agree with Unkel that you definitely won’t self-consume 100% of what you produce even with a battery. I recently considered an Enphase battery (4.4kW), until I realised that its max charge/discharge-rate was...500W!

But I also agree with your optimism. Very few renewables make sense on a classical return-on-investment basis. But they start to if we consider that their use should reduce the future financial costs to us (and everyone else) of cleaning up the damage we’ve done to our environment...your calculated daily savings could be very conservative if we factor some estimate of those costs...

pale rider

Confession time, based on my consumption over the last billing period for electricity plus vat I am saving less than I had thought at just over €3 a day on 80% of days since install, the battery has been charged on these days and on those good days can cover the night time and overnight loads which are small, we also have an iboost diverter that kicks in and out through the afternoon mainly.

We try and maximise our return by using heavier consuming appliances when we are producing the best from the array, today was poor with just 11% left in the battery at 6.30 pm ish, as it stops contributing at 10% we will use the grid after dark tonight.

I'm still happy enough to be producing my own lecky and making my little contribution.

gally74

I'm at 86 % consumption this month....
436 kw produced so far this month.
The 2.4 kw battery is adequate for our consumption over night.
Oil hasn't been switched on once.

I'm v happy

reni10

unkel wrote: »

Don't want to be a spoil sport and I have 4kwp PV myself, as well as 40 tubes thermal and the family car is an EV. And building a 19kWh home attached battery storage. And it is far from all about money. Yet we have to be realistic with our sums...

How are you building the battery yourself?

thos

gally74 wrote: »

I'm at 86 % consumption this month....
436 kw produced so far this month.
The 2.4 kw battery is adequate for our consumption over night.
Oil hasn't been switched on once.

I'm v happy

You got a water diverter or EV?

I'm at 71% consumption, 514kwh generated from 5.2kw array / 5.2kwh battery.
EV using it's fair share overnight, have Zappi but car is home more in the morning when battery is prioritised and then less so in the afternoon after the battery is full, need to think about this
No water diverter until I figure out a heat pump solution.
Otherwise I'm tempted to shift some panels to West facing and keep my generation going more into the evening when consumption increases and can make better use.

eamon_l

thos wrote: »

Have my solar install in place for 2 weeks now. 16 panel 5.2kw array facing south, 5.2kw DC battery.
28kwh generated yesterday, but 16kwh exported. The battery was charged by 11am.
Zappi just installed and first time getting it on Eco+ today, so that is currently consuming 3.6kw, which is awesome to see. Export Margin set at 100w to avoid it using the battery, seems to be working well so far. Myenergi Hub on the way also so I can use the app to monitor the Zappi.

Talking to Daikin about my heat pump and how to get that working with the solar, so will keep looking at that. Needs a LAN Adapter and a meter, and should do it's own EDDI-like dynamic consumption. If anyone has worked with that setup, I'd love to hear from them!

It's been interesting getting my head around the battery maxing out at 2.4kw charge rate, so having surplus even when battery is not yet charged. But also trying to factor the Zappi in, on the basis that it needs >1.4kw to get started.
The car is around a good bit during the day, so hoping to use Eco+ during the day, and then the Smart boost at night. The battery is not getting me through the night anyway, so at the moment I don't mind if the last of the battery is getting dumped into the car, it would get consumed over the night rate anyway. Will need to re-think that in the darker months when I'll be looking at charging the battery from the AC overnight.

Picked up a Smappee on eBay so hopefully that will replace my Efergy and help me identify specific devices/appliances, but I also want to split out EV charging costs and Heat Pump usage from general household usage (my brain still see's these as separate budgets) so hopefully it will help me do that.

I am looking at a purchasing circa 4kW PV array with battery on a 3 bed dormer. No EV yet but will consider inside 5 years. I'm also considering an air-to-water heat pump and would obviously want all working seamlessly together to minimise my electricity bills. The house is on an east/west axis and I am building a kitchen extension that will facilitate 4 panels facing south.

Any advice of interoperability and sizing would be greatly received.

gally74

thos wrote: »

You got a water diverter or EV?

I'm at 71% consumption, 514kwh generated from 5.2kw array / 5.2kwh battery.
EV using it's fair share overnight, have Zappi but car is home more in the morning when battery is prioritised and then less so in the afternoon after the battery is full, need to think about this
No water diverter until I figure out a heat pump solution.
Otherwise I'm tempted to shift some panels to West facing and keep my generation going more into the evening when consumption increases and can make better use.

Yes I'm using the eddie for water. I expect to rise to 100 percent usage as the months pass as the only losses to the grid are on very sunny days .

Coltrane

gally74 wrote: »

Yes I'm using the eddie for water. I expect to rise to 100 percent usage as the months pass as the only losses to the grid are on very sunny days .

I was at between 85-95% self-consumption over last year’s late autumn-winter months. (5kW east-west PV, Zappi and HP with UFH).

I don’t mind exporting for free as I see it as a contribution. FIT is a nice idea and fair in principle but we should consider that the costs of it (in other markets its costs were recovered by a kind of levy paid by all users) could be unfairly shouldered by those who are less able to afford PV. Kinda like the grants for EVs:)

I’m torn between my inner treehugger/geek who’d love a battery and pragmatic voices who say their cost/kWh are senselessly high especially when the coming FIT is factored, and that they have a dirty footprint of their own. Even if the pragmatist prevails that would only be for say 3-5 years until V2H. For now spending the battery money instead on more PV or (seems unviable in town) a small wind turbine might be a nice compromise, especially if the planning restrictions are relaxed.

CiaranIRE

I recently had a system installed and was looking for advice.

I've used the same company as a lot of other people on this thread and I've had a very bad experience with them(like other people on this thread!). I've been reluctant up to now to mention anything publicly, especially since they still haven't submitted my SEAI forms 6 weeks later.

I was invoiced for a 2.8kw battery and in nontechnical terms was told the DOD was 96%(I didn't believe this and assumed 80% anyway). The battery was faulty despite them not really admitting it. Each charge reduced the capacity of the battery by 10-15% until it held 100w. They reset it remotely, rinse and repeat.

They replaced the battery after 4 weeks. I've since realised they replaced it with a 2.6kw battery, and while the battery seems consistent, it only takes around a 1.8kw charge(69% DOD, 64% of what I was invoiced for). The battery does state 80% DOD on the side.

I'm running on mains by 10-11pm every night. Even adding a second battery(which I assume would need to be an identical 2.6kw battery) would probably still not see me through the night.

Although I had originally planned on it, I'm not sure I'd even want a second battery from the same company at this point, but I'm getting no benefit from the system. Consuming maybe 3-4kw a day, exporting the rest and buying another 2-3 units every day.

Would anyone have any advice? Would this performance seem inline with what would be expected?

Thanks

wexfordman2

CiaranIRE wrote: »

I recently had a system installed and was looking for advice.

I've used the same company as a lot of other people on this thread and I've had a very bad experience with them(like other people on this thread!). I've been reluctant up to now to mention anything publicly, especially since they still haven't submitted my SEAI forms 6 weeks later.

I was invoiced for a 2.8kw battery and in nontechnical terms was told the DOD was 96%(I didn't believe this and assumed 80% anyway). The battery was faulty despite them not really admitting it. Each charge reduced the capacity of the battery by 10-15% until it held 100w. They reset it remotely, rinse and repeat.

They replaced the battery after 4 weeks. I've since realised they replaced it with a 2.6kw battery, and while the battery seems consistent, it only takes around a 1.8kw charge(69% DOD, 64% of what I was invoiced for). The battery does state 80% DOD on the side.

I'm running on mains by 10-11pm every night. Even adding a second battery(which I assume would need to be an identical 2.6kw battery) would probably still not see me through the night.

Although I had originally planned on it, I'm not sure I'd even want a second battery from the same company at this point, but I'm getting no benefit from the system. Consuming maybe 3-4kw a day, exporting the rest and buying another 2-3 units every day.

Would anyone have any advice? Would this performance seem inline with what would be expected?

Thanks

What make of inverter and battery do you have, and what is your sytem spec.

The battery does not/should not fully discharge, and typically the usable capacity is 90% as the battery will discharge to 10% of capacity. So a 4kwh battery with 90% discharge will give you 3.6kwh of usable storage if it is restricted to 90% discharge.

My system allows a discharge to 4% so, a 5kwh capacity gives approx 4.8kwh of usable capacity.

With regards the battery lasting you overnight, it depends on a number of factors, but typcialy for me, my battery would last till midnight, but it would not be unusual for it to be discharged at 10pm, but I have also seen it last overnight, right through to the morning, again, that depends entirely on your usage that day, as well as your generation.

If for example, we cook late in the evening using the oven, that drains the battery significantly, and I would not expect any/much charge to remain at midnight.

Also, its not simply a case of you haveing say 5kwh of capacity, and expecting that to be used 100% of the time, as batteries systems also have a max discharge rate, again, mine I think is around 2.5kw. So even if I have 5kwh of storage, if I am using 3KW of power at any moment, then, the battery can only provide me with 2.5kw of that power, and the rest will come from current solar generation (if it is still generating), or from the grid.

CiaranIRE

wexfordman2 wrote: »

What make of inverter and battery do you have, and what is your sytem spec.

Thanks for the reply,

I have 3.25kw system. Inverter and battery are both GivEnergy. Max discharge on the battery is 1.3kw.

I understand I could use the battery up cooking etc, but it's the capacity I'm more concerned about.

I was told the battery will discharge to 4%. The software 'confirms' the 4%, but I know that's not true. The manufacturer told me the battery keeps a 10% charge. The sticker on the side says DOD of 80%. I can generate spreadsheets of the system performance and I can see how much of a discharge/recharge the battery is taking and it's always between 1600w and 1800w. They rounded the figures up on the software so it always said 2kw throughput after a full charge, but they updated the software today to have decimals and it now confirms the 1.80kw.

So I paid for a 2.8kw battery

2800 -4%(sales guy figure) = 2688w
2800 -10%(manufacturers figure) = 2520w
2800 -20%(battery spec figure) = 2240w

They replaced it with a 2.6kw battery without telling me

2600 -4% = 2496w
2600 -10% = 2340w
2600 -20% = 2080w

Would 1.8kw capacity not appear to be far below what would be acceptable?

wexfordman2

CiaranIRE wrote: »

Thanks for the reply,

I have 3.25kw system. Inverter and battery are both GivEnergy. Max discharge on the battery is 1.3kw.

I understand I could use the battery up cooking etc, but it's the capacity I'm more concerned about.

I was told the battery will discharge to 4%. The software 'confirms' the 4%, but I know that's not true. The manufacturer told me the battery keeps a 10% charge. The sticker on the side says DOD of 80%. I can generate spreadsheets of the system performance and I can see how much of a discharge/recharge the battery is taking and it's always between 1600w and 1800w. They rounded the figures up on the software so it always said 2kw throughput after a full charge, but they updated the software today to have decimals and it now confirms the 1.80kw.

So I paid for a 2.8kw battery

2800 -4%(sales guy figure) = 2688w
2800 -10%(manufacturers figure) = 2520w
2800 -20%(battery spec figure) = 2240w

They replaced it with a 2.6kw battery without telling me

2600 -4% = 2496w
2600 -10% = 2340w
2600 -20% = 2080w

Would 1.8kw capacity not appear to be far below what would be acceptable?

Ok, so I have the same HW, albeit larger capacity. My battery is 5kwh, and is speced to discharge up to 2.5kw instantanious. My battery system is a single 5kwh batter, but I beleive this could also be provided via 2 x 2.5kwh batteries. My understanding is that in either case, with 1 larger or, 2 smaller battery, the max discharge is 2.5kw, and I see this, both when looking at the charge or the discharge graphs, I regularly see 2.5kw instances.

My system is configured to discharge to 4%, and this is what I see. The figures and graphs I have seem to add up, I dont see anything that would cause me to think I am not getting those power levels in real life.

Where are you getting your specs from ?

http://www.givenergy.co.uk/images/GE-A5-V1.4%20PF.pdf

CiaranIRE

wexfordman2 wrote: »

Where are you getting your specs from ?

http://www.givenergy.co.uk/images/GE-A5-V1.4%20PF.pdf

I'm getting them from the sticker on the side of the battery, but it's the same 2.6kw battery in the PDF (page 16/17). It's doesn't say the Depth of Discharge, but on the battery it says 80%.

I've attached a photo from the GivEnergy portal which shows 1.8kw for today.

But if you want to check the performance, go to System > Actions > View > System Data

Pick a day you had a clean 100% charge(or discharge) and click export data.

In the spreadsheet, find when your battery was at 3% or 4% in the Bat_Percent(%)
column, Bat_Power(W) should be 0, then select all the values under Bat_Power(W) until Bat_Percent(%) got to 100% again and Bat_Power(W) returns to 0.

Add all the value in that column and divide the result by 12(each line represents a 5 minute interval).

The result should be in and around the current usable capacity.

I know the portal shows 4% as the max discharge, but that's just a front end displaying an API. The figures are likely adjusted.

I suppose a similar way is just to cook a roast dinner and see how long it takes the battery to discharge at maximum discharge rate.

EDIT: I've checked again and the throughput looks like it's counting the discharge from after midnight last night. The actual charge looks closer to 1.4kw. The battery charged 51% in 40 mins today @ avg 1.2kw. I'll test the battery cooking dinner tonight. I would expect to see the battery drain from 100% to 0% in 1 hour whereas a 2.6kw battery drained at a max 1.3kw an hour should give 1hour 50mins taking the DOD into account.

CiaranIRE

Battery discharged in 60 minutes last night and wasn't even running at a consistent 1.3kw.

Battery charged today from 4% to 100% with a throughput of 1.4kw. So replacing the battery hasn't fixed the problem. There must be something else wrong with the installation.

I'll get back onto them again on Tuesday.

DrPhilG

Right, feck it.

I had nearly given up on solar for the near future but living in the sticks and enduring frequent power cuts is becoming a pain in the hole.

Had to jump the wall and spend a tenner on a taxi to get to work this morning because the power went down and I was trapped by the electric gates. (I know there is a manual override system but I couldn't find the keys).

I was close to proceeding before on a system with battery but went off the installer because he was BS-ing me about the issues with Zappi car chargers and AC/DC batteries. Zappi manufacturers themselves told me there would be issues, he insisted there wouldn't.

Any companies that cover the North West that people here have used?

Previous quote was for a 4kw system, 4.8kWh battery, swanky German "glass on glass" panels, €8k after grant. That also included a Zappi charger install.

The high price was due to the panels, they were guaranteed for 30 years at 87% minimum. The standard panels are 25 years guarantee to 80%.

Water John

What you need is a little diesel gennie Dr Phil, boss.

KCross

Water John wrote: »

What you need is a little diesel gennie Dr Phil, boss.

+1

Phil, your frustration appears to be power cuts, Solar PV won’t solve that for you unless you get a powerwall (€7k!!!).

A small generator and wire it to your consumer unit with a changeover switch and it will give you basic lights, internet, TV and running water. It won’t heat water or cook dinners but it will be enough to get you over the hump.

Water John

It was a a bit of a joke but yeah. You can get a propane one from the UK or pay twice the price here for it. Brigg and Stratton, 6/8Kw £2.5k ex Vat. Cuts in automatically.

DrPhilG

KCross wrote: »

+1

Phil, your frustration appears to be power cuts, Solar PV won’t solve that for you unless you get a powerwall (€7k!!!).

So that's another thing the installer was lying about? He said that in the event of a power cut, the house could run off the battery short term.

KCross

DrPhilG wrote: »

So that's another thing the installer was lying about? He said that in the event of a power cut, the house could run off the battery short term.

Maybe not lying, it probably would, but the key word is “short” term. A 2-4kWh battery won’t see you for long and what about if the power cut comes at night when the battery is already dead!

KCross

Water John wrote: »

It was a a bit of a joke but yeah. You can get a propane one from the UK or pay twice the price here for it. Brigg and Stratton, 6/8Kw £2.5k ex Vat. Cuts in automatically.

I wouldn’t go that far, that’s big money. Something small for <€1k that you pull out of the shed as required, plug it in, flick the changeover switch and you’re up and running in 5mins.

As a rural dweller myself a power cut is a bigger deal for us than urban folks as we also lose our water for toilets etc during a power cut. After Ophelia I said never again am I getting caught with that scenario. Generator now on standby!

Water John

Kcross, a good salesman starts with the high priced item, what the customer will actually buy will then seem very cheap in comparison. €1K is nothing and the occasional buyer will go for the deluxe model. That's why a menu has the dearest option at the top.

DrPhilG

KCross wrote: »

Maybe not lying, it probably would, but the key word is “short” term. A 2-4kWh battery won’t see you for long and what about if the power cut comes at night when the battery is already dead!

To be honest the power cuts are rarely more than a few hours. It's the frequency of them that's a pain. Probably 3 or 4 a week where it just drops and comes back on in a few minutes, enough to knock out all the clocks on the oven, microwave etc.

Maybe 1-2 times a month we get blacked out for a few hours.

The kicker today was that it went down at half 6, we leave for work at quarter to 8, but we couldn't open the bloody gates.

It came back in at half 9.

Would the battery in a solar system be able to cover us for that length of time?

KCross

DrPhilG wrote: »

To be honest the power cuts are rarely more than a few hours. It's the frequency of them that's a pain. Probably 3 or 4 a week where it just drops and comes back on in a few minutes, enough to knock out all the clocks on the oven, microwave etc.

That’s shocking. You need to start complaining to Eirgrid about that.


And your example this morning proves my point about the battery not helping you because it would still have been dead this morning when your power went out unless it was a 14kWh powerwall for €7k!

thos

I wired up the ‘Essential Load’ circuit off my battery the other night when we had a power cut, and it wasn’t up to much. I tried my water pump, no joy, and it couldn’t handle the fridge freezer either.

Pulled out the 6kva genny on extension lead, so just need to get changeover switch installed.

Does anyone know if a grid-tie solar system will work off/with a generator? Does it qualify as a grid?

DrPhilG

Surely the battery could be programmed to hold on to a minimum level of discharge, to be overridden only in an emergency?

It's one thing spending €5-6k that I had planned to spend at some stage anyway, a whole other issue spending €1k on a generator that I didn't plan on buying, all to overcome something that has happened once in 8 years (not the power cut, but actually being stuck inside the gate).

KCross

DrPhilG wrote: »

Surely the battery could be programmed to hold on to a minimum level of discharge, to be overridden only in an emergency?

You can program it all you like but power cuts are random so you will only end up compromising your battery system by having it charged all the time and then not being able to take the excess Solar when it’s available during the day because you’ve it fully charged in anticipation of a power cut.... again, unless it’s a powerwall that has loads of spare capacity, 2-4kWh is tiny really and won’t cover much.

Solar PV is not going to solve your power cut problem.

KCross

DrPhilG wrote: »

It's one thing spending €5-6k that I had planned to spend at some stage anyway, a whole other issue spending €1k on a generator that I didn't plan on buying, all to overcome something that has happened once in 8 years (not the power cut, but actually being stuck inside the gate).

Better find the keys for the manual override on the gates so!