Solar PV battery options

DrPhilG

Royally pi$sed off at this stage. The seller is just sending me a copy/paste message once a week now.

AliExpress wrote:

Dear friend
Your package is in transit.
In the past two months, the logistics channels have been very congested. One is the shortage of logistics staff due to the epidemic, and the other is that there is a serious shortage of containers and the accumulation of goods.

I have confirmed the status of your package with the logistics company today. Please rest assured that you are on the way to Europe during normal transportation.[/IMG]

unkel

How long ago did you order? It takes 2 calendar months under normal circumstances to get here via Poland. This was recently delayed of course by the blockage of the Suez canal. Completely pointless to contact the seller. Wait until it is at least 3 months since you ordered before doing anything.

DrPhilG

Ordered on March 8th so will be past the 3 month mark by next week.

Tradnuts

Geeyfds53573 wrote: »

They updated me to 340022 with the multiple time slots. Keep asking I guess. Will be needed when smart tariffs come along.

I got updated the other day, it's now 340024. Strange.

DrPhilG

DrPhilG wrote: »

Ordered on March 8th so will be past the 3 month mark by next week.

Just got a proper update at last, batteries expected into Poland on or around June 20th.

With me about a week later.

irishchris

DrPhilG wrote: »

Just got a proper update at last, batteries expected into Poland on or around June 20th.

With me about a week later.

Nice! Looking forward to hearing how you get on with it as undecided whether to add another pylon battery or go the Chinese route myself

garo

irishchris wrote: »

Nice! Looking forward to hearing how you get on with it as undecided whether to add another pylon battery or go the Chinese route myself

You and me both. And probably half a dozen others here.

E30M3

garo wrote: »

You and me both. And probably half a dozen others here.

+1

unkel

An update about my battery. It's been performing very well. Yesterday was the first day that it actually got full (10kWh) from the sun, but my base load is very high. I will need several hours of pure blue skies to fill it. I produced 45kWh yesterday.

That said, this is not a bad thing. With a typical Irish good day being mixed sun and clouds, when the sun comes out, the battery is charging at 3.2kW. Then when a cloud passes over, my baseload is covered by the battery. Was good to see yesterday that even when someone put on the 3kW kettle, it was fully running on the sun My self use rate is near 100% on most days, on an exceptionally sunny day like yesterday it's down to about 75%.

irishchris

unkel wrote: »

An update about my battery. It's been performing very well. Yesterday was the first day that it actually got full (10kWh) from the sun, but my base load is very high. I will need several hours of pure blue skies to fill it. I produced 45kWh yesterday.

That said, this is not a bad thing. With a typical Irish good day being mixed sun and clouds, when the sun comes out, the battery is charging at 3.2kW. Then when a cloud passes over, my baseload is covered by the battery. Was good to see yesterday that even when someone put on the 3kW kettle, it was fully running on the sun My self use rate is near 100% on most days, on an exceptionally sunny day like yesterday it's down to about 75%.

Great to hear unkel and love to see some photos of your battery setup. I'm currently giving away 10+KW every day so am looking to increase battery storage as only on 2.4 battery at minute.
Could you provide link to the battery and BMS you purchased

unkel

The battery cells were linked to a few times in this thread already and the BMS is a Daly 16S LiFePo4 80A from the Daly official store on AliExpress:

Linky

SD_DRACULA

DrPhil did you build you new battery setup yet?

DrPhilG

SD_DRACULA wrote: »

DrPhil did you build you new battery setup yet?

I wish...

championc

DrPhilG wrote: »

I wish...

I wouldn't go by that. Use the UPS tracking number they gave you and look directly on the UPS website

SD_DRACULA

That's what always happens, the more you look forward to something arriving, the longer it gets delayed.
Law of aliexpress
Silly question maybe, but has anyone been able to source these lifepo4 cells from a EU supplier for faster delivery or they just cost twice as much.

DrPhilG

SD_DRACULA wrote: »

That's what always happens, the more you look forward to something arriving, the longer it gets delayed.
Law of aliexpress

Lol, I know. Its torture!

slave1

Received two AE packages this morning, usually totally forget what they are as I have so many orders, something tells me you will not mistake these for a phone screen protector!!!!

DrPhilG

So at what stage do I lose faith in this seller and start a dispute?

Bought March 8th and given an estimated delivery from mid April to early May. That time came and went and eventually they admitted that there was a delay and it would be June 20th before they reached the EU.

That was yesterday, now its the 21st and still not landed at UPS Poland.

unkel

Not sure Phil, give it another week or so maybe?

You'll have something to look forward to. The battery is working great these days for me. A lot of the time when the sun is out, I produce 6kW, with 2.8kW going to my base load and 3.2kW going into the battery and nothing going to the grid

insular1

Personal experience with expensive items from Ali I would say once the date is passed send a message to the seller and if no satisfactory response in 48hours start the dispute process. I was dicked around a few years ago for ages past the sell date. The item actually did arrive but it was so late that I'm still suspicious that they didn't actually send it until I started to complain.

On a separate note does anyone have a spreadsheet or something with ROI for adding a battery to an existing system? Recent install and was planning to wait until next year to look at batteries but I dramatically underestimated the annoyance of sending buckets of free energy back to the grid only to be buying back from the grid a few short hours later.

Am I oversimplifying to simply use the cost of batteries against a daily saving of battery size X day unit rate?
Assuming the battery won't fill everyday in winter so is there an approximate way to account for this?

garo

It really depends on your usage pattern. But my 4.8kW system with a 2.4kWh battery, I got over 1000kWh from the battery last year. That's over 1 full cycle a day though in four months around winter the battery never got full. If I had a battery twice as large I would probably get 1500-1600.
Ultimately it boils down to how much you paid for the battery. If you go down the same road as Unkel and Phil you will definitely save more than the battery costs.

graememk

unkel wrote: »

Not sure Phil, give it another week or so maybe?

You'll have something to look forward to. The battery is working great these days for me. A lot of the time when the sun is out, I produce 6kW, with 2.8kW going to my base load and 3.2kW going into the battery and nothing going to the grid

I wonder was it on the evergiven?... Hope not!

There is still a lot of congestion there too and the ports are really busy on top of that

DrPhilG

Had another whinge at the seller, they checked with logistics and said that the batteries have now landed in Poland, but are just in a queue waiting for customs clearance.

slave1

There's some serious Logistics holdup in last 6 months Phil, that canal jam really didn't help, hang on in there

DrPhilG

Progress at last.....

Checked the tracking number on the UPS website tonight, nothing. Same "please check later for scheduled delivery".

However its technically an 8 part delivery, since I think they pack them 4 cells per box and each box has its own code. AliExpress tracking just shows the code for box 1 but when I enter that on UPS it says "1 of 8" and links to the other 7 numbers.

So I checked the other codes in the order and 4 of them now say received by UPS and due in Ireland by July 1st!

Presumably the other 4 are still being processed by customs so I'll bide my time. The seller told me that they had entered the customs queue on the 21st.

So as it stands it looks like the end of the saga is nigh.

DrPhilG

Checked again this morning and 7 are clear, 1 to go.

unkel

There's only 4 boxes, so hopefully you'll get them soon!

championc

unkel wrote: »

There's only 4 boxes, so hopefully you'll get them soon!

Keep up @unkel, he bought 2 sets !!!

unkel

Jaysus! Nice to have 20kWh, but that second half will never pay for itself, unless you have a >10kwp setup with a >3kW base load

(believe me, I've done the sums )

SD_DRACULA

unkel wrote: »

Jaysus! Nice to have 20kWh, but that second half will never pay for itself, unless you have a >10kwp setup with a >3kW base load

(believe me, I've done the sums )

Doubt it won't, when you generate 40+ on some days and the next day is nothing, you'd be running off the battery just fine (depending on the type of usage in the house ofc)
Also depends how much you pull from the batteries, if they only give 3kws and you run at 5-6kws and still pull from grid