How to make money (eventually) out of FIT.

tom1ie

hi all,

Im interested in how I would make money out of installing solar panels and a battery and then feeding excess energy back to the grid via FIT.

So first question is how much would I get on FIT and how much am I allowed feed back to the grid?
Would I be able to top up the battery on the night saver rate and then feed that back to the grid at FIT rates?
As I understand it the night rate is only 4 hours long, so what size battery would I need to have the battery fully filled up in 4 hours to then discharge onto the grid to get the FIT?

JayBee66

This page has FITs https://www.purevolt.ie/domestic-solar/feed-in-tariffs.php

It may or may not be up to date. Check the websites of individual suppliers. Your electricity supplier and FIT payer have to be the same company.

You can feed a maximum of 5KW into the grid with an NC6 registration but as many KWh as you want over the day or night. That doesn't limit your panel array to 5KW of panels. You can have more so that you fatten the bell curve when the Sun isn't allowing the array to reach 5KW.

You can do what you like with your battery at night. It's size is up to you.

You might also want to consider maximising your FIT by using less electricity; keeping within your peak usage at below 5KW so that you use less grid, staggering usage of high power devices, using an electric shower on the lower setting.

It's all down to you. What you can afford and what you're willing to sacrifice.

Wife and children are optional and may affect your FIT payments.

ColemanY2K

to add that the first €400 per person named on the bill is tax free. we have two on our account ergo we have €800 tax free FIT allowance. anything above that is taxed at the marginal rate.

slave1

FIT is artificially high at the minute, I would be careful when estimating off such a high figure

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121969604#Comment_121969604

Where does the 5kWh limit on FIT come from, first I've heard of that m

conor_mc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121969988#Comment_121969988

Should be 5kW as opposed to 5kWh, I assume.

Alkers

Ah sorry, yeah that's the restriction to a 5kW inverter so. So you could theoretically achieve 120kWh of FIT per day ( 5kW * 24hrs).

tom1ie

So going off the max KW I can draw down considering I have a 63A main fuse on my CU with 16mmsq tails that would be:

I=P/V therefore 63= p/230, therefore (230)(63)=P, therefore p= 14490 watts, ie 14.49 kw

There needs to be a buffer built in so the fuse doesn’t pop so would I be able to draw 10KW per hour into a battery for 4 hours (during the cheapest rate) to give me 40KWH of battery?

Actually I just checked electric Ireland and their “night boost” is only from 02:00 to 04:00 and it costs 10.47c per KWH.

So factoring that in:

could I draw 10KW for 2 hours at a cost of €2.09 and then sell that 20KWH at whatever the FIT will give me?

tommythecat

There are also losses to consider when you charge a battery.

tom1ie

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121970465#Comment_121970465

yeah agreed, I’m just not sure how much you could actually pull from the grid into your battery with the setup I’ve mentioned, while still allowing for the background house usage- fridge, modem etc etc.

ELM327

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121970465#Comment_121970465

and when you discharge

graememk

80% round trip is what I've measured.