Solar PV battery options

No, that was me alright. It would be a waste financially for most people. Unless your electricity consumption is very high and you load shift almost all year around.

Personally I do have a high consumption so it will easily pay back for me in about 5-6 years with load shifting alone. Probably less if the delta between day and night rate will grow bigger. And I upgrade often and since I started my PV journey, I have pretty much always sold my old gear for more than I bought it myself, so in other words: zero pay back time.

And it's not all about financials. Using night rate is significantly cleaner greener (and ever more so) and a LiFePo4 battery lasts decades, so very durable

Zero shading, south facing but with only a tiny angle, so producing from sunrise to sunset 😎

Yeah unfortunately panels are about €10-15 more expensive than they were a year or two ago because of the exploded cost of getting a shipping container from China over here. But should they ever drop to around the €50 mark I will get plastering that virgin roof with them.

I'd seen that before. Touch of class that.

I've a flat roof on the shed, enough for about 5x panels. it's an idea in it's infancy with me at the moment, but if i do put panels there, the two furthest away from the sun I was thinking of having them adjustable like you have so that in winter they would have a higher incidence. Course you can only really do this on the furthest 2 from the sun as the others would shade the ones behind with the sun so low.

What/how did you motorize it?

has anyone seen this supplier. Ships from Germany. Anyone have an opinion on these

Had the same issue but used a seller with a lot of good reviews, not like that link with no reviews. Just turned out that they were all fake which in hindsight I should have read more of them properly.

Aliexpress are good to be fair with refunds and I did get my money back for the batteries eventually but takes a while.

Does that Sofar inverter accept 24v or just >=48v? Was thinking of an 8s2p setup for a 10kwhr battery but it's not obvious.

Also, when I looked before the Oye store mentioned shipping from Poland, not it just says from China. Will this still pass through Poland?

They break out into Europe in Poland

All inverters only support 48v

The above cells need the Seplos BMS

Hi Alan.

im in the same boat, I will start with circa 10kW batt.

then do the research to expand once I have 3 months of data.

would be great if there was a decent online course in this!

I think for batteries 10-15kWh is probably a good fit as, unless a heavy user, this would get most people through the evening/night until they can be charged the next morning especially at this time of year onwards. Those three/four months over winter would need a bit of night charging.

I'll be looking to increase ours over the coming weeks and have been looking at all options including bringing in direct, have been in discussions with a few manufacturers.

For those unsure of the diy route I can provide prices for the items I have looked at if you want to send me a PM, if that is allowed. Have priced rack mount and powerwall types so it might help to sway you one way or the other.

Panels is the most important. Get as many as you can fit. Once they're up on your roof, they will be good for many decades.

It’s all fair comment, but the thing to consider is the use case. For instance my brother in law is down the south west. Huge dormer bungalow and has 24 panels on the roof. He could stick another 50 up if he wanted. He has a 5kw battery that just about scrapes he though the day and he’s keen for another. No heat pump or ev and they both work away from home 4 days a week. And he’s been producing and feeding in a huge (enviable) amount over the past few weeks.

now I’m in a “decent size” Dublin house (small country house!). I can most likely just about squeeze 16 panels max, a shade under 6kW. Roof size and layout is the issue on going bigger. I have a heat pump and EV. Myself and wife work at home several days a week so always someone here. Now I know I’ll be fine in summer as the heat pump is effectively off from may to October and the house and hot water will run off PV. But come winter when the panels are producing squat and the heat pump is chugging, that’s when the battery will earn its keep and I will be taking electricity in at 70% discount over night. My house is a fully electric house, if you are running gas or oil your electricity bill is way down by comparison. For me, in my use case I could benefit hugely from just the battery on its own!! The ROI for the batteries is at least twice as fast as the panels

I contend the key for every install is putting in the graft to figure out what is right for you and your use case. And resources like this thread are great to help with that as long as you are open.

You are 100% correct. Everyone has to figure out what their use case is.