Solar PV battery options

Can anybody help in regard to where to source the Sofar ME 3000SP?

Been looking for a few months with every few days and wasn't able to find one, now I finally have the time & funds to go DIY and it seems the ME 3000SP can't be gotten anywhere.

Was sick I missed out on the one Unkel sold :P

I'm going to sell my current one. It's working perfectly fine, but the CAN port doesn't seem to work and possibly the comms RS485 port is not working either. So if you are going to use it with a home made battery (any lead acid or any lithium chemistry) and not looking to control the ME3000SP from the BMS or do home automation with it, it's a fine choice. It will be cheap, very cheap.

I do have to find a hybrid inverter first though...

I'll probably mention it here in the forum, but it will be on adverts for sure, if you put up an alert for "ME3000SP" you will get notification very soon after the ad is up

To get a battery, you will need either a hybrid inverter or a separate dedicated battery inverter. These are expensive. The batteries themselves are expensive even those small 2.4kWh ones are €1000 each. Even without a FIT, they would struggle to pay for themselves. And now we have a FIT that is around 14c / kWh, batteries simply don't make financial sense any more.

If you could cycle your battery once a day (this is optimistic) and use it for the peak tariff that's about 2.2 kWh usable * 2 per day * 365 days - 20% losses = 640kWh and you would save €0.30 per kWh vs €0.14 FIT, you'd make €100 per year from it. From a system, incl. install cost of at the very least well north of €2500 (with one tiny battery)

But who knows, we could be hitting €1 per kWh electricity at peak times, then it would make more sense.

Thanks Unkel,

I have no plans for automation etc, I intend on using a Seplos BMS for a DIY LifePO4 battery. If the ME3000SP you have is already working in that configuration then sounds good to me.

Battery wise it would be December at the earliest before I had the cells. Quote from Jenny Wu is for 16 cells EVE LF280K shipped from EU to Ireland, the cost is 132*16+136=2248USD, add Alibaba trade assurance fee 56USD, the total is 2304USD.

Going to start sourcing the Seplos now too, anybody with a source feel free to jump in :)

Viewed it at the NEC alright. Will be interesting to see the price point. Seems to be a re-badged kstar product.

Price and integration with existing products will be key.

Do you really pay 38c / kWh? That is very high. I pay 28c and that is high, but the offset is that I pay less than 8c for night rate

And yeah, not a hope you will average two cycles per day. And why do you have €1000 for initial cost? It's more like €2500. The battery is €1000 (if you're lucky), a battery inverter is €1000 and a hybrid inverter is nearly €1000 more than a normal inverter and then there is the install cost, at least €500. So even with your rates, that would be 40 years for one cycle per day and 20 years for two cycles a day (the inverter is not gonna last 20 years, so will have to be replaced in the meantime, adding to your pay back period)

Either DIY if you can buy parts at really good prices, or don't do it for financial reasons anyway as it makes no financial sense.

That's a disgraceful rate. You could break your contract for just €50. Could save you a lot more than that. But yeah your hybrid inverter is already installed, so you already have sunk cost (and a substantial loss if you don't go battery). That skews your sums though, they apply to you, but do NOT apply to someone who hasn't yet installed any PV / battery

Another option is to cut your losses and sell your hybrid inverter, buy a standard inverter and make some of that sunk cost back. Of course only if you have decided not to go battery in the near future!

Jesus Christ. And I switched only so a few weeks ago, paying under 8c now night rate. Obviously the higher the day rate gets, the more a battery makes sense. Maybe we're only months or a year, two tops away from €1 / kWh rates.

Looks like I got lucky then changing a few weeks ago and fixed rates for the year. And that I more than trebled my battery size in the last few months to well over 30kWh. And installed a ton of extra solar PV since early last year

I don’t see anything like hybrids costing 1000 more than non hybrids.if you are on the fence about a battery and want to see some data from your install before finally making a decision on a battery I think it would be shortsighted to not get one. But that’s just my opinion; you can of course benefit from a lower cap ex cost if you are sure you never want a battery (or are happy to go with an AC battery later on).

manufacturer 1: 5kW non hybrid 700 euro. Hybrid version 5kW from same manufacturer 1100 euro.

manufacturer 2: 5kW non hybrid 500 euro hybrid version 5kW from same manufacturer 1050 euro.

These prices are ex vat and not exact prices; rounded up and down slightly.

can you give some examples of your 1000 euro difference?

Hoping you get that fixed rate.... but there have been quite a few posts of energia customers discovering a bump in there most recent rates on bill

Like unkel and a few others here I manged to get the Energia EV plan at .2744 day and .079 night fixed unit rate 12 months. There are caps on the units used for the bi-monthly cycle but don't envisage us ever getting near them.

Those prices did start jumping come mid August, I think, so nothing is coming close to them.

There was a billing error on the last bill where they charged the wrong unit rate which actually resulted in our bill going down.

Do you mean buy the inverter but not the storage ? If so, then it depends on compatibility of the inverter to talk with other battery types.

The inverter is a re-badged KStar. Here's a useful link, with a downloadable pdf link on the page

https://suministrosdelsol.com/en/hybrid-inverter/1913-kstar-blue-s-5000d-hybrid-inverter.html