Solar for Beginners [ask your questions here]

Battery temps are ~4.5 degrees there, that will cause a capacity and voltage drop as the chemistry can't do the atom dance as effectively.

We are considering getting some panels on a hipped semi-d roof. Unfortunately we’re on the north side of the semi-d pairing so we’ll have to get panels on the front & back East/West facing parts of the roof.

Neighbours in similar houses have 5 panels on their roofs. I have the following questions.

1. Corners of some of their panels are closer than 50cm to the ridge line between the front and side roofs as in the diagram below. Does the 50cm setback rule apply to these ridgelines or is it 20cm the same as for the top of the roof? Or do the corners of panels get a free pass?
2. 
3. Their panels are usually aligned with the edge of the chimney stack. Do they have to be aligned this way or can they be installed closer to the roof midpoint?
4. From my measurements, I think we can fit 6 panels instead of 5 on each of the front and back if they are installed 10cm away from the centre line of the 2 houses. We’d be keen to maximise the number of panels.
5. Is the 50cm from the bottom edge, 50cm from the edge of the bottom tile or edge of the gutter?
6. Do installers give you a choice of panel size to maximise your surface area or do installers typically only work with 1 size of panel?
7. Both sides of the roof will suffer from some shading, back more so than front so my understanding is that we’ll be best to go with microinverters per panel?
8. If we go with microinverters then we can mix different sized panels to maximise output?
9. Do the different sized panels have the same output per square metre, just differing in overall size ?
10. Is it a no-brainer to get a battery supplied now also to avail of 0% VAT?

Any answers appreciated thanks.

You'd imagine the EDDI should be able to provide power to the immersion from the grid if there was insufficient power from solar. Perhaps this is available in the configuration. Meanwhile, its possible to wire a two pole mechanical timer switch as a changeover switch to one immersion element (Eddi can operate old style sink/bath dual elements). A timer with a volt free two pole switch can have the EDDI output on NC, and direct mains on NO, with the choice of either going to the immersion element on COM. When the mechanical timer is on, it powers the element, otherwise the Eddi is connected and can power it, if it detects solar. Here's an illustration of a mechanical timer whose live link to the Internal switch can be removed and rewired as a two pole switch.

The live link would be moved to 4, NO, the Eddi live to 5, NC, and an immersion element to COM.

If you have a dual element immersion, you can also just give one element each to Eddi and the timer, say Bath to Eddi and Sink to the timer.

OK, your arithmetic is correct, but my house is currently drawing 1.45kW, ranges mostly 0.5 to 1.0 during the day.

The highest export I have seen is 4.8kW which is 20A. A 6kW inverter would take me close to the limit, and the export limit can be set in the app.