ESBN Maximum Import Capacity

Im no spark or grid planner (lol), but it would stand to reason that the (local urban) grid will need to undergo a LOT of work over the next 1-2 decades or so as we adopt heat pumps and EV's into the fold en masse.

I'm sure the existing "local grid" was designed back in the day with "plenty of buffer" at the time, but unlikely that grid planners in the 70's, 80's, etc envisioned the level of HPs and EV usage that is going to happen over the next 10+ years. One EV uses what 5Kwh/year or so if my math is right about 5km/1kwh ('ish). So an EV in a household will double the average household usage? Yeah?

That said, I think the majority of people should be able to get by with 16kVA

It's not just about peak export with NC7, but also the size of inverter you are allowed to connect.

For sure, but the benefits of that are limited. Unless of course your house needs to draw more than a 5.5kW load from your batteries very often. The problem with NC7 is that it costs a lot of money up front and there is no guarantee you will even be allowed to get it. If not, money gone.

I'd rather put my money towards a MIC upgrade. The payback time of that is far shorter. Again, I am talking about this in the context of a modest home in a housing estate. Different story if you have 40kwp in ground mounts in your rural McMansion

How big is your array in your suburban modest home that you can export more than 115kWh per day? 😅 This is the limit of the standard NC6 exporting 5.5kW for 21 hours

Again, why the obsession with peak export???

We will have two EV's, a big battery and a solar dhw diverter. We wont be exporting that much. The main benefit of NC7 for us will be having a bigger inverter and array.

You are still restricted to the 5.5kW limit to work around with EV charging/divert plus dhw divert plus any house loads. And in an off grid scenario, you have to be careful what you can and cant turn on. If you put enough time/effort in, I'm sure you can work around a lot of that, but most people dont want that hassle/effort. A bigger inverter makes all of those issues go away.

That is an impressive array size, I assume you are using a DC-coupled system? They have their own drawbacks too.

Why did you fit a solar diverter when you had solar tubes already?

All my hardware was in years before we got a FIT. Basically an eddi bought with trade discount and installed by my buddy for free, paid for itself in a year when we were sending electricity back to the grid for free

And show me a graph where your house draws more than 5.5kW for extended periods of time ;-) Trust me it is rare. I have a 9kWh inverter myself (so not allowed under the NC6 really), again predates the FIT. I would have no problem downsizing to a 5.5kW. And yeah some of my arrays charge my battery directly via MPPT charge controllers, so bypassing any NC6 regs

And as @micks_address said, I have additional chargers, charging my battery in parallel to my inverter. Again perfectly fine, nothing to do with NC6 regs. My only offender is my inverter and I could swap it out for a compliant 5.5kW one tomorrow with zero impact on my importing / exporting. Which is all fully automated from within Home Assistant anway

Hi, just standard 4mm2 solar PV cables. The cable runs are up to about 15-20m, which gives very little losses for high voltage strings. The panels are in series, so maximum current of around 10A

you maths are correct.. to export that amount.. you would need to generate a lot.. either you have large batteries.. 125kw of battery storage.. be able to charge that on cheap electricity or solar and export around the clock… you wont be able to export and charge your batteries at the same time via the same inverter (on my solis thats the case anyway) it all depends on your setup.. on a good day in the summer i might export 40kwh.. thats having my batteries close to full at 5am.. then allowing all solar to export for the day - then dump the batteries from around 10pm to export some more before starting the charge process again at 2am

Pretty much. The 25c Pinergy FIT rate is incl VAT, not excl

I have exported over 100kWh per day on several days last year. On an NC6. So after standing charge and the cost of my import, those days netted me almost €25 pure profit, per day.

https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax-professionals/tdm/income-tax-capital-gains-tax-corporation-tax/part-07/07-01-44.pdf

but how much of that is actually from Solar as opposed to imported into a battery.?

PINERGY do state "

• Renewables Self-Consumer: You must meet the EU’s definition of “renewables self-consumer”[1], which is someone who produces renewable energy on their own property to use themselves.

"

which means

They may store or sell excess self-generated electricity, provided this is not their primary professional activity for non-household consumers. 

Aye. In fact don't start giving people ideas now 😂

A genny, running on green diesel, would be profitable to run 24/7 and dump all its production into the grid. FIT is very high and of course fossil fuels are way too cheap in Ireland

What about burning coal for a steam generator?

Ok people, stop. This is getting too far 🤣

Yeah all subsisdies are stupid, but that one is the GOAT