Just spotted this at the last minute to help the man maths! 0% finance - www.eonenergy.com/solar-battery-storage.html (I didn't buy through them, just to be clear).
@@bobf711 Sorry yes, 12.8p I was doing it in pounds for some reason. The idea to get solar and battery has interested me for a while to get cheap night rates but the payback time is still 3 years and 0% at around 222 a month for the one from Eon at least. I guess after that, savings galore though
If you want to add the last 4 panels you may need a second inverter unless you have an optimiser system. A string array into a single inverter works best when all panels are at the same angle and no single one is shaded. If any panel in the string isn't generating it will block the flow of power and limit the output of the array so you'd effectively clip the output of your roof array. You should check with the installer to see how this system works, maybe a power optimiser could be used or a smaller second inverter.
@@maytopian not in the uk. They still use proper bricks. Plenty of new estates being thrown up near me in brick and block. Brick slips are more expensive. This house is proper stone (due to where it is) but modern build so internal breeze block.
This house is up norf so nobody thinks of aesthetically pleasing bricks. too busy shuffling past with their whippets in the cold wind to notice. stick the panels on the wall and keep warm.
You're putting up solar panels they're ugly as hell so you put them on the side of the house and the roof of the house you might as well just get over it or more like get over yourself you want renewable energy there's nothing renewable more renewable than oil and gas it's being made under your feet as we speak there's no dinosaur or fossils in fuel there's no such thing as fossil fuel. The bunch of calming rot just like global warming or weather change yeah the weather changes all right some are the winter you know you try to make it more complex all that is is a way to keep you busy your mouth blathering on about how this and all that calamity why all the calamity life isn't that hard.
(As a Halifax resident) No, it would ruin it. They are too big. Could even disguise them as brise soleil. As others here have recommended - solar porch or solar car port if you've room.
It took me 9 months before I stopped obsessing over the power graphs from my solar/battery system. And recently I found I could buy a modbus adaptor for a few quid and interrogate the hybrid inverter from a raspberry pi.
Great diversification to the whole renewable energy side. This will make great content for all the people like me, who are very interested in this field, but know very little about it. 👍👍👍
We have a 4 kWh solar array on a FiT and had a Powerwall 1 that failed. Tesla replaced it free with a Powerwall 2 and chucked in a gateway, too. This summer I was off grid for a few months and I charged my car on the granny charger during the day to extract the solar whilst charging the car and Powerwall whilst running the home. These solar and battery combos, whichever you choose, are absolutely amazing. And Octopus Energy is amazing, too.
Just had this fitted. Been superb in saving us money. Production of energy has far exceeded expectations and funny enough the battery powering the home evening to morning has been a revelation to say the least! Thanks for your thoughts on it. Was really helpful
If you buy the solar panels at the same time as the battery you will also save vat in uk on the battery , if added afterwards battery has to have vat added . Looks like the system you have is well priced and good investment
Great unbiased video 👍 I have just gone through the same journey, had same battery , but the Ac coupled invertor with panels(due to complicated roof array) fitted last month. With all the different choices and suppliers, I was skeptical that the Givenergy system was too good to be true, as I couldn’t find many reviews about it. Must say it’s great and works exactly as it should. Balancing the battery storage with the best Agile prices and the good old lack of winter sunshine gets quite addictive😀😀 I am looking for the best weather app now to predict the sunlight hours for the next few days now, so I can plan it better 😉 Looking forward to see how you get on with it all, great system,great price 👍👍
I’m not sure why your so amazed by something that most inverter companies do already. It’s called a hybrid inverter. I appreciate the thorough explanation of how it works. Good education to the community. Installers and consumers need to watch stuff like this over and over to understand the concept.
I went for Enphase individual inverters on each panel . Advantage is each panel is its own generator and no worries about a large invertor failing .i also went for a powervault 3 battery.
Re: extra panels I had approx same situation and ended up fitting six panels on a shed roof (well more of a workshop/cabin but basically if you can find room in the garden for a shed with a decent roof...)
Just had a system installed (mid December) with a 10kwh battery and we charge at night (cheap tariff) and use it during the day, which has more than halved our usage and we get about 5kwh average atm (Feb/march - highest 13kwh) from our 3kwh south facing array. I too had extra panels and will be using them to make a solar powered quadricycle (learning to weld atm) and to put on our caravan. Good luck with whatever project you go for...my favourite would be the garden conservatory/BBQ area facing South
If you're in a conservation area the default planning permission for solar panels doesn't cover wall mounted panels. They'll probably attract unwanted attention also. Sell em. Many home batterys use LIFEPo4 chemistry as its the cheapest option. None of them use Cobalt..
Sounds like a great little system. The spare solar panels could become a solar roofed veranda on the back of the house, somewhere to sit out off the rain outdoors. Or as a gadget type project, a solar shelter for any electric car left outside of the garage. Roll it out, plug it in. I nearly called it a solar sunshade then remembered where you live. :) x
You need to ensure your inverter has the ability to plug 2 strings in to have a second array on a different aspect. If they were all on the same string then all panels would only be as efficient as the worse performing one and one aspect would be less efficient than the other at any given time.
Richard: A very valid point and correct in everything you say. If mounting the surplus panels on a porch or a frame in the garden where they are lower than those on the roof, particular care must be taken to check that no part of any of the panels, not even a corner, is ever covered by shade. If it is, then each of those panels will need its own separate micro inverter otherwise, as you point out, the performance of the whole of that array will be only that of the shaded portion even if the rest is in full sun.
We had 5.6kWp of solar and the Givenergy 5kW inverter with 2x5.2kWh batteries installed in the summer, they have been great. And you’re right monitoring does be come an obsession! We were having other electrical work done, so we had them wire up the emergency supply while that were at it. One thing to be aware of is that pure battery output is limited to 2.5kW, so just need to make sure that multiple appliances aren’t pulling too much power at the same time or your start importing. Interesting to hear about the solar divert capabilities, will be interesting to see how they can be used. At present I have the immersion heater on a WiFi plug and can then turn it on when the batteries are full and we are exporting power, but ITTT integration would be cool.
Octopus have an API that allows their prices to be pulled, then put to use in any way that suits. Enabling a load of smart plugs when tariff is lowest wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Hi David. I had the Givenergy 5kWh hybrid inverter and 8.2kWh battery installed in August. Have you had any monitoring issues? If I charge at night on cheap Agile rates and use the time delay discharge setting so the energy is saved for 4pm onwards my PV generation stats for that day start going backwards! :) Givenergy are telling me that this is a bug their developers are working to fix. The 5 minute data packets drive me crazy when trying to see exactly what the system is doing. They also tell me they are working on a 1 minute refresh. I'm not impressed at all with the monitoring to be honest. It looks nice but I wouldn't trust what it is telling me as far as I could throw the battery. :)
@@SteveH377 I agree the 5 minute delays are less than ideal. I haven’t had the monitoring issues you describe, but I use the system on “mode 1 - dynamic” and at the moment charge the battery at night on Octopus Go using the “battery smart charge” feature. I was having an issue where the battery would stop charging before it was full, which GivEnergy spotted corresponded with the voltage spiking to 59v, they thought this could be an installation issue using the wrong type of wire and had the installed come back and change it. But before that I thought that maybe a good old fashioned “turn it off and on again” was in order and that moved the battery led indicators up a level and once the inverter was also rebooted it started reporting 100% again. I think it’s safe to say this is not the most polished software/firmware, but the functionality seem reasonable and increasing, there was no Octopus Agile integration earlier in the year, plus the price seems reasonable compared to others. Hopefully GivEnergy will continue to finesse the portal and the app could do with a refresh too.
@@dcsh78 Thanks David. I'm going to test out the new Agile setting today to see what happens. I also had some issues with the battery tripping the breaker. This was down to the installer fitting the wrong size unit - 63amp. It has now been replaced with a Givenergy branded 80amp breaker and all seems to be OK. I hope they can do something about the refresh times on the app soon.
This is a great video, honest opinions and very sincere presentation. Ref your spare panels, I've looked at a lot of the comments and no one has mentioned wind loading. Be careful where you put them and how they are secured, especially having experienced Yorkshire weather on the cricket pitches at Ampleforth...a solar man cave at the bottom of the garden maybe?
This is awesome! I have just had the exact same installation, 8.2kWh battery and 16x 410w panels on an E/W facing roof! Uncannily similar! November not the best time to install solar, where's the damn sun! I am also on Octopus but on the Go tariff, 13p /kWh in the day, 5p /kWh between 12.30 and 4.30am every night. I have a Tesla model 3, and I set that to charge from 12.30am every night, which gives me just over 1p per mile cost. There's a Battery smart charge option on the GivEnergy inverter, which you can tell it to import electricity between set times to fill up the battery at night and it will power the house during the day on days where the weather is shite. My whole installation cost £9k fitted. You mentioned solar divert - not sure what this is, mine can't choose where to put excess electricity, it just exports it back to the grid if the battery is full. Maybe that's how it's been wired? Also I can't find a good solution for a car trickle charge. The Tesla has an option to limit the charge current but you have to do that in the car, bit annoying, so on a sunny day I will set that to 5 amps and then start charging the car if the batter is over 90% full, but it's a bit of micromanagement I'd rather not have to think about. I also can't find an "offical" GivEnergy app for Android - which I'd love because I can't use the phone to monitor at the moment. Anyway, awesome video, looking forward to the next one!
I would be reluctant to mount the panels over the lovely stonework and I wouldn’t be surprised if the planners might block you. Grow grapes on that wall and make your own wine.👍🏻
That's a great system. Nice to see how developed it is now. I had my panels installed 5 years ago and storage last year but things have moved on. The initial panels have paid back about half the install cost just from the FIT, the solar storage will never pay for itself in its lifetime but it's not always about the money. How is your system telling the car or car charger to start/stop the charge?
East west arrays are great providing you have a separate inverter for each side or a single inverter with two separate MPPT tracker inputs for each side. Connecting both the east and west side to a single MPPT tracker would perform very poorly. That's a lovely wall. I wouldn't put solar panels on it unless that side of the house is shielded from view.
Wall mounted panels are prone to damage and I don't know for definite but suspect there will be a minimum height regulation with the wiring output being quite a high DC voltage. My house is the same orientation E/W and I decided to place all my panels on the West elevation due to shading for a period in the morning on the East facing elevation. Average generation approx 2200KWh a year on 3.6KW costal system in N Yorkshire you will gat a better production inland.
South facing wall might be much better than a roof towards south! In winter months with low sun - this south facing wall will be great! Make as less holes in the wall as possible! Try with 4 holes at optimal diameter!
the only thing i would add, is if you put it on the back south facing wall, try and get the pine trees trimmed , you would get a bit more sun. but brilliant going to source it now. thankyou.
Great video and it looks as if it could make sense even without Solar as I'm on Octopus Go right now and trying to evaluate if Octopus Agile makes sense for me (there's an idea for your White-board Maths, is there an easy formula?) since I don't need to charge my EV every night. By-The-Way if you're considering capturing off-peak to heat water consider a HeatBattery from SunAmp. I've one which stores about 10.5 kWh and although I have it plumbed to recharge from the Gas Boiler I ONLY recharge from the 5p/kWh OctopusGo using the 3kW heater. Heat Batteries sore the heat energy and instantly heat the water on demand at far higher flow rates that a Gas Combie and using Octopus 100% Green energy a far lower Carbon Footprint.
I've been considering a heat battery and house battery to go along with my solar PV, so i can ditch my Gas boiler. I'm also on Octopus and it sounds like i need to have a chat with them about what will be right for me.
"CEO is a Yorkshireman" Does that mean you get a discount if you know all the words to "Ilkley Moor", including the rude ones we used to sing on school bus trips? Excellent video, we installed a solar array + a heat exchanger system for hot water behind 8 of the panels about 8 years ago. It was cutting edge at the time and is horribly archaic now which shows how far things have come in a short period.
Your Inverter is a Dual MPPT inverter with East and West on separate strings (I see the 4 x DC cables coming from your DC shutoff). I hope you added more bias to the West string rather than the East, since you'll use more power at teatime than in the morning, so people should look to maximize production in the afternoon. Ordinarily, South facing panels on a flat wall are actually a very good idea, since their output will increase as the sun goes lower in the sky. However, in your case, the problem with South panels would be that you would need to add them to the East OR West array. The problem then is that when an array is shaded, ALL panels on that string will output the same lowest common denominator. To get the maximum output from these, you'd need to install Optimizers on each panel on the East or West string. An option would be to install south panels using Micro-Inverters instead. However, those trees outside look high - are they likely to cause shading in the evening ? Lastly, I'm not sure that a battery will ever pay for itself. You'd have to be replacing one hell of an amount of full price peak units will solar stored units. I'd say a lot of people would be interested to see those calculations
Excellent information. As for your panels , side of the house no. You've a nice looking property, shame to ruin the aesthetic. Do you have a garden shed or space to construct a pergola, against the rear of the house, that could work. ps givenergy should be recognise your spreading the word e.g. Tesla top up gift card or something. 👍
I have four 1650 x 991 panels mounted on the south facing gable end wall on my house using the three piece aluminium ground mount brackets and they work really well with the east west split for the other twelve panels on the roof giving me charge all day long as the sun moves round to the west. Where i live we get frequent storms with strong winds and they have not moved an inch so I say go for it but put them on with raw bolts and not screws.
Put then on the wall. Vertical inclination is pretty good in mid-winter which is when you want the boost most. With a system with storage and no significant FiT then you most want to boost winter output rather than doing max output. Winter optimised is about 19 degrees off vertical, but vertical isn't bad.
Hi, thanks for your informative videos, I’ve just had a 8.2kw pv system installed with a 8.2kw GivEnergy battery and 2 zappi chargers for our 2 e transporters (which are out when the sun is!) but we have generated 45kw each day since installation, which is great. I’m in Octopus go however was contemplating agile but have kinda got cold feet! Can you advise as to if it’s worth while switching to agile when I get my export docs in order? Also should I consider increasing my battery capacity? Thanks is advance.
aesthetics? Are you really going to be showing off the batteries in your garage so much to so many pretentious people that the looks of them is that important? I guess it takes all sorts of people to make the world go round...
I have built several houses and lodges that are off grid. They were all in rural locations and used either solar or wind turbines. (one used both and a lodge development used a networked system). In practical terms solar works best on a SW elevation in England and Wales. Scotland is wind turbine. The best angle for a solar panel in the Midlands is 35 degrees. This does matter. Mounting on a vertical wall is not difficult.
I’d have thought there are planning issues with panels on a wall. The planning exemption usually only applies if the panels are on the roof & following the pitch of the roof. BTW, maybe the installer could invest in a few cable clips. 😉
4 panels mount them floor mounted along that wall, make a wooden frame to angle them 40 / 45 degrees - make them onto the invertor 2nd string, they will work you can double stack them so they do not block the windows and once up they will provide power for you a lot better. Mine are similar issues but the 600w panels in the garden take up the slack as shading comes across my roof. You'll find summer your generating from 4am onwards and then if you can mount those other 4 correctly then into the long evenings. Get them doubled stacked up against that south wall. My plan is to eventually put my 3 panels onto the shed roof which will help massively overall.
In the Netherlands we see a lot of Solar on carports. So you could park youre car under it and get the solar panels on top of it. Your car won’ t get wet or stays cool in the summer and on top of that you build a rack so that youre solar panels are at the optimal angle
You have probably sorted this by now but thought I would just add a comment. I mounted evacuated tube solar collectors flush onto a south facing wall. I did not want them sticking out as it would look unsightly. I found they worked ok and also the low angle of the sun in the winter was better than they would have been on the roof. I mounted them at the same height as the windows so they did not look as out of place.
Hi EVM. Thanks for all of the great content. I hope you don’t mind a couple of questions regarding domestic solar. What equipment would I need to be totally off grid. The reason for the question is that we have had solar installed recently and on regular occasions, when the battery is over 90%, the solar is about 4.5kW and the load is maybe 1kW a very small draw is made from the grid. It is usually around 40 watts but has been 135w. It’s not a lot but has to be payed for as we are not on a feed in tariff yet. I’m asking you as you are very up on all of this and the provider has only come back with vague answers and sound as if they don’t have a clue. Thanks in anticipation and keep up the great work.
No battery can respond quick enough not to have inertia usage like this. The best option if you do want off grid (as opposed to grid netural) is the GivEnergy All In One.
Nice setup. We enjoy our Tesla Powewalls. They lets us avoid high rates at peak periods this time of year with low solar, and run for weeks without pulling power from grid in summer.
Hell yes. I would suspend them on uneven length brackets where the bottom is out farther from the wall than the top have them track the sun east to west unless you're in the other of hemisphere. Two on the top one beside the window on the left on each side
Having just (at the start of this year) bought our first house I've signed up with a local council-run scheme to bulk-buy solar installations. We're waiting for our survey at the moment, but I think we're looking at about 3 1/2 kW (nominal), then adding battery storage at some point down the line - I'd get it now, but "just bought a house".
Just incase you didn't follow EVM's link, the interest free offer is available whether you want to add a battery to your existing array or buy their solar panels.
@@diddybopper2052 In his pinned comment, link to Eon energy. No point in me repeating it, since RUclips removes comments with links - I guess there must be an exception for the channel owner. However, also bear in mind that the video is over a year old. No idea whether they're still running the offer.
Have you looked into air source heat pumps, or combined AC with heat pumps. Very efficient. This will be home heating in the future and combined with your setup very cost effective.
I have GSHP and have looked into solar. This does not work, because the energy demand for the heat pump is inverse to the energy generated by the solar. About half of my energy consumption is in three months, december, january, february. solar produces most power june, july, august. These household batteries store enough power to last for a for a day, not six months. A wind turbine however...
@@IanYork surely then these batteries are perfect for you.....size the system to meet at least the three hour peak (both in terms of current required- maybe more than one inverter needed- and battery capacity) for your peak winter demand then you will be able to buy all your electricity at around 5p a unit. In the summer months your excess solar during the day can be stored in the batteries to last you all night meaning for much of the summer you import no electricity at all. Winter and summer you are never storing energy for more than 24hours.
Prop extra panels against bottom of wall. Then you can adjust them seasonally. Flat in summer, pitch up in winter. I have some hedge mounted solar like this
For anyone who already has solar there is an excellent alternative from GivEnergy of an AC inverter that can also transfer the excess PV generation that you get in August to the battery, but has the huge additional advantage for the other 11 months of being able to charge your battery from cheap off-peak electricity overnight (5p per kWH) and let you use this power in place of more expensive electricity during the day, or opt in to sell your surplus power back in the evening at a profit. So this has a far shorter payback even if you install this 3kw AC inverter as a second inverter on a new system! Keep up the good work!
I believe you need planning permission to put solar panels on a wall (depending on whether it's visible from the road possibly), where you don't need planning permission for a roof install. Electrically speaking, if they're not in series with the others, then it "should" work. But I'd install them flat against the wall for cosmetic reasons and just accept they won't give the same electricity output as the ones on the roof. (alternatively, do you have a garage, or even a shed, to put them on instead...?)
looks like possible shadow on lower part of wall. mount panels sideways. may need to check array for inverter though. i would have mounted east facing panels on ground south facing if u have garden space.
Am almost at the point of ordering this. I was thinking of putting in 2 x 8.2k AC coupled batteries, a diverter, prob with a new inverter, I already have a solar installation and an inverter which are 10 years old from the previous owner, not sure if I will need a new inverter but probably to work with all the smart features this battery system offers. My goal is to eventually be 100% solar and a large battery system. I want to beat my fix ending in April and hopefully get the batteries installed before my bills more than double, and buy all our energy overnight for use intra day and use the solar for topping up or diverting to the immersion heater. I am with Eon and have a chat with them booked on Tuesday so yes it will hopefully be interest free. At the moment my Gas and electric use are about equal but I definitely want to start using more electric especially solar to heat the water and heating. I cant add or upgrade the solar panels yet due to FITS restrictions which is a shame as I would have done that with a solaredge set up to make the best out of the panels. I was lucky to buy this house 2 1/2 years ago and it has one of the original FITS rates, lucky me eh. As I am at least getting one of the batteries I thought might as well go the whole hog and put 2 in. at this time of year we use well over 10Kw a day sometimes up to 20 with laundry, cooking, working from home, tumble drier so best buy all that energy overnight and export back potentially in the future with an octopus tarif when i switch to them at some point. Your videos have been very useful many thanks Your diverter was an optional extra yes? I see it on their website givenergy but I don't think it comes as standard?
Don't use the side wall set up a free standing south facing array in the garden and it will help top up the generation from each side during the day. You can get pre-assembled steel frame brackets for doing this then you just need to run the cable into the battery/charger area.
I've had a same idea to install extra pv pannels as a sun blocker above the windows on the sun side, should make a difference in heat comming in during summer.
Build a sliding system on the roof (towards the back of the roof where it is less noticeable) and layer the 4 solar panels above the existing ones, then make the solar panels slide out (using servos??) during peak hours and back in once the peak hours are over.
I love the way people are so obsessed with having a bigger and bigger array. All you gonna end up doing is putting more and more energy back into the grid and considering you’re only get paid a small amount it doesn’t warrant the extra investment. 14 panel 4 1/2 kW system is the most popular in the UK for a very good reason. It’s optimised to give you the best return.
If you put those panels on the South wall, mount them tilted a bit, they'll catch more volts, and shed the rain (it IS Yorkshire) away from the wall and windows!
Hi Buddy... U have several options as 2 what 2 do with the 4 pannels u have... It all depends on ur current equipments parameters & how much ur willing 2 spend etc... If @ all possible I would add the extra 4 pannels 2 ur system... Havinng said that as ur already using both ur (MPPT) inputs on ur Hybrid Inverter box, so this may not b possible without spending a bit of cash... The quick way is 2 use Y-spliters & Diodes (u can get them on amazon - search "MC4 Y" the solid ones r best)... but its not the proper way... Best 2 use a MPPT device etc. (PS. u only need 1 pair of diodes on the posative / negative side not both) If u go the Y-Spliter route, u might b better off putting the E+W on the splitter through 1 MPPT & the South on its own channel... It also depends what ur inverters minimum voltage is... 4 Pannels may not b enough.! Check with the manufacturer directly how best 2 add ur 4 pannels as a "Third String"... Then asses wheater its gonna b worth ur while 2 do that. It might not be worth it, but it would b very good 2 get some pure South facing pannels in 2 the mix... Having said all of the above... I wouldn't have them Vertically on the wall... as they won't perform well @ that angle.! Ur better of putting them on a carport (flat - horizontal / angled is always best) or on a shed / pergola / over a deck area etc.. A "solar shed" (summer house type) where u can work from might b a good idea 4 u... U can do ur own battery & DC LED lights etc from that... Ur other option is 2 make a "ground mounted tracker"... 4 pannels is the perfect size 4 that. It would make a great series of videos. Check with the provider if they will take them back & refund u... Worst case senario Keep them as spares / sell them..! Hope that helps.
You can put them on the south facing wall, but unless you have optimisers it's going to drag down the output on the current string. You could do that with a solar edge inverter or maybe wire it in on a different string maybe it would boost the winter output a bit as the sun is low. You see this in ski resorts 🤔
great video. I feel your passion as once I got my house fitted with panels, I couldnt stop there....I then got more panels on the roof.....then the garage.....then even the nw roof to capture evening sun...then a battery (solax). This battery system sounds great though, the link with octopus is surely the future of smart home generation
There is the option of building a pergola in the garden for BBQs etc and put the solar panels on top of that, creates a nice shaded area in the garden... well I say shaded but you have that 90% of the year any way living in Yorkshire lol
Really interesting video. Many thanks EVM. Being a Scotsman, like you Yorkshiremen, I have shall we say, frugal leanings. That's a great price for the setup. Looks great. Love the divert options, the agility re tariffs to buy/export electricity. Love the fact you're outwitting those nasty utility companies. I've had my eye on powerwall stuff for a while esp self build off grid setups (eg Jehu Garcia) but all of those builds are still quite complex (no kits ready out of the box, just add batteries) and they all utilise 18650 batteries, so I'm really interested in the battery technology used here. At that system price, it seems too good to be true. Looking forward to some more content from you on this topic. Deffo going to look this company up, this is the way forward. If communities are too insular to negotiate group bulk buy utility tariffs from providers, which we are, this is the way to go. I salute you!
Haha my "specialist solar installers" said that I could for 8 solar panels, when it was actually only 6 there was space for, they even knicked one of the paid solar panels but I managed to hang into one 260 watt panel for a project. Obviously I couldn't just add it to the six as they were legally only that size for Feed in Tariff purposes, so I connected it to two kettles which were then used to fill a bit tea run as we like our cuppa and pennies as much as you Yorkshire folk. The kettle elements are just a bit resistor and for the months of the year boil up nicely for free every day. I would love to add more but waiting for solar paint as space and orientation of my house demands it...would love to have a bit battery or/and an electric car but once all of my kids left home, the forever homes power demands reduce considerably...looking forward to the next instalment. Personally I like your house stone walls so I'd find somewhere down the garden for the spare four panels...
Brilliant, at last an idea of how an integrated system works. I would ask two questions Can it do, or will it be able to do, car to house? Does it need a smart meter? Re the panels on the wall. The extra generation would be useful. I would put them up although I might consider west facing them if the battery was easily filled with what you have. I would check with my wife though as it won't look as nice as the stone (Might insulate the house a bit though). I had a small battery fitted (by a bunch of bandits) which does save 2.4kWh and can out-put 1.3 kW so I intend to expand it. I was lucky enough to get onto the early FIT so it's not the end of the world if I export it. I'm not sure that most people understand that without some kind of storage then, especially with the near zero tariff, most of the value of your hard earned sunlight goes to the electricity board. My system works well, but as I have a ground source heat pump I need something that will put 2.5 kW into the house. A list of competent electricians would be nice. Too many bandits using converted heating engineers with ½ hour of training.
Happy wife happy life, don’t ruin that beautiful house. Could you please put a link in the comments or the description for the video of we’re you’ve bought the equipment from please, because I’m waiting what you have but have no idea what to look for or where. Great videos as normal and can’t wait for the follow up.
Just spotted this at the last minute to help the man maths!
0% finance - www.eonenergy.com/solar-battery-storage.html (I didn't buy through them, just to be clear).
Man maths galore!
Sounds like an amazing system.
I don't currently even have a smart system and we currently pay 0.128p a kWh
@@iKaGe01 Did you mean 12.8p per kWh or is that a net cost after solar and a feed in tariff?
@@bobf711 Sorry yes, 12.8p I was doing it in pounds for some reason.
The idea to get solar and battery has interested me for a while to get cheap night rates but the payback time is still 3 years and 0% at around 222 a month for the one from Eon at least.
I guess after that, savings galore though
You said that the batteries will not go on fire if damaged. What battery chemistry are they? Perhaps lithium titanate?
@@judo-rob5197 Lithium Iron Phosphate according to their website.
Do not out them on the wall, get an A frame for.the garden. I run a a East West split and built my own battery.😂
The four panels I would place them towards the winter morning sun on Your fine old house. As to say it in German: "Morgenstund' hat Gold im Mund"
If you want to add the last 4 panels you may need a second inverter unless you have an optimiser system. A string array into a single inverter works best when all panels are at the same angle and no single one is shaded. If any panel in the string isn't generating it will block the flow of power and limit the output of the array so you'd effectively clip the output of your roof array. You should check with the installer to see how this system works, maybe a power optimiser could be used or a smaller second inverter.
I wouldn’t put them on the side! The house brickwork is beautiful, don’t ruin it with panels. Resell them and take the small hit
It’s not actually brickwork. New housing has a breeze block with a thin stone effect façade
@@maytopian not in the uk. They still use proper bricks. Plenty of new estates being thrown up near me in brick and block. Brick slips are more expensive. This house is proper stone (due to where it is) but modern build so internal breeze block.
This house is up norf so nobody thinks of aesthetically pleasing bricks. too busy shuffling past with their whippets in the cold wind to notice. stick the panels on the wall and keep warm.
You're putting up solar panels they're ugly as hell so you put them on the side of the house and the roof of the house you might as well just get over it or more like get over yourself you want renewable energy there's nothing renewable more renewable than oil and gas it's being made under your feet as we speak there's no dinosaur or fossils in fuel there's no such thing as fossil fuel.
The bunch of calming rot just like global warming or weather change yeah the weather changes all right some are the winter you know you try to make it more complex all that is is a way to keep you busy your mouth blathering on about how this and all that calamity why all the calamity life isn't that hard.
I'd make a little awning and use the solar panels as the roof. That would make a feature of them that could provide you some additional use.
You beat me too it! great idea, wooden lean too area for outside use
Build a solar porch, for keeping your beer dry while BBQ'ing in August!!
Car port 😁
shed or why did they not buy them back off you since they said two figures then they should have just charged you for what they used
Came here to say that. Also the 90 deg angle makes a huge difference to effectiveness.
(As a Halifax resident) No, it would ruin it. They are too big. Could even disguise them as brise soleil. As others here have recommended - solar porch or solar car port if you've room.
Car port is a great idea! Seems like there could be space.
It took me 9 months before I stopped obsessing over the power graphs from my solar/battery system. And recently I found I could buy a modbus adaptor for a few quid and interrogate the hybrid inverter from a raspberry pi.
You could make a miniature gazebo for your back wall and use the solar panels as the roofing.
Great diversification to the whole renewable energy side.
This will make great content for all the people like me, who
are very interested in this field, but know very little about it.
👍👍👍
Hi EVM any chance of an update on your Solar and Givenergy battery, I’m looking at options for my own setup, so keen to get real world experiences.
We have a 4 kWh solar array on a FiT and had a Powerwall 1 that failed. Tesla replaced it free with a Powerwall 2 and chucked in a gateway, too. This summer I was off grid for a few months and I charged my car on the granny charger during the day to extract the solar whilst charging the car and Powerwall whilst running the home.
These solar and battery combos, whichever you choose, are absolutely amazing. And Octopus Energy is amazing, too.
Just had this fitted. Been superb in saving us money. Production of energy has far exceeded expectations and funny enough the battery powering the home evening to morning has been a revelation to say the least! Thanks for your thoughts on it. Was really helpful
Please place in the brightest Spot in your garden where the Sun is still visible at sunset.
If you buy the solar panels at the same time as the battery you will also save vat in uk on the battery , if added afterwards battery has to have vat added . Looks like the system you have is well priced and good investment
Yes use the side of the wall. Every lil bit of energy counts when the weather is not the best.
Great unbiased video 👍 I have just gone through the same journey, had same battery , but the Ac coupled invertor with panels(due to complicated roof array) fitted last month.
With all the different choices and suppliers, I was skeptical that the Givenergy system was too good to be true, as I couldn’t find many reviews about it. Must say it’s great and works exactly as it should. Balancing the battery storage with the best Agile prices and the good old lack of winter sunshine gets quite addictive😀😀 I am looking for the best weather app now to predict the sunlight hours for the next few days now, so I can plan it better 😉 Looking forward to see how you get on with it all, great system,great price 👍👍
I’m not sure why your so amazed by something that most inverter companies do already. It’s called a hybrid inverter. I appreciate the thorough explanation of how it works. Good education to the community. Installers and consumers need to watch stuff like this over and over to understand the concept.
You’ve got me hooked😀 more vids on this please😀
I went for Enphase individual inverters on each panel . Advantage is each panel is its own generator and no worries about a large invertor failing .i also went for a powervault 3 battery.
"winter and august"
It'd be funny if it weren't so depressing.
August. Thats that bank holiday when it rains right?
That's the one.
You do have a very good looking stone wall, it might mess up the look of your building by putting black panels on them
I agree it is a very nice stone wall. The stone will probably be better served exposed to the sun and create a bigger thermal mass.
Re: extra panels I had approx same situation and ended up fitting six panels on a shed roof (well more of a workshop/cabin but basically if you can find room in the garden for a shed with a decent roof...)
We have 2 seasons
Winter and August 🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
Love it..💕❣️🤣
Hi from Australia 🇦🇺
Looking forward to seeing the man maths that you put to the wife for permission to invest !!!!!!!!!
Just had a system installed (mid December) with a 10kwh battery and we charge at night (cheap tariff) and use it during the day, which has more than halved our usage and we get about 5kwh average atm (Feb/march - highest 13kwh) from our 3kwh south facing array. I too had extra panels and will be using them to make a solar powered quadricycle (learning to weld atm) and to put on our caravan.
Good luck with whatever project you go for...my favourite would be the garden conservatory/BBQ area facing South
Wow, here in Aust our average elec price is $0.20 kWh and can max to $0.50 kWh in peak time + approx $0.90 per day connection fee.
If you're in a conservation area the default planning permission for solar panels doesn't cover wall mounted panels. They'll probably attract unwanted attention also. Sell em. Many home batterys use LIFEPo4 chemistry as its the cheapest option. None of them use Cobalt..
Sounds like a great little system. The spare solar panels could become a solar roofed veranda on the back of the house, somewhere to sit out off the rain outdoors. Or as a gadget type project, a solar shelter for any electric car left outside of the garage. Roll it out, plug it in. I nearly called it a solar sunshade then remembered where you live. :) x
Use them as awnings over the windows! Put them at an angle to stop summer sun from coming in your windows.
Make house dark in winter tho
Mount then on a trailer and tow them behind your Tesla. Just remember to always park in the sun 😂
😂
just ordered a 12.1 kWh Givenergy Battery and Inverter (9.5 + 2.6 kWh batteries - thanks for the info - much appreciated
You need to ensure your inverter has the ability to plug 2 strings in to have a second array on a different aspect. If they were all on the same string then all panels would only be as efficient as the worse performing one and one aspect would be less efficient than the other at any given time.
Richard: A very valid point and correct in everything you say. If mounting the surplus panels on a porch or a frame in the garden where they are lower than those on the roof, particular care must be taken to check that no part of any of the panels, not even a corner, is ever covered by shade. If it is, then each of those panels will need its own separate micro inverter otherwise, as you point out, the performance of the whole of that array will be only that of the shaded portion even if the rest is in full sun.
@@ianmathieson65 Agreed, although I thought optimisers were used if you already had a main inverter.
We had 5.6kWp of solar and the Givenergy 5kW inverter with 2x5.2kWh batteries installed in the summer, they have been great. And you’re right monitoring does be come an obsession! We were having other electrical work done, so we had them wire up the emergency supply while that were at it. One thing to be aware of is that pure battery output is limited to 2.5kW, so just need to make sure that multiple appliances aren’t pulling too much power at the same time or your start importing. Interesting to hear about the solar divert capabilities, will be interesting to see how they can be used. At present I have the immersion heater on a WiFi plug and can then turn it on when the batteries are full and we are exporting power, but ITTT integration would be cool.
Octopus have an API that allows their prices to be pulled, then put to use in any way that suits. Enabling a load of smart plugs when tariff is lowest wouldn’t be a bad idea.
Hi David. I had the Givenergy 5kWh hybrid inverter and 8.2kWh battery installed in August. Have you had any monitoring issues? If I charge at night on cheap Agile rates and use the time delay discharge setting so the energy is saved for 4pm onwards my PV generation stats for that day start going backwards! :) Givenergy are telling me that this is a bug their developers are working to fix. The 5 minute data packets drive me crazy when trying to see exactly what the system is doing. They also tell me they are working on a 1 minute refresh. I'm not impressed at all with the monitoring to be honest. It looks nice but I wouldn't trust what it is telling me as far as I could throw the battery. :)
@@SteveH377 I agree the 5 minute delays are less than ideal. I haven’t had the monitoring issues you describe, but I use the system on “mode 1 - dynamic” and at the moment charge the battery at night on Octopus Go using the “battery smart charge” feature. I was having an issue where the battery would stop charging before it was full, which GivEnergy spotted corresponded with the voltage spiking to 59v, they thought this could be an installation issue using the wrong type of wire and had the installed come back and change it. But before that I thought that maybe a good old fashioned “turn it off and on again” was in order and that moved the battery led indicators up a level and once the inverter was also rebooted it started reporting 100% again. I think it’s safe to say this is not the most polished software/firmware, but the functionality seem reasonable and increasing, there was no Octopus Agile integration earlier in the year, plus the price seems reasonable compared to others. Hopefully GivEnergy will continue to finesse the portal and the app could do with a refresh too.
@@dcsh78 Thanks David. I'm going to test out the new Agile setting today to see what happens. I also had some issues with the battery tripping the breaker. This was down to the installer fitting the wrong size unit - 63amp. It has now been replaced with a Givenergy branded 80amp breaker and all seems to be OK. I hope they can do something about the refresh times on the app soon.
4 panels in series is probably not enough voltage to be a separate string on your inverter....
This is a great video, honest opinions and very sincere presentation. Ref your spare panels, I've looked at a lot of the comments and no one has mentioned wind loading. Be careful where you put them and how they are secured, especially having experienced Yorkshire weather on the cricket pitches at Ampleforth...a solar man cave at the bottom of the garden maybe?
This is awesome! I have just had the exact same installation, 8.2kWh battery and 16x 410w panels on an E/W facing roof! Uncannily similar! November not the best time to install solar, where's the damn sun! I am also on Octopus but on the Go tariff, 13p /kWh in the day, 5p /kWh between 12.30 and 4.30am every night. I have a Tesla model 3, and I set that to charge from 12.30am every night, which gives me just over 1p per mile cost. There's a Battery smart charge option on the GivEnergy inverter, which you can tell it to import electricity between set times to fill up the battery at night and it will power the house during the day on days where the weather is shite. My whole installation cost £9k fitted.
You mentioned solar divert - not sure what this is, mine can't choose where to put excess electricity, it just exports it back to the grid if the battery is full. Maybe that's how it's been wired? Also I can't find a good solution for a car trickle charge. The Tesla has an option to limit the charge current but you have to do that in the car, bit annoying, so on a sunny day I will set that to 5 amps and then start charging the car if the batter is over 90% full, but it's a bit of micromanagement I'd rather not have to think about.
I also can't find an "offical" GivEnergy app for Android - which I'd love because I can't use the phone to monitor at the moment.
Anyway, awesome video, looking forward to the next one!
Any more information on how installation your system and what invertor are you using?
Do you mind telling us who did the install please? I'm about to add batteries to my 10 yr old solar system and am after recommendations.
I would be reluctant to mount the panels over the lovely stonework and I wouldn’t be surprised if the planners might block you. Grow grapes on that wall and make your own wine.👍🏻
That's a great system. Nice to see how developed it is now. I had my panels installed 5 years ago and storage last year but things have moved on. The initial panels have paid back about half the install cost just from the FIT, the solar storage will never pay for itself in its lifetime but it's not always about the money. How is your system telling the car or car charger to start/stop the charge?
It doesn’t talk to it, it just ignores whatever it’s drawing from my consumer unit. (Ish)
"We only have 2 seasons, winter and August", classic. Sounds like most of Ireland 🇮🇪
East west arrays are great providing you have a separate inverter for each side or a single inverter with two separate MPPT tracker inputs for each side. Connecting both the east and west side to a single MPPT tracker would perform very poorly.
That's a lovely wall. I wouldn't put solar panels on it unless that side of the house is shielded from view.
Wall mounted panels are prone to damage and I don't know for definite but suspect there will be a minimum height regulation with the wiring output being quite a high DC voltage. My house is the same orientation E/W and I decided to place all my panels on the West elevation due to shading for a period in the morning on the East facing elevation. Average generation approx 2200KWh a year on 3.6KW costal system in N Yorkshire you will gat a better production inland.
How about a simple car port use the panels for the roof
South facing wall might be much better than a roof towards south!
In winter months with low sun - this south facing wall will be great!
Make as less holes in the wall as possible!
Try with 4 holes at optimal diameter!
the only thing i would add, is if you put it on the back south facing wall, try and get the pine trees trimmed , you would get a bit more sun. but brilliant going to source it now. thankyou.
Great video and it looks as if it could make sense even without Solar as I'm on Octopus Go right now and trying to evaluate if Octopus Agile makes sense for me (there's an idea for your White-board Maths, is there an easy formula?) since I don't need to charge my EV every night. By-The-Way if you're considering capturing off-peak to heat water consider a HeatBattery from SunAmp. I've one which stores about 10.5 kWh and although I have it plumbed to recharge from the Gas Boiler I ONLY recharge from the 5p/kWh OctopusGo using the 3kW heater. Heat Batteries sore the heat energy and instantly heat the water on demand at far higher flow rates that a Gas Combie and using Octopus 100% Green energy a far lower Carbon Footprint.
I've been considering a heat battery and house battery to go along with my solar PV, so i can ditch my Gas boiler. I'm also on Octopus and it sounds like i need to have a chat with them about what will be right for me.
Build an A frame in the garden, presuming you have the land
"CEO is a Yorkshireman" Does that mean you get a discount if you know all the words to "Ilkley Moor", including the rude ones we used to sing on school bus trips?
Excellent video, we installed a solar array + a heat exchanger system for hot water behind 8 of the panels about 8 years ago. It was cutting edge at the time and is horribly archaic now which shows how far things have come in a short period.
Your Inverter is a Dual MPPT inverter with East and West on separate strings (I see the 4 x DC cables coming from your DC shutoff). I hope you added more bias to the West string rather than the East, since you'll use more power at teatime than in the morning, so people should look to maximize production in the afternoon.
Ordinarily, South facing panels on a flat wall are actually a very good idea, since their output will increase as the sun goes lower in the sky. However, in your case, the problem with South panels would be that you would need to add them to the East OR West array. The problem then is that when an array is shaded, ALL panels on that string will output the same lowest common denominator. To get the maximum output from these, you'd need to install Optimizers on each panel on the East or West string.
An option would be to install south panels using Micro-Inverters instead. However, those trees outside look high - are they likely to cause shading in the evening ?
Lastly, I'm not sure that a battery will ever pay for itself. You'd have to be replacing one hell of an amount of full price peak units will solar stored units. I'd say a lot of people would be interested to see those calculations
Excellent information. As for your panels , side of the house no. You've a nice looking property, shame to ruin the aesthetic. Do you have a garden shed or space to construct a pergola, against the rear of the house, that could work. ps givenergy should be recognise your spreading the word e.g. Tesla top up gift card or something. 👍
I have four 1650 x 991 panels mounted on the south facing gable end wall on my house using the three piece aluminium ground mount brackets and they work really well with the east west split for the other twelve panels on the roof giving me charge all day long as the sun moves round to the west. Where i live we get frequent storms with strong winds and they have not moved an inch so I say go for it but put them on with raw bolts and not screws.
Do you have optimisers on
I've have more than enough room on my roof just to help you out. lol.
Put then on the wall. Vertical inclination is pretty good in mid-winter which is when you want the boost most. With a system with storage and no significant FiT then you most want to boost winter output rather than doing max output. Winter optimised is about 19 degrees off vertical, but vertical isn't bad.
Hi, thanks for your informative videos, I’ve just had a 8.2kw pv system installed with a 8.2kw GivEnergy battery and 2 zappi chargers for our 2 e transporters (which are out when the sun is!) but we have generated 45kw each day since installation, which is great.
I’m in Octopus go however was contemplating agile but have kinda got cold feet!
Can you advise as to if it’s worth while switching to agile when I get my export docs in order?
Also should I consider increasing my battery capacity?
Thanks is advance.
2 Zappi chargers ? Just asking as I need to 2 the guy that quoted us said can only have one electric car charger . Cheers in advance .
Hi neil what size inverter did you use running a 8.2kw system?
Just had my self solar install approved by the DNO. Very happy with that. Now looking at wind Turbine to power water heater.
Practically yes, aesthetically No.
aesthetics? Are you really going to be showing off the batteries in your garage so much to so many pretentious people that the looks of them is that important? I guess it takes all sorts of people to make the world go round...
@@instanoodles I meant the aesthetics of the lovely natural stone over gloss black PV panels! but yes taste is a personal thing.
Stone wall is nicer. Batteries looked good.
I have built several houses and lodges that are off grid. They were all in rural locations and used either solar or wind turbines. (one used both and a lodge development used a networked system). In practical terms solar works best on a SW elevation in England and Wales. Scotland is wind turbine. The best angle for a solar panel in the Midlands is 35 degrees. This does matter. Mounting on a vertical wall is not difficult.
I’d have thought there are planning issues with panels on a wall. The planning exemption usually only applies if the panels are on the roof & following the pitch of the roof. BTW, maybe the installer could invest in a few cable clips. 😉
I agree, I think the local authority would not allow wall mounted especially on such a lovely facade, a call to your local planning dept will confirm.
A ground frame to mount them on works well. Can be used to boost input to the main system or power a shed with a small heater/beer fridge etc.
Need planning permission for that.
Do it "The Martian" style...
Mark Watney approved :)
4 panels mount them floor mounted along that wall, make a wooden frame to angle them 40 / 45 degrees - make them onto the invertor 2nd string, they will work you can double stack them so they do not block the windows and once up they will provide power for you a lot better. Mine are similar issues but the 600w panels in the garden take up the slack as shading comes across my roof. You'll find summer your generating from 4am onwards and then if you can mount those other 4 correctly then into the long evenings. Get them doubled stacked up against that south wall. My plan is to eventually put my 3 panels onto the shed roof which will help massively overall.
He already has east/west, so likely both strings occupied...
@@marcexec depends if he covered both sides of the roof or does he just mean the one side of the roof that runs east / west
Do not put the panels on the side unless...you want a quick divorce!😂
In the Netherlands we see a lot of Solar on carports. So you could park youre car under it and get the solar panels on top of it. Your car won’ t get wet or stays cool in the summer and on top of that you build a rack so that youre solar panels are at the optimal angle
Put the panels up, we've plenty of stone to look at
You have probably sorted this by now but thought I would just add a comment. I mounted evacuated tube solar collectors flush onto a south facing wall. I did not want them sticking out as it would look unsightly. I found they worked ok and also the low angle of the sun in the winter was better than they would have been on the roof. I mounted them at the same height as the windows so they did not look as out of place.
Don't put them on your lovely wall
Hi EVM. Thanks for all of the great content. I hope you don’t mind a couple of questions regarding domestic solar. What equipment would I need to be totally off grid. The reason for the question is that we have had solar installed recently and on regular occasions, when the battery is over 90%, the solar is about 4.5kW and the load is maybe 1kW a very small draw is made from the grid. It is usually around 40 watts but has been 135w. It’s not a lot but has to be payed for as we are not on a feed in tariff yet. I’m asking you as you are very up on all of this and the provider has only come back with vague answers and sound as if they don’t have a clue. Thanks in anticipation and keep up the great work.
No battery can respond quick enough not to have inertia usage like this.
The best option if you do want off grid (as opposed to grid netural) is the GivEnergy All In One.
vehicle to grid or home will be a game changer especially if it is smart!!
Nice setup. We enjoy our Tesla Powewalls. They lets us avoid high rates at peak periods this time of year with low solar, and run for weeks without pulling power from grid in summer.
Can you regularly give an overview of the solar panel yield and costs compared to before that time. That makes it insightful for a lot of people.
Build a pergola and put them on top. You can position it wherever you want then.
Hell yes.
I would suspend them on uneven length brackets where the bottom is out farther from the wall than the top have them track the sun east to west unless you're in the other of hemisphere.
Two on the top one beside the window on the left on each side
Having just (at the start of this year) bought our first house I've signed up with a local council-run scheme to bulk-buy solar installations. We're waiting for our survey at the moment, but I think we're looking at about 3 1/2 kW (nominal), then adding battery storage at some point down the line - I'd get it now, but "just bought a house".
Just had a GivEnergy battery system installed with 4x 5.2 kwh batteries.
I already have solar panels on my house 4.2 kW, and I’m looking at getting battery storage. I’m really looking forward to future videos 👍
Just incase you didn't follow EVM's link, the interest free offer is available whether you want to add a battery to your existing array or buy their solar panels.
@@johnmckay1423 thank you John
@@johnmckay1423 which link?
@@diddybopper2052 In his pinned comment, link to Eon energy. No point in me repeating it, since RUclips removes comments with links - I guess there must be an exception for the channel owner. However, also bear in mind that the video is over a year old. No idea whether they're still running the offer.
Have you looked into air source heat pumps, or combined AC with heat pumps. Very efficient. This will be home heating in the future and combined with your setup very cost effective.
Do you have a link for that?
I have GSHP and have looked into solar. This does not work, because the energy demand for the heat pump is inverse to the energy generated by the solar. About half of my energy consumption is in three months, december, january, february. solar produces most power june, july, august. These household batteries store enough power to last for a for a day, not six months. A wind turbine however...
@@IanYork surely then these batteries are perfect for you.....size the system to meet at least the three hour peak (both in terms of current required- maybe more than one inverter needed- and battery capacity) for your peak winter demand then you will be able to buy all your electricity at around 5p a unit. In the summer months your excess solar during the day can be stored in the batteries to last you all night meaning for much of the summer you import no electricity at all. Winter and summer you are never storing energy for more than 24hours.
Prop extra panels against bottom of wall. Then you can adjust them seasonally. Flat in summer, pitch up in winter. I have some hedge mounted solar like this
This website will help you optimise the angle of the panels: re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/tools.html
purpose built garden shed / shelter / lean to , it has a dual purpose then and wwill blend in and look normal.
For anyone who already has solar there is an excellent alternative from GivEnergy of an AC inverter that can also transfer the excess PV generation that you get in August to the battery, but has the huge additional advantage for the other 11 months of being able to charge your battery from cheap off-peak electricity overnight (5p per kWH) and let you use this power in place of more expensive electricity during the day, or opt in to sell your surplus power back in the evening at a profit. So this has a far shorter payback even if you install this 3kw AC inverter as a second inverter on a new system! Keep up the good work!
But will the new battery installed to my existing solar panels effect payments from FIT?
I believe you need planning permission to put solar panels on a wall (depending on whether it's visible from the road possibly), where you don't need planning permission for a roof install.
Electrically speaking, if they're not in series with the others, then it "should" work. But I'd install them flat against the wall for cosmetic reasons and just accept they won't give the same electricity output as the ones on the roof. (alternatively, do you have a garage, or even a shed, to put them on instead...?)
Use Renusol plastic pv mounts on the ground no planning needed as not a permanent structure. They are black tubs weighted down
looks like possible shadow on lower part of wall. mount panels sideways. may need to check array for inverter though. i would have mounted east facing panels on ground south facing if u have garden space.
Am almost at the point of ordering this. I was thinking of putting in 2 x 8.2k AC coupled batteries, a diverter, prob with a new inverter, I already have a solar installation and an inverter which are 10 years old from the previous owner, not sure if I will need a new inverter but probably to work with all the smart features this battery system offers.
My goal is to eventually be 100% solar and a large battery system. I want to beat my fix ending in April and hopefully get the batteries installed before my bills more than double, and buy all our energy overnight for use intra day and use the solar for topping up or diverting to the immersion heater. I am with Eon and have a chat with them booked on Tuesday so yes it will hopefully be interest free. At the moment my Gas and electric use are about equal but I definitely want to start using more electric especially solar to heat the water and heating.
I cant add or upgrade the solar panels yet due to FITS restrictions which is a shame as I would have done that with a solaredge set up to make the best out of the panels. I was lucky to buy this house 2 1/2 years ago and it has one of the original FITS rates, lucky me eh. As I am at least getting one of the batteries I thought might as well go the whole hog and put 2 in. at this time of year we use well over 10Kw a day sometimes up to 20 with laundry, cooking, working from home, tumble drier so best buy all that energy overnight and export back potentially in the future with an octopus tarif when i switch to them at some point. Your videos have been very useful many thanks
Your diverter was an optional extra yes? I see it on their website givenergy but I don't think it comes as standard?
Don't use the side wall set up a free standing south facing array in the garden and it will help top up the generation from each side during the day. You can get pre-assembled steel frame brackets for doing this then you just need to run the cable into the battery/charger area.
I've had a same idea to install extra pv pannels as a sun blocker above the windows on the sun side, should make a difference in heat comming in during summer.
Build a sliding system on the roof (towards the back of the roof where it is less noticeable) and layer the 4 solar panels above the existing ones, then make the solar panels slide out (using servos??) during peak hours and back in once the peak hours are over.
I'm itching to move into my new house because we'll have solar and I now have an idea of what battery system to get.
Probably your best video ever. Words of wisdom from God's county. Merry Christmas
I love the way people are so obsessed with having a bigger and bigger array. All you gonna end up doing is putting more and more energy back into the grid and considering you’re only get paid a small amount it doesn’t warrant the extra investment. 14 panel 4 1/2 kW system is the most popular in the UK for a very good reason. It’s optimised to give you the best return.
I have a battery, it won’t go in the grid.
Also, I’ve already got the panels so cost is tiny.
Did you actually watch the video?
If you put those panels on the South wall, mount them tilted a bit, they'll catch more volts, and shed the rain (it IS Yorkshire) away from the wall and windows!
Hi Buddy...
U have several options as 2 what 2 do with the 4 pannels u have...
It all depends on ur current equipments parameters & how much ur willing 2 spend etc...
If @ all possible I would add the extra 4 pannels 2 ur system...
Havinng said that as ur already using both ur (MPPT) inputs on ur Hybrid Inverter box,
so this may not b possible without spending a bit of cash...
The quick way is 2 use Y-spliters & Diodes (u can get them on amazon - search "MC4 Y" the solid ones r best)...
but its not the proper way... Best 2 use a MPPT device etc.
(PS. u only need 1 pair of diodes on the posative / negative side not both)
If u go the Y-Spliter route, u might b better off putting the E+W on the splitter through 1 MPPT & the South on its own channel...
It also depends what ur inverters minimum voltage is... 4 Pannels may not b enough.!
Check with the manufacturer directly how best 2 add ur 4 pannels as a "Third String"...
Then asses wheater its gonna b worth ur while 2 do that.
It might not be worth it, but it would b very good 2 get some pure South facing pannels in 2 the mix...
Having said all of the above... I wouldn't have them Vertically on the wall...
as they won't perform well @ that angle.!
Ur better of putting them on a carport (flat - horizontal / angled is always best) or on a shed / pergola / over a deck area etc..
A "solar shed" (summer house type) where u can work from might b a good idea 4 u...
U can do ur own battery & DC LED lights etc from that...
Ur other option is 2 make a "ground mounted tracker"... 4 pannels is the perfect size 4 that.
It would make a great series of videos.
Check with the provider if they will take them back & refund u...
Worst case senario Keep them as spares / sell them..!
Hope that helps.
You can put them on the south facing wall, but unless you have optimisers it's going to drag down the output on the current string. You could do that with a solar edge inverter or maybe wire it in on a different string maybe it would boost the winter output a bit as the sun is low. You see this in ski resorts 🤔
great video. I feel your passion as once I got my house fitted with panels, I couldnt stop there....I then got more panels on the roof.....then the garage.....then even the nw roof to capture evening sun...then a battery (solax). This battery system sounds great though, the link with octopus is surely the future of smart home generation
There is the option of building a pergola in the garden for BBQs etc and put the solar panels on top of that, creates a nice shaded area in the garden... well I say shaded but you have that 90% of the year any way living in Yorkshire lol
Really interesting video. Many thanks EVM. Being a Scotsman, like you Yorkshiremen, I have shall we say, frugal leanings. That's a great price for the setup. Looks great. Love the divert options, the agility re tariffs to buy/export electricity. Love the fact you're outwitting those nasty utility companies. I've had my eye on powerwall stuff for a while esp self build off grid setups (eg Jehu Garcia) but all of those builds are still quite complex (no kits ready out of the box, just add batteries) and they all utilise 18650 batteries, so I'm really interested in the battery technology used here. At that system price, it seems too good to be true. Looking forward to some more content from you on this topic. Deffo going to look this company up, this is the way forward. If communities are too insular to negotiate group bulk buy utility tariffs from providers, which we are, this is the way to go. I salute you!
Haha my "specialist solar installers" said that I could for 8 solar panels, when it was actually only 6 there was space for, they even knicked one of the paid solar panels but I managed to hang into one 260 watt panel for a project. Obviously I couldn't just add it to the six as they were legally only that size for Feed in Tariff purposes, so I connected it to two kettles which were then used to fill a bit tea run as we like our cuppa and pennies as much as you Yorkshire folk. The kettle elements are just a bit resistor and for the months of the year boil up nicely for free every day. I would love to add more but waiting for solar paint as space and orientation of my house demands it...would love to have a bit battery or/and an electric car but once all of my kids left home, the forever homes power demands reduce considerably...looking forward to the next instalment. Personally I like your house stone walls so I'd find somewhere down the garden for the spare four panels...
Brilliant, at last an idea of how an integrated system works. I would ask two questions
Can it do, or will it be able to do, car to house?
Does it need a smart meter?
Re the panels on the wall. The extra generation would be useful. I would put them up although I might consider west facing them if the battery was easily filled with what you have. I would check with my wife though as it won't look as nice as the stone (Might insulate the house a bit though).
I had a small battery fitted (by a bunch of bandits) which does save 2.4kWh and can out-put 1.3 kW so I intend to expand it. I was lucky enough to get onto the early FIT so it's not the end of the world if I export it. I'm not sure that most people understand that without some kind of storage then, especially with the near zero tariff, most of the value of your hard earned sunlight goes to the electricity board. My system works well, but as I have a ground source heat pump I need something that will put 2.5 kW into the house. A list of competent electricians would be nice. Too many bandits using converted heating engineers with ½ hour of training.
Happy wife happy life, don’t ruin that beautiful house.
Could you please put a link in the comments or the description for the video of we’re you’ve bought the equipment from please, because I’m waiting what you have but have no idea what to look for or where.
Great videos as normal and can’t wait for the follow up.
Contact Givenergy. Also put a pinned link in.
@@ElectricVehicleMan cool thanks 👍
What I noticed is that if you have a generator that you charged with solar panels it takes a lot less time the charge then batteries for inverter.
Would cost a bit but putting them on a solar tracker on the ground would be very efficient.
6:34 "it's magic"....sounded like Paul Daniels
Those pay back years just halfed as of this month 😂