Adding batteries

[canalsiderenovation]

We are considering adding batteries to our set up to avoid the peak time rates with Octopus and to hopefully make it as cheap as it can be in winter where we can charge up the batteries. We have our ASHP (Samsung AE120), 12 X 320w panels and Growatt 3600 and our Solic diverting excess to immersion and are also exporting any extra. 

 

I'm just curious what sort of size battery others have and how easy it will be to get an electrician to retrofit and where batteries will need to be situated? I'm hoping it doesn't need drilling into places we have had decorated because that really would be grounds for divorce. In fairness I've been going on about batteries for ages and the other half has finally agreed!

 

 

 

 

[Pocster]

Shouldn’t be to difficult to ‘retro’ fit a battery . The cheaper dc ones will need to be undercover . SolarEdge and Tesla are fine outside ( that’s the reason I choose them ) .

In terms of size required - depends on your usage and how efficient your place is to heat . In winter I almost manage off 22kw of storage .

[RichardL]

Read up on the solic - it likes to drain the battery - its not a showstopper - just be ready for it rather than a surprise.

Bottom line is the solic can't tell the difference between export and drawing from the battery.
Once it sees an export spike - from turning something off etc - it starts to divert what it thinks is real export to the water tank - and then tries to take a little more which the batteries supply.... and round it goes until the water is hot or the batteries are flat.

[canalsiderenovation]

29 minutes ago, RichardL said:

Read up on the solic - it likes to drain the battery - its not a showstopper - just be ready for it rather than a surprise.

Bottom line is the solic can't tell the difference between export and drawing from the battery.
Once it sees an export spike - from turning something off etc - it starts to divert what it thinks is real export to the water tank - and then tries to take a little more which the batteries supply.... and round it goes until the water is hot or the batteries are flat.

 

The Solic is going to be the death of me after we had issues before and then them honouring the warranty after the previous unit broke. Is this the same with any alternative to Solic or just their units?

 

1 hour ago, pocster said:

Shouldn’t be to difficult to ‘retro’ fit a battery . The cheaper dc ones will need to be undercover . SolarEdge and Tesla are fine outside ( that’s the reason I choose them ) .

In terms of size required - depends on your usage and how efficient your place is to heat . In winter I almost manage off 22kw of storage .

 

I'm getting a call off Segen to quote for the items (trade price) and then hopefully get them fitted separately (which may be a challenge as we need a knowledgeable sparky and the limited number of companies that deal in batteries round here I suspect won't want us to supply our own kit). For comparison I'll ask one of the renewable companies to quote too.

[RichardL]

Plenty of options vs. solic - issue is how much money do you drop into that hole before buying a heat pump water tank instead?

I'm letting the solic do its thing especially in the summer/lots of PV.
In the winter a makeshift shelley mod will push the boost button and heat water from off peak

Medium game is, probably a mixergy iHP?  Returns on those seem to be marginal though vs. just your immersion and 5kWh a few times a week to heat a tank?

[canalsiderenovation]

25 minutes ago, RichardL said:

Plenty of options vs. solic - issue is how much money do you drop into that hole before buying a heat pump water tank instead?

I'm letting the solic do its thing especially in the summer/lots of PV.
In the winter a makeshift shelley mod will push the boost button and heat water from off peak

Medium game is, probably a mixergy iHP?  Returns on those seem to be marginal though vs. just your immersion and 5kWh a few times a week to heat a tank?

 

Yes Solic is doing it's thing at moment and we are exporting so I can't complain!

 

On the Solic website it has the following info:

 

2023 Update (pending new documentation as of May 2023) If a SOLiC is installed with batteries, the Solic 200 prioritises battery storage, when fitted with them by having an initial 10 second activation delay on seeing an export, and a 0-50 watt grid threshold to protect the energy already stored in your battery.

[RichardL]

4 minutes ago, canalsiderenovation said:

as of May 2023

Nice -   those features would be perfect - I wonder if you can upgrade the firmware?

[canalsiderenovation]

Just now, RichardL said:

Nice -   those features would be perfect - I wonder if you can upgrade the firmware?

No idea but our replacement Solic came in February this year. I will definitely email and ask.

[canalsiderenovation]

13 minutes ago, RichardL said:

Nice -   those features would be perfect - I wonder if you can upgrade the firmware?

 

Seems like this could be possible. They posted recently on Facebook about it https://fb.watch/l72sG9xUAX/

[SteamyTea]

Before getting over excited about fitting batteries, have a good look at your energy usage time series, then work out where you can change the loads, or shift them to the cheap rate.

Also look at what it would cost on different tariffs, people get hung up on just one part of a tariff and loose sight of the whole.

[Nickfromwales]

3 hours ago, RichardL said:

Medium game is, probably a mixergy iHP?  Returns on those seem to be marginal though

What a kerfuffle! I'm not a big fan of these re-invented wheels.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Before getting over excited about fitting batteries, have a good look at your energy usage time series, then work out where you can change the loads, or shift them to the cheap rate.

Also look at what it would cost on different tariffs, people get hung up on just one part of a tariff and loose sight of the whole.

Also look at what difference V2G will bring about, as this will likely make a lot of domestic batteries nigh-on redundant eg for anyone who works from home / is retired etc. You would be plugging the house into the car then and not the other way around!

[canalsiderenovation]

13 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Also look at what difference V2G will bring about, as this will likely make a lot of domestic batteries nigh-on redundant eg for anyone who works from home / is retired etc. You would be plugging the house into the car then and not the other way around!

 

I doubt we will ever get electric vehicles. We live next to the cheapest petrol station in the UK and it just doesn't add up for us (we both work from home and have minimal vehicle use).

 

We will be on Flux in summer and Cosy in winter. A battery will help in the peak times 4-7pm (cooking meals) and we can charge in the cheaper 20p times (3 hours on Flux and 6 hours on Cosy).

 

[SteamyTea]

3 minutes ago, canalsiderenovation said:

battery will help in the peak times 4-7pm (

Let's say you use an average of 3 kW for 3 hours, 9 kWh or at 50p/kWh £4.5/day.

£1650/year.

Now you will need a 10 kWh system, plus the price of charging it up.

Say you can get a system that will last a decade, so £1000/year plus the charging cost of £525.

So you save £75/year, or £1.45/day.

 

Thing is, you probably only use a couple if kWh a day cooking, and not every day as well.

 

At the moment we have volatile energy prices, and declining energy storage prices.

How would you feel if you could buy in power at below 20p/kWh any time of day or night, and storage cost £120/kWh.

 

There are easier ways to save a quid and a half.

 

 

[canalsiderenovation]

3 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Let's say you use an average of 3 kW for 3 hours, 9 kWh or at 50p/kWh £4.5/day.

£1650/year.

Now you will need a 10 kWh system, plus the price of charging it up.

Say you can get a system that will last a decade, so £1000/year plus the charging cost of £525.

So you save £75/year, or £1.45/day.

 

Thing is, you probably only use a couple if kWh a day cooking, and not every day as well.

 

At the moment we have volatile energy prices, and declining energy storage prices.

How would you feel if you could buy in power at below 20p/kWh any time of day or night, and storage cost £120/kWh.

 

There are easier ways to save a quid and a half.

 

 

 

Valid point! I doubt prices will reduce to the 20p all the time anytime soon though unfortunately. It's the winter that's a killer for us really.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, canalsiderenovation said:

We live next to the cheapest petrol station in the UK and it just doesn't add up for us (we both work from home and have minimal vehicle use).

Cheap isn't free is it  You're also missing a trick here. I'd do nothing until V2G comes to life, and dump all this money and effort into an EV. You'll then have nigh-on 100% self-consumption and the house then plugs into the car. For your situation, and the amount of PV you have, an EV with V2G and no domestic battery is the money shot (subject to you being able to afford one of the smaller bi-directional EV's when the time comes). Or you install batteries now, use them for the decade or so you'll get before they snuff it, and THEN go EV on V2G and not replace the domestic batteries.

Can't you swap the car to a used hybrid? That would make bucket-loads of sense right now. 

[canalsiderenovation]

11 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Cheap isn't free is it  You're also missing a trick here. I'd do nothing until V2G comes to life, and dump all this money and effort into an EV. You'll then have nigh-on 100% self-consumption and the house then plugs into the car. For your situation, and the amount of PV you have, an EV with V2G and no domestic battery is the money shot (subject to you being able to afford one of the smaller bi-directional EV's when the time comes). Or you install batteries now, use them for the decade or so you'll get before they snuff it, and THEN go EV on V2G and not replace the domestic batteries.

Can't you swap the car to a used hybrid? That would make bucket-loads of sense right now. 

 

True! We have two diesel cars, did less than 1000 miles in past 12 months, £20 tax each and diesel 129.9 (or was in last few days).

 

V2G sounds very interesting though and maybe holding off a battery for now would make sense.

[JohnMo]

V2G needs a vehicle that can do reverse power supply only a couple do at the moment and you need the correct charger that can handle the flows back and forth.

 

Then you need to lease the vehicle, so you cycle the battery to death and then in a couple of year get a new one and start again.

[Pocster]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Let's say you use an average of 3 kW for 3 hours, 9 kWh or at 50p/kWh £4.5/day.

£1650/year.

Now you will need a 10 kWh system, plus the price of charging it up.

Say you can get a system that will last a decade, so £1000/year plus the charging cost of £525.

So you save £75/year, or £1.45/day.

 

Thing is, you probably only use a couple if kWh a day cooking, and not every day as well.

 

At the moment we have volatile energy prices, and declining energy storage prices.

How would you feel if you could buy in power at below 20p/kWh any time of day or night, and storage cost £120/kWh.

 

There are easier ways to save a quid and a half.

 

 

Well - this ignores some things .

You could end up exporting at 35p a kw - like I do . I estimate I’ll earn £1000 a year from that .

What no one seems to understand ( I do - I got a pw in 2020 and was mocked on here for ‘ a waste of money ‘ etc ) . Electric consumption is meant to double over the next few decades . Price will vary of course but ‘cheap’ days are gone ( bit like boe rate ) .

Also when you have a battery you naturally are more ‘aware’ of usage e.g turn the (expletive deleted)ing light off .

My ROI ( EV 4000 miles per year aswell ) is around 6/7 years at this point in time .

If roi is everything then don’t do it . What do people want ? A return in 2 or 3 years ? . Yet buy a 300k house , mortgage for 25yrs and ultimately have bought it for a million quid …..

New Tesla for 80k , roi ?

That nice holiday ; roi never 

 

What’s important to 1 person isn’t the same for everyone .

I could just (expletive deleted) it have no battery , pv , EV and go on another holiday . Next generation can deal with it “ not my problem “. That view is what governments largely do hence issues with nhs / housing etc. Etc.

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by pocster

[SteamyTea]

6 minutes ago, pocster said:

was mocked on here

You still are.

 

6 minutes ago, pocster said:

Electric consumption is meant to double over the next few decades

But we are currently installing new capacity, on long term contracts, at £40/MWh.

So once the general public realize that, we could be into a couple of decades of fixed price power again. Will take another decade to get there.

Even when we had the 'cheap' energy over the last 20 years, people still think they were robbed.

(expletive deleted) them I say, let them get cut off or pay their share of the price.

Batteries at home are not going to reduce anyone's outgoings.

 

@canalsiderenovation

Have you thought, as an experiment, making your boat all electric and truly off grid?

Then plug your house into it.

[Pocster]

4 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

You still are.

I know . All the great men in history were mocked . Only after their demise was their ground breaking radical excellence acknowledged.

[SteamyTea]

Just now, pocster said:

Only after their demise was their ground breaking radical excellence acknowledged.

That must be why Nobel prizes are only given to the dead and never to women.

 

[Nickfromwales]

58 minutes ago, pocster said:

I know . All the great men in history were mocked . Only after their demise was their ground breaking radical excellence acknowledged.

Your time will come.  

 

1 hour ago, pocster said:

I got a pw in 2020 and was mocked on here for ‘ a waste of money ‘ etc

Back then the maths were not in favour on paper, but today, and next year, and the ones after you can rest assured the mocking will turn into envy.

[Pocster]

Just now, Nickfromwales said:

Back then the maths were not in favour on paper, but today, and next year, and the ones after you can rest assured the mocking will turn into envy.

Yes. I detect the envy on this forum already....

Greatness has been achieved whilst still living!

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, pocster said:

Greatness has been achieved whilst still living!

And humility.

 

Smug (expletive deleted).