Going Solar - Adding a solar PV battery system to our house

[routercnc]

Well, the time has finally come for us to add a solar PV battery system to our house. We eventually decided on the specification, signed up, and are awaiting an installation date for all the bits.

While we wait for that, time for some custom parts . . .!


https://youtu.be/GUgtPUpgXPk

[Lee Roberts]

Nice! will follow along as usual :emmersed:

[routercnc]

Thanks Lee. Looking forward to seeing what it can do.

[A_Camera]

Had this since over 3 years.

31787

It's a Solaredge system, producing about 11 MWh each year which is about half of our need. We didn't invest in battery packs because it was not worth the price. Looked at battery packs again just two weeks ago and is still too expensive. We sell back what we don't use. One of the best investments we ever made, especially since we use electricity to heat our home and also charging our cars. One EV and one PHEV, both will be upgraded later on this year with two new EVs, which we ordered last year.

Good luck. You won't regret it.

[routercnc]

Had this since over 3 years.

31787

It's a Solaredge system, producing about 11 MWh each year which is about half of our need. We didn't invest in battery packs because it was not worth the price. Looked at battery packs again just two weeks ago and is still too expensive. We sell back what we don't use. One of the best investments we ever made, especially since we use electricity to heat our home and also charging our cars. One EV and one PHEV, both will be upgraded later on this year with two new EVs, which we ordered last year.

Good luck. You won't regret it.

Thanks I remember you talking about your system a while ago, very impressive. From my research it looks like everyone is different as their needs and use pattern is different so hopefully this will work for us. Selling back in the UK is not great and I think it is about 5p / kWh whereas they sell it for ~40p / kWh at the peak rate. So a battery pack was OK for us to charge in the day and use in the evening and overnight. We have gas central heating and electric storage heaters are very expensive so we will stay with that for now, so that lowers our requirement. We would also have to go up massively in spec to charge a car so we are going with overnight cheap rates on something like one of the Octopus tariffs. Let’s see how this goes.

[routercnc]

This time we upgrade the battery shelving to cope with the batteries . . . . getting closer to installation date!


https://youtu.be/4669HQRXyAE

[routercnc]

Episode 3. After all the planning and prep work this is finally starting! But as you might expect there were issues along the way . . .


https://youtu.be/h30qG6xMkmM

[routercnc]

OK, we finally finished! Now all we need is some sunshine . . .


https://youtu.be/DEvQjGllLSI

[routercnc]

Apologies that this video series might not mean much to people without solar, or with AC coupled systems, but for hybrid inverters it not possible to see the DC readings for the battery or panels on a third party app. Well, when I say not possible, it can be read through the RS485 onto something like a raspberry Pi running home assistant software, but I wanted it on the Myenergi app as for me that was much more convenient.
So I decided to do something about it - here is the start of the journey!

https://youtu.be/SPCqaTQxiN8

[routercnc]

For those following along here is episode 2 . . .

https://youtu.be/4arVX3kK0gA

[routercnc]

I've finally got it working to a reasonable level . . plus there is some actual machining in this one!


https://youtu.be/e2-jCLWncrA

[routercnc]

Making some improvements - open loop to self-calibrating closed loop!


https://youtu.be/JT4Evjn5NK4