Best Solar Panels for Winter

[user 34936]

Not all ac coupled inverters are G100 I know Lux power and Sofar Me3000se are but others are not and don not have the correct uk certification straight off or am I wrong?

 

[binky]

Not all ac coupled inverters are G100 I know Lux power and Sofar Me3000se are but others are not and don not have the correct uk certification straight off or am I wrong?

if you buy from reputable UK sellers they tend to stock UK compliant stock, but always worth double checking

 

[Berserkerboy]

This was posted recently by a member

 

[Ronski]

You are all missing some tricks with batteries.

In the winter you can import and charge batteries at cheap rate (well you can anytime of the year, but little point in the summer), obviously depends how big your batteries are, and how quickly you can charge them.

In the summer, when you have all that excess, charge the batteries, and export at peak time keeping enough to see you through the night, on Tuesday Octopus was paying up to 62p per kwh exported. 62p isn't the norm, I expect being extremely hot they were expecting very high demand - air con etc.

From what I've read, come winter its probably better to switch to a different tariff with a lower import cost - batteries can be charged from the grid at like 7.5p kwh for 4 hours. Take some working out, but if you can charge your batteries on the off peak you could save, offset what you import against what you export over the summer, and could be quids in.

https://dashboards.energy-stats.uk/...d?orgId=1&var-area_name=South_Eastern_Englandhttps://octochargecalc.energy-stats.uk/

 

[binky]

You are all missing some tricks with batteries.

In the winter you can import and charge batteries at cheap rate (well you can anytime of the year, but little point in the summer), obviously depends how big your batteries are, and how quickly you can charge them.

In the summer, when you have all that excess, charge the batteries, and export at peak time keeping enough to see you through the night, on Tuesday Octopus was paying up to 62p per kwh exported. 62p isn't the norm, I expect being extremely hot they were expecting very high demand - air con etc.

From what I've read, come winter its probably better to switch to a different tariff with a lower import cost - batteries can be charged from the grid at like 7.5p kwh for 4 hours. Take some working out, but if you can charge your batteries on the off peak you could save, offset what you import against what you export over the summer, and could be quids in.

https://dashboards.energy-stats.uk/...d?orgId=1&var-area_name=South_Eastern_Englandhttps://octochargecalc.energy-stats.uk/

This has been discussed on various posts. But please post earnings and any issues you encounter with that.

 

[Ronski]

I don't currently have any earnings (currently no battery), only pointing it out to make the OP aware of the possibility.

 

[johnb2713]

Hi All

Looking to install a 12kw solar array but not sure whether its too much or not enough. We use around 10k kwh annually and obviously a higher percentage of this would be used between October to March. Looking at our historic meter readings we use around 60% of the 10k in the winter months.
I realise that it would be very difficult and expensive not to use any grid power but want to try and get it right to start with to maximise energy throughout the year.

We will be installing energy dumps to the heating system and are considering batteries. The batteries I'm struggling with without having a good idea of winter production from the panels.
So I suppose my question is what would a 12kw solar array produce during the winter months (October to March). What panels would out perform others during winter use?

Thanks
M

I am currently on a very steep learning curve with solar and battery storage. I know for sure that solar will do little during winter time, yesterday was a prime example, bright overcast all day, solar only just met my 500w/hr background power. Throughout the day my system generated 7kWh of electricity, the best we have had has been 44 kWh, this is from a 6.7kW array of Hyundai PV panels, 10 facing south, 6 facing west.

I had anticipated all of the above, not quite to the severity of it, I always had plan B at the back of my mind and that is to charge the batteries on off peak electricity at 7.5p kWh. This works and works very well, we currently have a 7kWh battery but I am constructing a 16 kWh battery and will be adding that along with another inverter to the system before winter. This will give us a total capacity of around 20 kWh useable which averages through the day of 1kWh per hour which should be fine. My existing inverter is 6kW and I intend to fit another 6kW to my system that will cover washing machine / kettle / heatpump running concurrently and avoid using expensive grid power.

In the summer months the 16 kWh will charge from the solar excess with the option to top up overnight. We have used energy dump for the immersion heater, we use the Myenergi products due to having EV's to charge too so we have MyEnergi - EDDI, HARVI and ZAPPI, they work incredibly well keeping export nigh on zero.

 

[Berserkerboy]

I am currently on a very steep learning curve with solar and battery storage. I know for sure that solar will do little during winter time, yesterday was a prime example, bright overcast all day, solar only just met my 500w/hr background power. Throughout the day my system generated 7kWh of electricity, the best we have had has been 44 kWh, this is from a 6.7kW array of Hyundai PV panels, 10 facing south, 6 facing west.

I had anticipated all of the above, not quite to the severity of it, I always had plan B at the back of my mind and that is to charge the batteries on off peak electricity at 7.5p kWh. This works and works very well, we currently have a 7kWh battery but I am constructing a 16 kWh battery and will be adding that along with another inverter to the system before winter. This will give us a total capacity of around 20 kWh useable which averages through the day of 1kWh per hour which should be fine. My existing inverter is 6kW and I intend to fit another 6kW to my system that will cover washing machine / kettle / heatpump running concurrently and avoid using expensive grid power.

In the summer months the 16 kWh will charge from the solar excess with the option to top up overnight. We have used energy dump for the immersion heater, we use the Myenergi products due to having EV's to charge too so we have MyEnergi - EDDI, HARVI and ZAPPI, they work incredibly well keeping export nigh on zero.

Wow!

 

[Gian]

Wow!

It's a fantastic feeling charging our EVs for free in the summer months.

 

[Gian]

Has anyone had any dealings with a hot water system called Bunsen Air.

 

[Berserkerboy]

I've just looked online at this. A good innovation. The advantage over solar thermal is that you have guaranteed hot water. Wonder how efficient it is,..., and how much it costs?.

 

[johnb2713]

Its not really an innovation, it's just a heat pump.

 

[Berserkerboy]

Its not really an innovation, it's just a heat pump.

Yes, you're right. I should have said 'an interesting use of a heat pump'. It will all come down to cost as to whether it's worthwhile. We had solar thermal on our last property which I DIY installed over 15 years ago. The cost was about £1500 and included a new twin coil tank. We could pretty well turn the gas off for about 6 months of the year. Gains in the winter months were pretty dire though.
Going back to the subject of this thread. My thoughts are that in order to get decent winter production requires too many panels which are then overkill in the summer.

 

[johnb2713]

Going back to the subject of this thread. My thoughts are that in order to get decent winter production requires too many panels which are then overkill in the summer.

I agree with you there, the very reason why I'm heading down the storage route. Enough battery capacity to charge overnight on off peak rate (7.5p) and then run all day the next day without charging and without solar.

 

[Gian]

Yes, you're right. I should have said 'an interesting use of a heat pump'. It will all come down to cost as to whether it's worthwhile. We had solar thermal on our last property which I DIY installed over 15 years ago. The cost was about £1500 and included a new twin coil tank. We could pretty well turn the gas off for about 6 months of the year. Gains in the winter months were pretty dire though.
Going back to the subject of this thread. My thoughts are that in order to get decent winter production requires too many panels which are then overkill in the summer.

Yes agree well over kill for summer , turn off the excess in summer and use in winter, by adding another 4kw of pannels would charge my battery over winter period . What we do to save a few Bob lol

 

[Berserkerboy]

We generate more than we can use at the moment. Once the battery is installed that will reduce a bit but there will still be times I'm exporting for no return. It's power I just don't have a use for at the moment.
I don't mind as I see it as paying towards my historic carbon emissions and reducing the power that has to be generated for the grid.
Good for the environment and therefore benefitting me too.

 

[johnb2713]

We generate more than we can use at the moment. Once the battery is installed that will reduce a bit but there will still be times I'm exporting for no return. It's power I just don't have a use for at the moment.
I don't mind as I see it as paying towards my historic carbon emissions and reducing the power that has to be generated for the grid.
Good for the environment and therefore benefitting me too.

Thats a nice outlook on life, a little bit of appreciation wouldnt go amiss though. I'm current sat feeding just over 5kW into the grid and getting nothing back, still waiting for Octopus to setup my export tariff.

 

[Berserkerboy]

Thats a nice outlook on life, a little bit of appreciation wouldnt go amiss though. I'm current sat feeding just over 5kW into the grid and getting nothing back, still waiting for Octopus to setup my export tariff.

Yeah, that's a lot. Hopefully, Octopus will sort you out soon. After all, someone else is getting paid for the power you're generating!
Our 3.6kw install tops out around 2.6kw export as our panels face 3 different directions.
I'll never get any export tariff as I'm DIY and our power is clearly of no use to anyone.
I'm investigating getting a further 5kw battery. I'll be able to store a bit more in the summer for dull days and use Octopus Go to charge the batteries overnight for daytime use in the winter months. Waiting for Octopus to confirm whether they'll have us and then a bit of costing to do, which is always a bit hit and miss without a crystal ball. We got moved to EON from Symbio when they went bust. But EON don't seem as proactive in smart energy as Octopus.