Energy Matters:Home Solar

[mickthemaverick]

I've only watched the first video so far as I have to go out but I will catch up later. Two things struck me from that first one, he appears to have developed an AC battery according to his second schematic drawing! Hmmm! Also why would you subject the inverter and its dongle to the weather? Bizarre in my mind!!

[Gibbo2286]

Mostly dealt with in the second video Mick, I too was a bit concerned about the outdoor fitting of the Solax, min has been in the loft from the outset.
The battery prices he talks about are far less than I've been able to find.

[NewcastleFalcon]

The battery prices he talks about are far less than I've been able to find.

From your POTD post Gibbo relevant to this thread.

Here's what was on the pallet all installed now in about five hours by very competent electrician.............................pocket money's all gone.

I would be interested in the chapter and verse on the battery you have plumped for.

Increasingly home solar and battery are being packaged together. When you consider that you can buy a 24 kWh battery (with a car attached ) for under £5,000, battery prices for much lower capacity offerings for the home solar market still have some way to come down. I do believe the now out-of-favour chademo charging port on the Leaf has always allowed for bi-directional charging, unlike the CCS standard which up to now hasn't.

This confirms it https://www.chademo.com/technology/v2g

With the south-ish facing roof space taken up with velux and dormer windows a decent sized roof-mounted solar array is not that practical, but not impossible with some modifications, and I do harbour a possibility of having a ground mounted array to supplement.

Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Would the roof of your signal box offer a possible mounting site with the power pack down below Neil?

[NewcastleFalcon]

I have wondered about that Mick. It would be an excellent use of the signal box.

I dont know the chapter and verse of how critical the south facing thing is, because the box roof is pretty much north facing. (its an homage....its really half a signal box cut into the slope.) Solar panels work on light so I'm sure north facing ones will generate some electrical output, if not the most efficient conversion they could if facing south.



Neil

[mickthemaverick]

An extract from an expert website which may assist your thinking Neil:

How much power do north-facing solar panels produce?
For a typical 3kWh solar photovoltaic (PV) system, north-facing panels will produce approximately 1,145 kWh of electricity per year, compared to, say, 1,361 kWh for a south-facing installation. So, north-facing panels don’t produce zero energy, but it is considerably less.

How does this differ from south-facing solar panels?
The maximum yield from a north-facing solar panel in the UK is about 60%, compared to 80%-100% for south-facing panels.

[NewcastleFalcon]

Thanks Mick, I would have anticipated that North Facing panels would perform much worse than that, and if necessary could contribute to a combined array with a worthwhile enough output even at chez falcon. Makes me think I shouldn't have cancelled the surveyor from E-on a couple of years ago on the basis of my own amateur assessment that a decent sized set of panels couldn't be fitted to our south facing roof.

Neil

[NewcastleFalcon]

More relevant info from Gibbo re his home solar

My solar panels back in 2019 came from a Cheltenham company Forever green energy, at the time the only offers for batteries were Tesla at over £7k so that didn't happen, recently the government dropped VAT from the batteries and this Power Vault company offered a deal with an additional 10% off so the total price including installation came out at under £4k.
Power Vault though only does the batteries they don't do solar panels. Options to choose the size of battery and the chassis ready to upgrade later if you wish.
The on-screen programme is very good although I have to learn a bit more yet but it tells you in real time what the panels are producing whether it's going to the battery or being consumed, what's being taken from the grid etc.
https://www.powervault.co.uk/

Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Maybe time to get your infamous fag packet out Neil!

[bobins]

Increasingly home solar and battery are being packaged together. When you consider that you can buy a 24 kWh battery (with a car attached ) for under £5,000, battery prices for much lower capacity offerings for the home solar market still have some way to come down.

Neil

Purely for fag packet calculation purposes, very approximately - what would the usable kWh output be from that setup ? 18kWh-ish ?
Presumably the very roughly 10% losses from charging the car also apply in reverse ? Ideally you'd not want to have the car at 100% to start with when you use V2G - at least not on a regular basis, you'd certainly not want to flatten the battery when doing V2G, and a battery on a second hand car would have lost a bit of capacity to start with.

Edit : Thinking about it, you'd (theoretically at least) get less losses with a slow discharge rate than you would with a high(er) charge rate.

[myglaren]

[mickthemaverick]

I watched that earlier Steve, interesting and at this rate we may be able to afford solar panels after all!!