Hi I have had my solar panels for over 3 months now, and yet the battery has never charged for more than 4% even on the brightest of days. Is this normal for this time of year? I have 8 panels, and a 9. 6kw battery.. Thanks x
Totally depends on your house usage and how much power those 8 panels produce. There is a good change your house is using all the power those panels can produce.
If you log into the dashboard when the sun is out you can see a data set at the top of the screen which shows how much solar power you are generating and how much your home is using, how much is going to the battery, how much going to the grid.
Deborah_lynch On the face of it something is not right but if you are a high power user during the day then it's possible your battery will not benefit. But on sunny days this would require a constant house load of 3kw or more. For me that's a scary number. However, if this is the case you should consider using a split tarriff over the winter to benefit from cheap energy when the sun is not shining.
Let us see a bit more detail. Sun is out today so later this afternoon post an image of your power flows graph from the portal. We should be able to confirm your system is working as expected or not.
Deborah_lynch * panels, even assuming that they 400w ones (the max you can currently get I think) it's a 3.2kw system with a 9.6kwh battery.
So if you are using up any generation as it's produced during the day, there's no excess to put into the battery.
You'd need to look at what you're producing vs what you're using.
Had my 4kw & 5.2kwh battery for a month now. I've only charged battery to full once from solar, once from the grid... and about 3 times to 40-50%... many times lower. Most days it gets practically nothing.
But it's winter... low generation.
If you have a 3.2kw or lower system... that doesn't mean you will generate 3.2kw.... My 4kw system has produced a max of 3.27kw so far for a brief period. I've only got a 3.6kw inverter because that system isn't expected to produce over 3.6kw at all. So I'd assume that the max a 3.2kw system would produce is in the 2.6 to 2.7kw range... and you'll still need to factor in the direction of the panels, the pitch of the roof, any possible shading from anything.
That's a large battery to charge from a lower kw system.
Anomnomnomaly And I'm more fortunate. I have 4kw Panels, 3.6kw inverter, AC3 to 9.5 battery. Yesterday I charged the battery overnight to 60%. By the time the panels were generating enough to charge the battery was down to 42%. By 2:30pm the battery had charged to 100%. Today I charged the battery to 50% overnight. It was at 36% when charging from solar started (8:42am) and I expect it to get to 100% at around 1:00pm.
If you doubt your generation to battery yesterday and today would be a good time to really check it out as there's lots of sun.
Ok thank you for exlsing Al you have, it's just do frustrating, as I said even n a cloudless day, no more than 4% ever, am I'm assuming as they work from light not heat it won't make a difference, or am I wrong.. X
Deborah_lynch Correct. Panels work from a part of the sunLIGHT and not heat. In fact, you will find your panels most efficient on a sunny day in Mid to late spring or early to mid Autumn becuase in the summer the panels get really hot which reduces their performance by as much as 15%.
As previously requested, please post the image of your flows graph from the portal. From that it should be relatively easy to see if you have a real problem or not.
Here's mine from yesterday - the best generation day this year. You will see the generation (yellow) which was way more than I needed for the house (green) so my ECO setting charged the battery (blue below the line) until the battery was full (blue thin line) after which it exported. If I'm home when the latter happens I tend to put a wash on or the immersion to top up hot water and not waste the export.
If your battery didn't charge from solar yesterday and your generation is anywhere near mine - something is definitely wrong.
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cluelesscris I'm not tech savy.. Just can't seem to do it no worries, I'll try and talk to the installer..