9 Months of use, some data to share

A quick graph for the first 9 months of ownership.

4kw PV array
5.2kwh battery

Since mid Jan 2023, we've imported just over 1300kwh from the grid and used directly (or via battery) over 2600kwh of free energy. What isn't shown is the 1076kwh of export.

It's not 100% accurate, there's 9 days of data missing from Feb after the wifi dongle failed. Data starts around the 14th Jan.

They estimated 3600kwh of generation from the system in a year, we're already at 3750kwh with 3 months left to go.

To say I'm happy with the results so far would be an understatement... My only regret is my decision to stick to a max 10k budget which meant the smaller battery, it cost £9200... I should have spent the extra £2000 for the 5.2kw & 9.5kwh as now It's going to cost me around £2500 just to add another 5.2kwh battery. It's not worth adding 4 extra panels to the roof, but might be worth doing a couple of solar hot water ones at some point. There's a spot I could install a water tank in a cupboard on the landing upstairs.

Some of the data is also skewed in the first 4 months due to cooking with gas, until we had a new kitchen at the end of April and now cook all electric. So gas is only used for heating and hot water now. It's meant an avg rise of about 70-80kwh a month

Anomnomnomaly with the AIO FW issues, is it possible to have a 9.5kWh & 5.2 kWh Batt from one invertor (I’m thinking the invertor is like my Victron MPPT in the campervan where I have 360w of free power, and it keeps my fridge running, internet, Victron Venus OS on Rpi, dashcams running 24/7)

Tiredeyes you can have up to 4 batteries daisy chained to a hybrid or Ac inverter. They are managed as basically one giant battery for charging and discharging

I've just got a quote from my installer to add a second 5.2kwh battery, it's £2480, which is £400 lower than they quoted 7-8 months ago.

So I'm going to get that booked in and fitted before xmas. Won't see the benefit of if until spring/summer next year, or if I can switch to a better tariff that will offer much cheaper overnight charging. But still waiting for the DNO to be sorted so we can switch the SEG to the 15p/kwh rate instead of the crappy 4.1p one we're currently on.

geoffreycoan

My inverter is the 3.6kw one, the max I can charge/discharge a single 5.2kwh batter is 2.6kw... but adding a second 5.2kwh battery allows the full 3.6kw rate.

I didn't know that at first, and was a little miffed when we were getting close to 4kw generation and house was using 600w... and not sending it all to the battery, but 3/4kw back to the grid.

I'm getting that second battery installed soon... hopefully before xmas, so that I can maximise the use of what's generated. Not so concerned about sending it back to the grid as I am reducing what I import as much as possible.

The limit of what we can generated is basically 30kwh in a day which we hit May/June time with roughly 1/3 of the days in those months were above 29kwh each day and the average for those months was 21kwh a day.

We're using an average of 16-17kwh a day.

Anomnomnomaly that’s a good price fitted for a second 5.2

I replied to you on another messages, to say that if you can stretch to it, get an 8.2 not a 5.2 as they are 100% depth of discharge rather than 80%. You’ll be getting twice the usable battery capacity for only about £1000 more