Trying to come off-grid

Hello all,

I live in Norfolk, have a 2-bed bungalow and am trying to effectivly come off-grid. (I already export to Bulb any excess energy that is generated.)

I currently have 19 x 300w panels on a west facing roof that are connected to 5 x GivEnergy batteries running through one GivEnergy inverter.

The house wiring will take up to 12Kw before frying and setting the house on fire.

Do the maths and you will see that I am able to generate a maximun of 5.7Kw per hour. I am able to generate a lot more than this through the day in the Summer - and regularly do so - but in the Winter this is a whole different story.

I have spare capacity to fit solar panels on the east facing roof.

As the title says, the intention is to be able to generate more than what is needed come rain or shine, Summer or Winter.

Using the spare roof space on the east facing roof, I am thinking of doing this very thing by doubling up on the panels I have now and feeding the output to the system that is already in use and in place.

Has anybody here had experience of doing this, or something similary please?

Best wishes to you all.

Geoff.

Can I just ask which giverngy inverter you have? if it is the hybrid 5 you are limited to 5kw output and while putting panels on your East roof would give you generation for a longer period you would still be capped at 5kw. Is that enough? You might be better to add panels and a second inverter, you would benefit from more of the possible generation though the local DNO might cap you to 3.68kw output to the grid if they haven't already. Also the input limit on the hybrid 5 is 6500w so you will need another inverter or you could only add another 800w of panels.

Geoff-Bell
Hi Geoff

I would love to be able to go off-grid, but sadly feel it is highly unlikely to be possible on solar alone without much cheaper storage.

I have 16 350W panels on a SSE facing roof with one 8.2kWh battery and a 5kW hybrid inverter. I have logged my consumption vs generation from the GivEnergy daily reports from January and with a daily consumption between 8 & 12kWh (Gas heating & hob and no EV at present) it took me until the middle of April to get to the point where generation equalled consumption. From January to mid March the deficit of generation vs consumption gradually declined and reached minus 343kWh on 14th March at which point most days started to generate more than my house consumed..

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the amount I could generate in Winter but did go for many days with only 3kWh or less with only a single day in and among with greater than 10kWh so went for over 30 days where I would have been relying on storage.

I would like to be able to see the output from the nearest wind farm to see if wind would have filled most of the gap as I think a possible way of going off grid is to aggregate a few houses with solar and battery to a wind turbine in order to create a microgrid where the shortfall in the wind and solar generation is only 3 or 4 days and then have enough battery to cover that much shorter period..

I think we are on the verge of being able to be self-sufficient as my solar has generated 5.2kWh against consumption of 2.9kWh Since December 10 2020, but cannot store all the surplus for long enough. However the fact that I have generated nearly double my consumption means that if I could store everything generated I could probably go onto electric heating at zero cost.

Hopefully information that is helpful, and will be interested to see your progress. Also not sure if there is any way to direct message via this forum as it would be interesting to discuss in more detail.

Martyn

I would like to be able to see the output from the nearest wind farm to see if wind would have filled most of the gap

I actually run a page that does that. If you let me know the site name of the one you want i'll see if it's metered by National Grid and add it to the tracker for you. Map to help find it > https://bit.ly/3Dfp6Cw

hoggy Thank you for your reply. I have briefly visited your site, but cannot see the nearest wind farm which is Winscales and is near Workington, Cumbria.

Thanks
Martyn

Martyn Yes so digging around i can find no live source for those (or any really in Cumbria) from either Elexon/NG or 3rd parties.
I suspect your nearest metered one I have is Robin Rigg Offshore if that helps at all. I will however keep looking.

THALL Not sure what Givenergy inverter I have here. Have permission from DNO to run the 5.7Kw panels on the west roof. Would need to think of a way to have the DNO to give me permission to install on the East roof. Am thinking of having two panel systems running in parelle into the same system I already have here. Will ask Givenergy about inverter insatlled.

Geoff-Bell You should be allowed to have more panels installed, but the DNO may restrict your output to the grid. I now have 7kw of panels but my output to grid is capped at 3.6. I should be adding another 1.8kw soon and do not see an issue as the DNO have already capped me :-(

I was going to say look at the inverter card to see what inverter you have but I just realised it doesn't actually tell you which inverter you have, it just tells you what it is doing lol. GivEnergy if you see this maybe this could be added? Tiny detail that doesn't really matter but might be helpful in years to come when we all forget what we have installed and don't want to go hunting around for labels :-)

THALL Geoff-Bell On this page https://www.givenergy.cloud/GivManage/setting/deviceMenu/inverterList it says Giv-HY3.6 for 'Hybrid Model' if that is what you are looking for?

chris_p Yes, but the new beta dashboard does not appear to show it. I have stopped using the old dashboard as it is not being updated anymore.

https://beta.givenergy.cloud/inverter/
Forget where I know that from but looks to mimic the old inverter one.

hoggy Indeed. How do you get to that by clicks though? Log in and click what?

Thanks to Adam at GivEnergy I now have records and know which Inverter is installed here. Thanks for your help guys. System is now working good.

Have e-mailed the DNO and will probably get a reply early Febuary.

Need to work with GE to see of the possability of fitting panels to the east roof. Waiting for the restrictions on the deeds of this place to expire too. :-)))

Regarding trying to connect a new array into your existing system, If your existing system was put in under FIT and particularly metered FIT, I'm not sure if the rules would allow you to modify that particular system to add additional capacity to it. As I understand it, you would I think be able to make repairs to it. eg, replace a faulty inverter or panel but not add additional capacity to anything on the solar side of your generation meter for that particular system. If anyone else here is on FIT they may be able to advise if I'm talking nonsense or not.
If you are not on FIT then this probably wouldn't be any issue, just all the other associated headaches such as max inverter capacity, max export allowance from DNO etc.

Salibaba "6.77. If an accredited installation and an ineligible installation share the same meter then it is possible to pro-rate the meter readings taken from this meter." This means that if you add more panels connected before you existing generation meter your fit payments are then paid pro-rata based on the percentage of old/new total panels.

judgepd But adding panels would mean a new MCS certificate? If that system was on the FIT scheme getting a new MCS would remove it from FIT. Extending a current system is fine, for me they said they just need to do a G98 but as I already have a my max export agreed by the DNO they would not need to do another G99.