i would like a bit of advise please.
i have 17 panels and 2 x 5.2kWh G.E. batteries.
i am with Octopus basic Flux.
This has worked fine for me all summer, but now the days are getting shorter
would it pay me to go over to Flux intellegent for the winter period.
would appreciate your thoughts.
thank you
Maz if you export more than you import, you'll make money.
Intelligent Flux is good if your generation is more than 1.4 x your consumption. See the videos by Tim and Kat on YouTube.
Question is, how sunny will it be during the winter. Others may look to move to agile for the winter or perhaps Go or Intelligent Go if they have EVs.
Maz do you have much interest in actively managing your system (choosing when to charge and discharge), or do you prefer that it just looks after itself?
Do you have particularly high electric usage (EV, heat pump, electric aga, lots of washing machine use, ...) ?
Is there typically someone home all day?
Thank you
I think i prefer it looks after itself, like my basic Flus has been doing since install back in May.
But like i say i do not think i will make much if anthing during the winter months and short daylight hours, i will
most probably be paying for my electric again, since i had it installed in May this year i have not paid one penny for electricity plus Octopus have credited my account by £80/£90 a month for exported energy.
i can see this changing quite soon.
I have 27 panels,9,5kwh battery and Gen1 Hy5.0.
I am on Flux now as the battery gets me through the night and cloudy days, and allows me to export a fair bit in the day.
When winter comes there will not be enough sun and the Flux cheap period is too short to fully charge my battery with my inverter. I will go back to Eco7 to get the long night charge.
I wanted another battery but my Gen1 does not have enough output to charge 2 batteries in the available time slot.
I was supposes to get Gen2 - but lets not go there!!!
SteveCook that's a lot of panels.
What sort of panels do you have, ie total kWp
hi
Jinko 7.310 kw
@Maz As others have made the comments, intelligent flux isn’t going to be worth it in the winter when you have substantially lower solar generation than you do in the summer.
Your 2x 5.2 batteries will give a maximum usable storage of 8.4kWh, which could well be enough to get you through the night in the winter, depends on your consumption. You’ll probably want to do some spreadsheet calcs to work out what best to be on in the winter, depends on your demand, etc. Economy 7 is nice and simple but of course you pay a premium for the peak rate import, but if your daily usage is close to your battery capacity that might not be too bad.
Robgy
13 south facing at 15degrees incline on flat garage roof with SolarEdge inverter 4.2kw peak
6 east facing and 8 west facing on pitched roof connected to GivEnergy Hy5.0 . About 6kw peak generation.
My generation is pretty consistent during throughout the day as i get some early sun, then the sun is high on the garage panels then I get the evening sun on the west facing panels.
Maz 2 x 5.2kWh G.E. batteries.
Do you think this will be enough to get you through most days ? i.e. can you get away with a tariff which offers a cheap night-time rate during which you can charge the batteries from the grid, and then run all day on that power alone? The downside of such tariffs is that the daytime rate can be a bit higher than normal, and so if you do have to use some daytime power, that increases your costs. But if that's only on the gloomiest of winter days, might still be worth it.
Related to that is whether you're prepared to shift consumption such as washing machine / dishwasher to overnight, so that it can run during a cheap rate, or whether that's not really something you want to get involved with ?
If you are not committed to Octopus, there are some on here who use Eon's NextDrive tariff - while that is advertised as being only for EV owners, they seem to also allow customers with solar/battery only. https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/4229-octopus-flux-vs-eon-drive
(I have no affiliation with Eon.)
Thank you everyone, your most helpful
As i explained earlier, i have 17 panels and 2 x 5.2 Giv Enegy batteries and a G.E Hybrid 5.0 Gen 3, 5kw of inverter power.
Can i add an additional battery I.E 5.2kWh battery or even a 9.5kWh battery, or am i stuck with what i have got.
And also has my inverter got battery storage built in it.
thank you
Maz And also has my inverter got battery storage built in it.
I suspect you are reading the data sheet of the inverter, I remember thinking the same because of the way it reads to someone without electrical experience. The answer is no, the G.E Hybrid 5.0 Gen 3 inverter has not got any battery storage.
It looks like I sit between Maz and @SteveCook in terms of panels.
I've got 20 x 410W Longi panels so 8.2kWp all south facing
Gen3 5kW Hybrid Inverter
1 x 9.5kWh Battery
Our install was 4th December 2023 and I was so disappointed with the system that first month, I knew December wasn't a good month for solar but I wasn't prepared for just how bad it turned out to be for my system, especially with some shading from a house next door when the sun is so low in the sky.
My only regret is not having more panels fitted on the east, west and north roof.
Our generation figure are:
Dec 2023 - 48.1 kWh
Jan 2024 - 100.5 kWh
Feb 2024 - 277.8 kWh
Mar 2024 - 511.4 kWh
Apr 2024 - 754.6 kWh
May 2024 - 907.1 kWh
Jun 2024 - 983.6 kWh
Jul 2024 - 916.4 kWh
Edit
I'm on Flux too and just let the system get on with what it does
Maz you can add up to 5 batteries per inverter I believe so no issue with adding another 5.2 or a 9.5 to your existing inverter. The 9.5 will give you a full 9.5kWh of usable capacity, another 5.2 will add another 4.2 usable (80% depth of discharge).
Be aware though that with multiple batteries on the same inverter, when one battery reaches full or empty the entire chain of batteries stops charging/discharging so you won’t actually get access to the full capacity as they don’t charge evenly. Adding a 5.2 would probably reduce the impact of this even though normally I’d say to get a 9.5 as you get more for your money.
Adding more batteries doesn’t change the rate at which they can charge or discharge, that limit is imposed by the inverter
geoffreycoan Adding more batteries doesn’t change the rate at which they can charge or discharge, that limit is imposed by the inverter
I think the limit is either the 3.6kW of the gen-3 inverter, or 0.5C of the battery. So a single 5.2 could only charge at 2.6kW, but 2 or more should be able to take the full 3.6kW ?
Hi Rodgy
You show your generation figures for Dec 23 through to July 24.
could you tell me where you got these figures from please.
They are very interesting for me to keep my eye on.
Cheers
Maz the generation data is from the givenergy app
On the bottom of the screen there are number of icons for home, power, energy and battery.
Tap the energy graph then tap and change from daily to yearly. Touch each month line graph to see the total for that month.
Thanks Rodgy
Got it