Solar with battery, loving it!

Gadget Geek said:
I have my battery outside as I had no room inside the house to put it. I bought a metal shed, and with a bit of DIY, made the depth shallower so that it would sit nicely around the side of the house. All the battery company said was to make sure there were plenty of vents for cooling.

View attachment 23973
Click to expand...
That looks a great solution, may I ask where you got the shed from please?
 
Archev said:
The bits about puncturing and nails etc scared me and reminded me of the time I was in the loft of an older house installing a shower. There was a faint smell like gas. No wonder - the gas pipe supplying the. Boiler had been pierced ( with a nail ? )
It had been undisturbed for well over a year until I found it according to the customer. Whoever did it had smeared the pipe and a spent matchstick with silicone sealant and wedged the match in the hole.
( i’m fairly sure he didn’t use the match to identify the source of the damage he’d caused )
Click to expand...
Bit off topic but our first house was an old terraced house with gas lead piping and a space underneath the floor of about 3 ft. We had a leak in the gas pipe and called the gas board and we both went under the floor. He found the leak with a lighted match. ♨️
 
There is a similar old thread here;

Solar with battery, loving it!

I am NOT an electrician but my understanding is the answers to your questions are Yes, and No, in that order. The reason is that all Solar PV panels generate DC electricity and the job of the inverter is to convert that DC to AC, which is what is then fed into the grid. I suspect you will not...
www.mgevs.com www.mgevs.com

Or this one;

Solar and house battery installation

Hi there, All things being equal we should have our EV charging point installed by British Gas in the next few weeks and take receipt of our MG ZS. LRT. ( EV charging point may not be the best, but it’s what we are getting 😀) We are considering solar panels and a house battery once we move...
www.mgevs.com www.mgevs.com

It was this thread where johnb80 posted the picture of his outside installation which gave me the idea for the metal shed, so thank you johnb80.

Maybe a moderator would like to move it over. :)
 
I've moved the derail into the newer of these two threads. There are quite a lot of similar threads in the relevant subforum and I don't want to interfere any further. If anyone thinks a different thread should be used, or that this should be its own thread, let me know.

I started to watch the good professor's video - one of them anyway - and quickly formed the impression that he's an anti-EV scaremongering loon.
 
johnb80 said:
That looks a great solution, may I ask where you got the shed from please?
Click to expand...
I got the dimensions of the battery from the manufacturer's website along with the clearance needed. They haven't done an installation in an external cabinet before so have been monitoring temperature and humidity and have not reported any problems through the summer or winter. :)
 
Gadget Geek said:
I got the dimensions of the battery from the manufacturer's website along with the clearance needed. They haven't done an installation in an external cabinet before so have been monitoring temperature and humidity and have not reported any problems through the summer or winter. :)
Click to expand...
I insulated the bottom section of my shed, put heater mats under the batteries and installed temperature controllers to run fans or heaters. In wintertime the heaters have been needed, no problems with overheating.
Gomev said:
Where did you get your toolstore cabinet/shed from. Quite attractive.
Click to expand...
Amazon

 
Rolfe said:
Derail about home batteries moved here.

Solar with battery, loving it!

So I got 19 panels and two 5kWh batteries installed for £12.5k and absolutely loving it. 9 panels facing south and 10 facing mostly east and a little south. Generating plenty to power the house and the two cars and exporting some on a bright day. Wish I had done it sooner.
www.mgevs.com www.mgevs.com
Click to expand...
6.6 kW system in NSW on a sunny day I generate 40+ kWh my car gets the arvo 5 hours per day. Only spent $16 dollars on out side electricity in 4,000 km and no electricity bill in 2years , wish I had a battery hate selling for 7c/kWh to AGL (electricity retailer) .
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Gomev said:
You can also use this link as well in a slightly different format.

grid.iamkate.com

National Grid: Live

Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network
grid.iamkate.com grid.iamkate.com
Click to expand...
If you study this for a few days you quickly realise:
  • We are still heavily dependent on gas, that's the biggest source of electricity in winter by far (typically 40%).
  • We are still using coal (1 power station left, due to close in September).
  • Around 10% of our power is now imported from connectors to Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, Netherlands. We also supply Ireland and sometimes export.
  • Nuclear is a really small fraction.
  • I didn't realise we were burning so much biomass, wonder what this is specifically?
  • Solar is disappointing in winter.
  • Wind, when it blows, is great but it doesn't always blow.
  • There's clearly money to be made speculating on the wild price swings throughout each day.
  • We pay an awful lot more than the cost of generation: there's a ton of costs on top.
 
ozzz said:
6.6 kW system in NSW on a sunny day I generate 40+ kWh my car gets the arvo 5 hours per day. Only spent $16 dollars on out side electricity in 4,000 km and no electricity bill in 2years , wish I had a battery hate selling for 7c/kWh to AGL (electricity retailer) .
Click to expand...
I’ll bid 8c/kWh for your leftovers if you’ve got a decent extension lead 👍.
 
tsedge said:
If you study this for a few days you quickly realise:
  • We are still heavily dependent on gas, that's the biggest source of electricity in winter by far (typically 40%).
  • We are still using coal (1 power station left, due to close in September).
  • Around 10% of our power is now imported from connectors to Norway, Denmark, Belgium, France, Netherlands. We also supply Ireland and sometimes export.
  • Nuclear is a really small fraction.
  • I didn't realise we were burning so much biomass, wonder what this is specifically?
  • Solar is disappointing in winter.
  • Wind, when it blows, is great but it doesn't always blow.
  • There's clearly money to be made speculating on the wild price swings throughout each day.
  • We pay an awful lot more than the cost of generation: there's a ton of costs on top.
Click to expand...
The biomass is processed wood chips from, would you believe it, Canada, where it is transported across the Atlantic in big, bunker fuel burning cargo ships. Bob Llewellyn did one of his rants on it last year. You couldn't make it up.

On a positive note, the Isle of Wight tidal turbine project seems to be progressing.

Harnessing Tidal Energy

Information about the Perpetuus Tidal Energy Centre project
www.iow.gov.uk www.iow.gov.uk
 
We currently have 10 panels which produce around 18 kw a day in summer and 2kw in winter, all this is sold to EDF and we get around 1400 euros annually. We are starting major restorations and are considerating all energy options , u/f heating , solar ,batteries , heat pumps. etc. The major problem we see is that if we size the project for winter usage when we need it most then there will be wasted production in summer as we are already on the maximum level for private selling back to EDF. And again the costs and hassle of installation versus the benefits ,we pay on average 18 cents kwh for day time usage, this will of course rise , but the only way I see of re-couping the outlay costs is if we sell up.
 
OriginalBigAl said:
If you burn wood chips faster than the trees can grow....... you can see where this is going?
Click to expand...
What’s the old tongue twister ?
How much wood can a wood chipper chip if you burn the chips faster in a power station that’s powering the chippers ??
Yeah it all ends up just as daft as burning oil to carry wood over an ocean to burn …….. if only I had an ice car I could disappear up my own exhaust pipe.
 
Gadget Geek said:
The biomass is processed wood chips from, would you believe it, Canada, where it is transported across the Atlantic in big, bunker fuel burning cargo ships. Bob Llewellyn did one of his rants on it last year. You couldn't make it up.
Click to expand...
So Drax used waste wood from the logging industry, so not using trees . . .

until that was someone traced that wood back to virgin forests in Canada and logging for wood chips under spurious licencing arrangements!
 
I've just moved a continuation of the original derail in here too. If this isn't the best place for it, I'm open to suggestions. But I'm fairly sure the best place is not a thread entitled "EV opposition in the media is ramping up."
 
OriginalBigAl said:
We currently have 10 panels which produce around 18 kw a day in summer and 2kw in winter, all this is sold to EDF and we get around 1400 euros annually. We are starting major restorations and are considerating all energy options , u/f heating , solar ,batteries , heat pumps. etc. The major problem we see is that if we size the project for winter usage when we need it most then there will be wasted production in summer as we are already on the maximum level for private selling back to EDF. And again the costs and hassle of installation versus the benefits ,we pay on average 18 cents kwh for day time usage, this will of course rise , but the only way I see of re-couping the outlay costs is if we sell up.
Click to expand...
Would u not pump excess power in to a vehicle as I do 5 hours a day for vehicle, my system at the moment in summer can do over 40 kWh a day .
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Support us by becoming a Premium Member

Latest MG EVs video

MG3 Hybrid+ & Cyberster Configurator News + hot topics from the MG EVs forums
Published
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom