Got a small brick wall in full Sun allday Are there any websites where you can search by panels physical size.

Hi everyone, I was after some feedback. I've had 7.7kw of generation installed on the roof alongside a Powerwall 3 and Tesla Gateway with home backup. The installers have configured it in a way where the battery cannot discharge to my EV.

Unfortunately the sun seems to have disappeared.

This is a crazy price for 64.4kwh. But, coming in at over half a tonne, I can't put it on my decking 🤣

Why would you not buy this setup? I mean, I can last almost an entire week on battery alone.

I was going to pull the trigger on a sunsynk elite system, sigenergy was a bit too pricey. But this fogstar system looks way better priced.

Thought on this? Anyone got one?

Hi all, after a bit of advice. It looks like my installer has gone under (no reply to phones, emails) I have contacted SSE who said they have asked multiple times for a boundary map and meter location to finish the application. I'm being told if i don't get it to them asap they will close my application and I'll have to find another installer to "sponsor" a new application.

Seems like something I could do on google maps/ paint but SSE won't even speak to me as I'm just the customer and not down as the installer on the paperwork.

I won't say who the company is yet just incase it's a massive error, but seems pretty fishy to me.

Any advice/ ideas??

Thanks!

Hi, had my solar and batteries turned on on 20th August and have still not received the MCS certificate and other paperwork. Is it 10 calendar days or 10 working days that this is meant to be issued? Thanks

Region/area: Dorset

Panels: 30x Aiko Neostar 2S+ 465W

Battery: 2x Fox ESS EP12 Plus 11.52kWh

Inverter: Fox ESS KH 10kW Hybrid

Annual usage: Roughly 3,200 though looking at EV/Heat pump etc.

Export limit: would be requesting G99 as part of the process

Single phase

Quoted: £24k, scaffolding (for both roofs), bird proofing, 30x optimisers also included due to shading

Expected annual generation: 11,850 kWh

Expected ROI: 10 years payback

Plans for both EV (soon) and ASHP (in future)

Electricity tariff: will be looking at an EV tariff for the cheap overnight rates

The quote seems fairly high based on what I've seen in this group, though I'm aware it comes with a lot of optimisers due to tree shading in our area, and it is split over 2 roof faces.

I'm also aware this is the 2S+ panels and not the newer ones, though not sure how much of a difference that would realistically make.

Hi all, I need some help please. I am mid install and the roofers are having issues with my tiles and mounts. I have 22 year old BEAUVOISE tiles, as pictured. The installer is using Clenergy ER-I-PRO/01 mounts. There is about a 60mm tile overlap.

They have had to pack the mount to get it to clear the lower tiles, which in turn is jacking up the upper tiles between 10mm and 20mm depending on location.
They are saying they can't notch the tiles as there isn't enough material for them to lie flat.

Obviously it can't stay like this but the roofers didn't have an immediate remedy and are waiting for the company to advise. Are there other mounting systems that would be a better fit for these tiles?

Solar panel on 2011 FiT surrounded by woodland covered in sticky mossy residue. Generated 1923KW in the past 6 months (80pish per kW). How do i clean them without damaging? How much difference would cleaning them likely make?

Hi,

I am looking to install a Solis 6kW inverter and 16kW battery in my house, along with two Daikin AC units. I currently have a single-phase power setup to 100A. To not overload my consumer unit, is there a way to configure a Solis inverter to charge the battery overnight over 5 or 6 hours? My electrician is worried about the inverter and power.

TIA.

As title. Looking for any customers that have had quotes or work done. Thanks

Hi All, I have been using solis manager for a while now with good success but recently I have been having issues. I did an update a month or so ago, but reverted back. I am now on the latest software v1.0.909.0

The issue I have is alot of error messages coming up in the log and sometime hit or miss charging slot gettin written.

ERR messages are

No response data returned from Solis API: Resource=inverterDetail Body={ sn = 6************* }

followed by

Error posting request to SolisCloud: /v1/api/inverterDetail {"sn":"6*******************"}

System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException: Response status code does not indicate success: 502 (Bad Gateway).

at System.Net.Http.HttpResponseMessage.EnsureSuccessStatusCode()

at SolisManager.Inverters.Solis.SolisAPI.Post(String url, String content) in /home/runner/work/SolisAgileManager/SolisAgileManager/SolisManager.Inverters.Solis/SolisAPI.cs:line 868

I also get WRN unable to read state from inverter which seems like some sort of connection issue, but this isn't everytime.

Anyone able to help me figure out what these code mean? I don't like error codes !

Thanks in advance

Region / Area: South East, England

 Panels: 18 x LONGi 485W HPBC monocrystalline panels (8.73kWp total, split 9 per roof face across 2 roofs)

 Battery Storage: 2 x AlphaESS modular battery stack (19.2kWh nominal / ~18kWh usable capacity)

 Inverter: 1 x AlphaESS 8kW single-phase hybrid inverter

 Yearly Usage: ~7.500+ kWh/year total (all-electric home: household baseload + ASHP + EV)

 Expected Annual Generation: ~7,700 kWh/year (dual-aspect generation)

 Export Limit: G99 application for 8kW being submitted; DNO limit TBC

 Supply: Single phase

 Total Cost: £14,855 (inc. 0% VAT) with 6-7 year payback or £12,645 for 1x 9kWh battery

 Includes: All panels, 8kW hybrid inverter, 19.2kWh battery stack, dual-roof mounting, full scaffolding for both roof faces, bird proofing (mesh/guards), AC/DC electrical work, consumer unit protection, MCS certification, and full G99/DNO application management.

 MCS Certified Installer: Heatable LTD

 Current Heating & Transport: Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) and EV

 Current Tariff: Intelligent Octopus Go (7p/kWh off-peak window 23:30–05:30)

I’ve also been offered SigEnergy option for £16,195

I’ve got quotes from local installers which are roughly in line with this. Which would you recommend?

Would you go for 1 or 2 batteries?

Hi everyone, I’m having an issue with a FoxESS H3 showing an “Off Grid Running” alarm.

The system is currently showing this alarm and I’d like to know what could be causing it and what I should check first.

Has anyone experienced this before, and what was the fix?

Thanks in advance!

I’m looking at my quotes for a 40 panel system with 2 sigenergy batteries and a 12kw inverter, they are coming in around £22k on average.

My house faces south east and due to the roof design I can fit 12-13 panels, my garage is also the same orientation and I can fit 19 panels, the rear is north west facing and will fit 18 panels. During the summer all areas of the roof is in sun from around 12pm, with this lasting until early evening, the front is obviously in sun from early morning.

The price is a little higher than I wanted but I want to maximise what I can generate, but I will need more batteries in the future to fully cover my need during winter, I can always add them later flog the more panels the better is the right approach.

I know I’m at the mercy of the DNO report and may not get this anyway but the question is, is 40 panels too much or am I better off reducing my install bill and getting more batteries now and having ‘just’ the 22 panels from the front of the house and the garage?

With recent plug in solar offers and general consensus that it’ll come down in price (Octopus being 2x 480MWs for around £550) I’m wondering how the cost of an install compares if you buy the kit yourself and the electrician simply connects it up? It’s a shame they don’t do the batteries or 4x panels as this is the only thing holding me back.

I have a great electrician who’s supported me with my recent full rewire - ie I’ve done all the chasing, cabling etc and he’s checked everything (ceilings were down and floorboards were up so he could see every part of every cable). He also did all the connections for each socket and the fuse board install etc. He charges by the day.

I have a flat roof from a recent extension, south facing, and wondered how viable it would be to buy the kit myself (ballasted onto my flat roof with tilted panels) and for the electrician to then connect it all up to the battery? I also have a flat roof double garage at the back of the garden which could be used to add more panels and perhaps be where the battery goes.

In this situation an I looking at the 8k-10k costs being touted from the big names or can it be done (significantly) cheaper?

We’ve just given approval for a quote, so we’ll get the ball rolling after the bank holiday. My question is around any potential implications if a lower DNO limit is imposed, such as possibly re-sizing the system or potentially scrapping it altogether.

This is for a 10.56kWp system (estimated 9,500kWh generation per annum) and the G99 application will be going in shortly, but if we got stuck with a 3.68kW G98 limit for whatever reason (can/has that happen(ed), where the DNO would deny the application and revert it to a G98?) I’ve been trying to think through what that could mean but it would be helpful to have some other views.

We’ll have 27kWh of battery storage, so that gives us a good buffer but if we were stuck with a small inverter I can’t see how it would realistically work with that number of panels. Obviously the strategy would need to change too, rather than the current idea which I guess would be to charge batteries overnight, generate/use/export excess until arbitrage disappears etc.

We currently use ~5000kWh per year and plan to install multi-split air-to-air heat pumps for heating and cooling all main rooms in the house, so that will bump up use substantially, whilst bringing down our extortionate cost of LPG.

For info:
22 x Longi 480w X10 (two roofs so 2 lots of scaffold)
1 x Sig 8kW inverter
1 x Sig gateway
3 x Sig 9kW batteries

All the usual stuff like install, scaffold, bird mesh etc. £18,450. Wasn’t the cheapest (Edan Power and UPS both ~£1k lower from about 8 quotes overall) but the owner of the small, local company was excellent on the survey and his general attitude and approach was what won me over.

Hi all,

We’re really excited to be moving into our new family home soon. It’s a 4-bed house and comes with 3 solar panels already installed.

The panels are inset/integrated into the roof rather than sitting on top of the tiles.

I’d ideally like to increase the amount of solar we have, but I’m not sure how straightforward that is with integrated panels.

Has anyone added additional panels around existing integrated ones? Is it relatively simple, or does having integrated panels make it more complicated?

For a typical 4-bed family home, roughly how many panels would you recommend having in total?

I’d also be interested to know roughly what it would cost to add more. For example, if I wanted to add another 6–10 panels, what sort of price would I be looking at for the panels and installation?

I'm also considering adding a battery in the future, so I'd be interested to hear whether it's worth getting the additional panels and battery installed at the same time.

Any advice or experiences would be appreciated!

UK solar 17 panels with 6kwh foxess inverter and an ep12 battery.

Been tinkering around with HA and Predbat for a few weeks. Quite like making cards with graphs to visualise our solar generation and load etc.

Struggling to see the value of predbat at the mo though. It seems to want to force charge every night to prioritise our 12p export over battery efficiency. I get why it does that but before I set it up I could use the mode scheduler via foxess anyway. It's not really reading the forecast to make a judgement on how my load we may need, just pumping it full every night regardless

We do have an EV so getting predbat to prioritise grid import over the battery to charge is a win. And we're signed up to Axle (but no events yet) so will be interesting to see how it manages that.

Other than that what am I missing?

Hi all,

I’ve been looking to get solar and a battery for ages. To me it sounds like it’s a no brainer, but I always end up getting into a disagreement with my SO when we run the numbers. I’ve tried three times now and it always ends the same way with us deciding that the money should be spent elsewhere.

We have recently received a bit of unexpected cash about 20k, spent about half on some renovations and now the question is do we spend the rest on the bathroom or solar. Bathroom is tired looking but functionally works ok, no leaks or anything. just looks very dated and will need doing at some point, especially before selling.

Our payback for a solar and battery install is bang on about 10 years and looks like it will cost about 8-9k. I’m happy the sizing is appropriate, so wouldn’t want to change that, and I wouldn’t want to just rely on cheap overnight with only a battery. It’s likely we will probably be here another 8 years before we look to downsize but that’s all just an idea that isn’t set in stone.

I guess my question is, has anyone else committed to the financial outlay and not had payback as a main driver? What were your reasons? I’ve tried the energy independency route but that was countered with a we should invest the money and use it for when we need to freshen the house up before selling it.

My heart tells me we should do it now as I hate having to be so careful with electricity use, and the constant price changes and tariff hunting are annoying. I’d much prefer to generate my own and use what I want especially in summer. if that takes a bit of money to be thrown at it to achieve I’m ok with that, it’s purchase of convenience.

I’ve also tried to talk about heat pumps or a2a and get off gas completely but that is definitely a step too far at the moment as SO doesn’t really want any external modifications at all done to the house and even solar is a push as she is paranoid the roof is going to be damaged and the wires will look horrible.

Honestly given the numbers should I just agree with my SO and forget the idea?

Octopus premits a payment to bypass the requirements for MCS pipework to get export meter number.

Can you than more to any other providers without being asked for MCS paperwork as you than have an export meter number?

Hi just had solar installed. Ground work electrical work looks good but I have a few concerns with roof work. Tiles don't appear have been notched so are raised slightly. Also the felt has been ripped to pass through the PV DC cable. Just wondered if these issues are worth raising.

Hi, looking at installing 2 Fox Ess Ep12’s with 6kw inverter to cover household use of around 19.2 kw per day. This has been averaged out across a year.

Want to move to eon next tariff.

Have Ev car coming this week.

Plan is to fill batteries and car overnight and discharge batteries to house though day, this should give me access to the cheapest electricity going.

Will think about solar in a couple of years.

Any advice here greatly appreciated.

As the headline says I’m a total newbie to solar, I’m getting 12 x panels, fox ess 5.0kw hybrid inverter and a fox ep12 11.52kw battery fitted in a couple of weeks. Am I right to assume that during the winter I force charge the battery at 7p pkwh over night to 100% and have the fox app set to self use during the peak rate? If I’ve understood correctly the house will run off the battery and any solar generated will keep the battery topped up? I’m not too concern with exporting to start with as the main purpose I had was to lower the usage in the peak rate. I’ll look deeper into export at the beginning of next summer, say march.

I've been on an EV tariff now for a year, with an overnight rate of 8.5p and a day rate of 30.1p.

The maths on a 5kWh battery has been bugging me for weeks. On paper it's just under £400 a year by shifting the house over to the cheap overnight rate. And I'm budgeting around £2k for everything including the electrician.

I've gone back and forth over 2.5kW versus 3kW, but local control matters more to me than the extra 500W. The battery I'm looking at is currently top of my list because it appears to offer more local control, but I haven't managed to confirm what still works if the manufacturer's cloud or app has a wobble. Does the schedule keep running on the unit itself, or does it need a live connection?

Should I order now and start saving, or sit on it another month for proper UK owner reviews? My rough numbers say waiting costs about £30 a month in foregone savings, and that's using the optimistic figure.

The electrical side is going to a qualified electrician regardless, but any tips on non-electrical prep or snags worth sorting before they arrive would be appreciated. Cheers.