agile only option if you don’t have an ev as far as i can tell. agile could be very expensive unless you charge up batteries when it’s cheap. their prices 4-7pm are eye watering so you don’t want to be drawing from them at that time.
Pinball info
Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Yeah that’s my only concern, my gf still likes to turn the dryer on at 8pm after a nice sunny day which makes me scream WHYYYYY lol
’m finally getting my head around to not letting anything at all being chucked into the grid at a pittance. The only annoyance is me getting a bit OCD about the whole thing
Im looking forward to the day when I can just relax and let the system manage itself without me having to think about it.
Current thing I'm looking into is something to sit between my DIY batteries BMS and my inverter so that they talk to each other, as currently Im using a default profile with no comms and the Inverter has a habit of thinking the battery is fully charged and stops trying to charge it where as the BMS says the battery is only 80/90% charged loosing 1 or 2 KWH of capacity which I could have done with over the last week when the solar output was low. Ive found someone who has built a little microcontroller that takes commands from the inverter and returns the information from the BMS that matches one of the protocols on the inverter, currently just working through converting it to run on a rapsberry pi that will also connect to the inverter on RS485 to pull information from it and possibly give future manual control for charging on demand.
Next step find a raspberry pi for sale lol, world went down the toilet with this pandemic and if that’s not bad enough Russia goes and starts a war ****ing the rest of us with energy prices. It really can’t get much worse??? Can it lol
Friday is price cap announcement day. but who cares cos it’s also pinfest 
If the hotel keeps the power on…. LolFriday is price cap announcement day. but who cares cos it’s also pinfest
Luckily I've got a pi zero 2 sitting unused still sealed as I used to tend to add one onto an order a while ago.
You can get 2GB Pi 4s from Pimoro but you have to buy them in the kit which is annoyingly £5 more expensive than buying all the parts separately that are included.
I’m desperate for a batch of Pi3A+
I think my goal is to get a second slave 5.8kw Solax triple power battery and another evolution elite panel to make a 5.2kw system with 11.6kw storage which would help out in winter and then do some more research on these agile tariffs to force the battery’s on when cheap rates.
My mate has his whole system automated using a Pi3 it does the force charge looks after his hot water checks if any lights left on and the likes and can even feed the grid using octopus agile rates which can offer dumping to the grid upto 60p at rush hour times and take a charge over night sometimes under a penny’s per KW and he has previously been paid for taking energy into his battery’s.
He been onto me a while now to get it sorted which I may if the hikes continue.
Oh he said Pi2b no good and it must be pi3 onwards for some unknown reason but I can find out.
How do the pis talk to the inverters? Via some serial port or over network? Mines hardwired into a deco wifi repeater in the garage.
look on the octopus agile site, they have links to others who are doing it. quite a community out there.
How's your install going? Any idea on dates / lead times / stock?
All the quotes are more or less the same. no one wants to get into the hassle of DNO notification for a system bigger than 7kwp and 3.68kw restricted inverter. I want a bigger one so still looking.
One company i’ve found will do it as they see the benefit then of using the solar energy to convert into heat to replace my gas as my gas bill is horrendous. ie 1kwh or electricity to generate 3kwh of heat energy to hot water to power my ch and ufh. Best and most efficient device to do this is a 100m deep vertical ground source heat pump. not cheap to drill out, but works all year round.
So i’m up to my head in all this new tech. so many options to think through.
another option is replace my ch radiators with new gel filled ones that should reduce gas bill by 30-40%, plus a new gas boiler will do a few more % too. not sure yet if this is also compatible with a heat pump system because they run at a lower water temp compared to gas.
the supplier is working out my whole house heat loss room by room, then will calculate feasibility of various heat pump systems.
there is also a heat recovery system that uses all the heat out of your waste water - imagine how many kwh of heat goes out down the sewage pipes!!!!!! - one system is good for new build housing estates, as you can harvest all your neighbours waste water heat too.
If it's anything like mine then pretty s**te.
Batteries due to be installed in Arpril - cancelled (stuck in China)
New date, August 25th - cancelled (Not cleared customs check)
No new date - probably cancelled (the dish ran away with the spoon)........
For mine the inverter has an RS485 communication port and you just use a TTL to RS485 converter from the Pi, then the pi sends commands over the serial port to the inverter either to request energy info in passive mode or to control it in none-passive modes.
It also has a WiFi connection that links to a website to show your data online.
Solar on a miserable cloudy rainy day.
Battery never really got a chance to charge up again so left on 40% which depending how we cook dinner might just about last the night.
It has covered the background load though and the battery took the hit of a washing machine / hob being used in the morning etc.. so done pretty well. Hit the grid a little bit.
Battery never really got a chance to charge up again so left on 40% which depending how we cook dinner might just about last the night.
It has covered the background load though and the battery took the hit of a washing machine / hob being used in the morning etc.. so done pretty well. Hit the grid a little bit.
How much did you generate?
It is hard to compare but I think mine is not as good as I hoped on a sunny day but on a cloudy day does much better than expected.
Put another way, the difference between a great day and a poor day is a factor of 4.
Looking at the current touted price cap estimates, it will be cheaper to heat with electricity than gas on my tariff.
It is hard to compare but I think mine is not as good as I hoped on a sunny day but on a cloudy day does much better than expected.
Put another way, the difference between a great day and a poor day is a factor of 4.
Looking at the current touted price cap estimates, it will be cheaper to heat with electricity than gas on my tariff.
About 8kw today
Yeah Iv noticed the same price on a pure sunny day it will cap at 4Kw on a 4.8kw system but on a partially cloudy day it will spike upto 5.6kw
I think we have the same system but yours is bigger
Mine is smaller all round. 3.68kW inveter and a 4.2kW array. Using solaredge inverter and LG neon panels. I haven’t seen it cap since things got hotter in June. But my panels are on two sides, so they are less likely to all be at optimum for very long, but do generate longer as the south west side keeps going, albeit with only 1.1kW.
Need more panels
Need more panels
I’m thinking of @Colywobbles hehe!Mine is smaller all round. 3.68kW inveter and a 4.2kW array. Using solaredge inverter and LG neon panels. I haven’t seen it cap since things got hotter in June. But my panels are on two sides, so they are less likely to all be at optimum for very long, but do generate longer as the south west side keeps going, albeit with only 1.1kW.
Need more panels
Yeah I want 1 extra 400w panel and another battery
I think it would make my system more efficient.
**** got real,
Wow. 
Over 15 grand. People would be defaulting all over the place.
The small print is also ominous that as well as paying by direct debit you also HAVE to have a smart meter. Welcome to the world of surge pricing.
Over 15 grand. People would be defaulting all over the place.
The small print is also ominous that as well as paying by direct debit you also HAVE to have a smart meter. Welcome to the world of surge pricing.
Holy ****, bet you couldn’t press that button fast enough…
it's a gamble: heads: fix at that rate for a year. or Tails: go onto the price cap tariff and believe that the rate doesn't rise as much as that, or that it comes down in April 2023
If you fix, how much is it to exit?
Just had mine through this morning quick look and it looks like mines about to double!
If we put the solar to one side for a bit, (as interesting as this it is) has anyone recently fixed and knows of a supplier offering a “discounted rate?” So we can jump on that bandwagon?
I’m gonna have a look today
Thanks Tony
If we put the solar to one side for a bit, (as interesting as this it is) has anyone recently fixed and knows of a supplier offering a “discounted rate?” So we can jump on that bandwagon?
I’m gonna have a look today
Thanks Tony
I don't think discounts have been around for a good while, the example fixes in this table are +80 to +138% over price capped variable, you're basically fixing/gambling to hedge future rises
Just a good rate would do!