Solar Panels, Batteries, Blackouts and Off-Grid

[greggles]

Only had the system since November, but it certainly works as advertised.
Batteries use he residual power from solar to charge up, and then provide power once the sun goes down.
We have had some days where we generate 55KWhrs, use 10 to 15, another 5 to charge the batteries, and the rest goes back to the grid, albeit at the miserly sum of 4.4cents per KWHrs (this is the rate in Victoria set by the Guvmint).
Cloudy days kill the solar output big time.
Will need to go through a winter to assess things.
It depends on why you want to install a system as to how effective they are.
For us, it was all about insurance, and given the number of blackouts an brownouts the system has recorded since installation. it was worth it.
The money saving side is hard for me to justify, but if you are going to get a deal from Origin, it may be worthwhile.
Is the control of the system for 5 years, or for the life of the project?
If you are charging the batteries during the day via solar, the worst outcome you will get is that at sme stage when you might want to use the battery, you are getting it sucked out by origin for which they give you 20c per KWH, while feeding grid power back to your home at 25 cents per KWHr.

Mick

Thanks for the reply Mick.

The details of this particular offer are here: https://www.originenergy.com.au/solar/batteries/lg-offer/

They say they won't take any more than 200 Kwh from your battery each year so presumably they will monitor your usage habits and take it when you aren't using it. You have to remain an Origin customer for five years after signing up.

Superficially the deal looks pretty good, but I'm wondering if there are any gotchas or downsides that I'm missing.

Your experience with a battery seems like a lot I have heard. You need a compelling reason to take the plunge, in your case it was insurance. Economically, it doesn't really make sense until the 10 to 15 year mark, depending on your usage, but after that the benefits really kick in and the savings are considerable. I'm of the view that energy prices will continue to rise over the short to medium term and that increasing self sufficiency when it comes to energy is a good idea and this view forms the basis of my willingness to bite the bullet and jump on board now.

The short term outlook for energy prices in Australia is up, up, up... but I will hold off if this deal doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

 

[sptrawler]

Thanks for the reply Mick.

The details of this particular offer are here: https://www.originenergy.com.au/solar/batteries/lg-offer/

They say they won't take any more than 200 Kwh from your battery each year so presumably they will monitor your usage habits and take it when you aren't using it. You have to remain an Origin customer for five years after signing up.

Superficially the deal looks pretty good, but I'm wondering if there are any gotchas or downsides that I'm missing.

Your experience with a battery seems like a lot I have heard. You need a compelling reason to take the plunge, in your case it was insurance. Economically, it doesn't really make sense until the 10 to 15 year mark, depending on your usage, but after that the benefits really kick in and the savings are considerable. I'm of the view that energy prices will continue to rise over the short to medium term and that increasing self sufficiency when it comes to energy is a good idea and this view forms the basis of my willingness to bite the bullet and jump on board now.

The short term outlook for energy prices in Australia is up, up, up... but I will hold off if this deal doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

from looking at your link, it states a 4.68kW system, is that the installed capacity of the solar, or the rated output after losses e.g 6.6kW of panels give about 5kW of output?
If 4.68kW is installed rating, the output will be closer to 4kW.
One item that is good is the 20c FIT, from memory in W.A if you fit a battery, you get 0 FIT.

 

[Belli]

It would be worth reading your electricity meter, in the morning when you get up and in the late afternoon say around 4-5pm and get an idea of your normal consumption overnight, that should give you an idea if the battery is worth putting in.

@greggles in regard to the above, is it possible for you to login to your account and examine your usage? As an example, this is a screen shot of my usage for one day (info for week, month, year is available) and, as you can see, it is also possible to download the data to a CSV file. Can certainly tell when it's the Winter months with the yearly!

 

[Macquack]

A lot will depend on the size of the battery yours sounds like 8.8kW/hr, size of your solar array and your personal usage pattern. Someone I know who is off grid has no problems, but that is with 30Kw of solar and a 15kW/h battery and the house set up for low consumption e.g heat pump HWS and lpg cooking.
It would be worth reading your electricity meter, in the morning when you get up and in the late afternoon say around 4-5pm and get an idea of your normal consumption overnight, that should give you an idea if the battery is worth putting in.

30Kw of solar?

Is that a "typo". In an off-grid situation, most of the solar production would go to waste.

 

[sptrawler]

30Kw of solar?

Is that a "typo". In an off-grid situation, most of the solar production would go to waste.

Yes the son is a bit like that, he wasn't sure how much he would require, with the three teenage kids and with working on the mines cost wasn't an issue. ?
But you are right he is finding even on the worst of overcast days, the battery is getting charged, the backup generator has only run 5hrs in over 12 months and most of that is from him exercising it.
He is looking forward to being able to get an E.V, to soak up the excess generation and be a backup battery.

 

[Macquack]

Yes the son is a bit like that, he wasn't sure how much he would require, with the three teenage kids and with working on the mines cost wasn't an issue. ?
But you are right he is finding even on the worst of overcast days, the battery is getting charged, the backup generator has only run 5hrs in over 12 months and most of that is from him exercising it.
He is looking forward to being able to get an E.V, to soak up the excess generation and be a backup battery.

Are you son's solar panels on the roof or some other arrangement. If the panels are on the roof, the house must be massive.

 

[sptrawler]

Are you son's solar panels on the roof or some other arrangement. If the panels are on the roof, the house must be massive.

House and farm shed, the house isnt big at all, the shed is a reasonable size though.

 

[mullokintyre]

Its raining and overcast here in the GV.
At 13.15 the 8kw Solar panels were putting out 415 Watts.
At 15.19 its gone down to 238 watts, not even supplying enough for the house.
So we are drawing down the batteries which are at 42%.
when the sun won't shine, no amount of solar panels is gonna save you.
Mick

 

[Macquack]

Its raining and overcast here in the GV.
At 13.15 the 8kw Solar panels were putting out 415 Watts.
At 15.19 its gone down to 238 watts, not even supplying enough for the house.
So we are drawing down the batteries which are at 42%.
when the sun won't shine, no amount of solar panels is gonna save you.
Mick

I have been in the same situation many times. At first, I thought shock horror I might have to fire up the generator. Then I thought, the indigenous Australians lived here for fifty thousand odd years without electricity at all and survived. I reflected on my first world problem and decided to go to bed early.

 

[basilio]

Solid state energy technology for your home. Game changing 25 year high energy battery.
Spoiler. This guy reads the fine print.
Well worth checking out though IMV

 

[sptrawler]

30Kw of solar?

Is that a "typo". In an off-grid situation, most of the solar production would go to waste.

My apologies Macca, I went to the footy with the son on Saturday, he has 15Kw of panels and a 15Kw battery.
As my wife says, "you wern't listening, as usual".

 

[Smurf1976]

when the sun won't shine, no amount of solar panels is gonna save you.

Unless it's sufficiently sized to generate sufficient output from indirect light.

There's one I'm aware of, an off-grid system in Tasmania that's running critical infrastructure, that gets no direct sunlight at all during winter due to its location down a valley. It works simply because the PV capacity has been sized accordingly.

Mid summer it's fully charged by 9am.

 

[macca]

I will ask the experts, after getting bill shock with my last power bill and now reading that it is going up another 20% I am revisiting solar panels.

My problem is that we have a lot of shade around our house.

I could put panels in two places, one place will only get the sun from sunup to about noon(facing north), the other will get the sun from noon to about 4.00pm (facing west)

The only other option we have is to mount panels on a framework in the yard somewhere

Is it worth me getting solar ?

 

[sptrawler]

I will ask the experts, after getting bill shock with my last power bill and now reading that it is going up another 20% I am revisiting solar panels.

My problem is that we have a lot of shade around our house.

I could put panels in two places, one place will only get the sun from sunup to about noon(facing north), the other will get the sun from noon to about 4.00pm (facing west)

The only other option we have is to mount panels on a framework in the yard somewhere

Is it worth me getting solar ?

Probably depends on your usage, as more and more people go to solar/batteries, my guess is the service charge will increase proportional to the decrease in usage.
At the moment the Govt want as much renewables in as possible, so increasing the cost of the electricity kills two birds with one stone, there is more tax collected and it pushes people toward installing solar+ batteries.
So it really depends on your usage, that is the only cost you can mitigate, if you don't use much you wont save much do a bi of cost base analysis.
I really don't think people realise, how much electricity bills are going to go up, in the near future.

 

[macca]

Probably depends on your usage, as more and more people go to solar/batteries, my guess is the service charge will increase proportional to the decrease in usage.
At the moment the Govt want as much renewables in as possible, so increasing the cost of the electricity kills two birds with one stone, there is more tax collected and it pushes people toward installing solar+ batteries.
So it really depends on your usage, that is the only cost you can mitigate, if you don't use much you wont save much do a bi of cost base analysis.
I really don't think people realise, how much electricity bills are going to go up, in the near future.

My last quarter was $800, same time last year was $450 for higher usage ( now I am paying 0.36 per kwh)

My problem is that I am all electric and my water treatment plant has two motors in it, one running 24/7 plus I have a pool motor which I runs about 3 hours a day.

No point in buying a battery if I can't generate enough power to charge it for overnight usage

 

[sptrawler]

My last quarter was $800, same time last year was $450 for higher usage ( now I am paying 0.36 per kwh)

My problem is that I am all electric and my water treatment plant has two motors in it, one running 24/7 plus I have a pool motor which I runs about 3 hours a day.

No point in buying a battery if I can't generate enough power to charge it for overnight usage

Does the water treatment need to run 24/7? Is it for drinking water or sewage treatment.

 

[moXJO]

My last quarter was $800, same time last year was $450 for higher usage ( now I am paying 0.36 per kwh)

My problem is that I am all electric and my water treatment plant has two motors in it, one running 24/7 plus I have a pool motor which I runs about 3 hours a day.

No point in buying a battery if I can't generate enough power to charge it for overnight usage

If it's just solar panels, its just your day usage you need to worry about?
Work out the watts of whatever is running during the day.

 

[Smurf1976]

I could put panels in two places, one place will only get the sun from sunup to about noon(facing north), the other will get the sun from noon to about 4.00pm (facing west)

Yes it will work, the panels will generate electricity when the sun's shining on them and will generate much less, but not zero, when shaded.

Install both and you'll have good production from morning to 4:00pm from your description.

BUT......

They need to be on a separate string and MPPT input to the inverter.

And you also need optimisers on the panels assuming the shading comes across gradually. Either that or micro-inverters or a SolarEdge system.

The economics will be diminished by the shading, since you're getting less output, but it will work as such yes.

Way to go about it is you need a solar installer who fully understands the technical side of what they're doing in detail. That is, you don't want a salesman or a grunt worker, you need someone who knows what they're on about and who calculates rather than guesses. Yes such people are around but in short not at the cheap end of the market which is dominated by "sales companies" and grunt workers.

Find someone good, stick to good equipment and it's doable.

My systems partly shaded. Mid-winter production drops off sharply after 13:30 but in summer not such an issue. It works, just dents the economics compared to an unshaded site.

Other options, unrelated to solar:

Do you have options to change the time when major loads operate? Eg you mention a pool motor and presumably you've got electric hot water? Typically these are loads that could be run at a time of your choosing and if so then TOU (Time Of Use) metering is the way to go. Then run all such loads during the cheapest period.

Either that or connecting such loads to a Controlled Load supply (aka "off-peak" in some states).

 

[macca]

Thanks for the suggestions, my neighbour used a well established company so I will get his contact there and have him assess my situation.

I shall ask the Smurf questions when he gets here

I have to run the motors 24/7 (sewerage) I can change the pool to run when the sun is shining if I get solar.

See how we go

 

[basilio]

Quiz questions.
How much would one pay for a solar kit with 6Kw output, 5.6 kw hybrid inverter and a 3.55 kwh lithium battery.

All electric connections. Just plug and play. $10k ? $13 k? 7 K
Check this out.

This startup’s solar + storage kit comes in an ‘oil’ barrel​

Michelle Lewis | Jul 12 2023 - 4:43 pm PT

12 Comments

Italian startup Barrel is packing solar modules, inverters, and battery storage into “oil” barrels – here’s why and how they work.

Milan-based Barrel has designed its solar and storage kit for conflict zones and remote areas, and it’s packed into an “oil” barrel for resilience and portability.
The standard package includes solar modules with a 6 kW total output (although it can be used with any solar panels), a 5.6 kW single-phase hybrid inverter, and a 3.55 kWh lithium-ion battery. The solar panels are unfolded and connected, the output cable’s industrial plug can be connected to the power grid, and it also has an industrial input connector.

Barrel’s kit generates enough electricity to power even large apartments. You can check out the full specifications here.

Barrel’s barrels cost around $3,300 each and tend to be purchased and used by private nonprofit and government organizations.
The company, which sources its components from Switzerland and assembles the solar kit in Venice, has a presence in markets in Africa and the Middle East, and it’s also sent barrels to earthquake-hit Turkey and Ukraine.
Barrel founder Matteo Villa told pv magazine Italia:

Our priority is always to offer immediate and reliable energy solutions in emergency situations, helping communities to recover and rebuild.
We continue to work with international and local organizations to extend our support into other areas in need of energy assistance.

This startup's solar + storage kit comes in an 'oil' barrel

Italian startup Barrel is packing solar modules, inverters, and battery storage into "oil" barrels – here's why, and how they work.

electrek.co