Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2020

KCross

championc wrote: »

The new v3 Zappi2 (3.033) and Hub (3.021) software was finally released earlier this week, although I certainly never heard anything relating to it needing to resolve issues around making it more reliable or faster.

See the 2nd post in this thread...
https://myenergi.info/server-status-ok-major-incident-recovery-complete-t44.html

They are changing the way their backend database works to make the reporting quicker. The weekly and monthly reports have never really worked reliably for me. It appears I became a user after they introduced this timezone change so maybe it was better before but its basically disabled now.


I also believe they are moving to new servers to improve speed. The app has been very hit and miss for me. When its working its very very good and reasonably accurate (cross checked it with other meters I have) but its just not reliable/fast enough at the moment.

I think they will resolve it though.

championc

Grumpypants wrote: »

Oh no, that was his point, he didn't want to sell me an oversized unit. He said if you only end up using 50% of what a 2kw system makes, then selling you a 4kw system is point less as you'll never use it. And will double the time it takes to get paid back.

That there is a big fall off in return once you go above 2kw. And unless you spend your life micromanaging everything you will be years waiting to pay it off.

From a 2kw to a 4kw system should possibly only increase a 2kw system cost by 50% at most. You aren't doubling the inverter and cabling and most importantly the labour.

These guys install these systems in one day. So whether it's 10 or 20 panels to be installed, it's pretty immaterial.

With a 2kw system, every time you use any appliance like the kettle, washing machine, dishwasher, dryer, you'll be drawing energy from the grid. And on a cloudy day (even if dry), you'd be lucky to be generating 200w each hour.

Coltrane

DrPhilG wrote: »

And this morning it's loopy again.

Wife put the dryer on before we left, just checked the 2 apps.

Solis:
Current use - 2.03kw
Generating - 600w
From grid - 1.41kw

Myenergi:
Current use - 1.2kw
Generating - ?
From grid - 1.2kw

Is the myenergi hub app generally unreliable? It seems to jump all over the place. One minute it shows 1.2 current use and 1.2 coming from the grid. The next it says I'm exporting 0.3kw which makes no sense at all.

Also it doesn't seem to be reading my production at all, or am I using it wrong?

As others have said they're both fairly rough, because they use CT-clamps. And the Solis has a far longer lag. If you wanted something more realtime you could invest in a geo Minim, which uses an LED-sensor (will work with your meter). I have it out of sheer geekiness, together with about five other monitors and think it's probably the best, although it cannot distinguish import from export.


Enjoy all the fantastic new kit and congratulations to you for doing your bit for the environment which as far as I'm concerned is what this is really all about.

DrPhilG

championc wrote: »

On the Zappi, go to MENU > OTHER SETTINGS > ADVANCED > 0000 > CT CONFIG

or MENU > OTHER SETTINGS > ADVANCED > 0000 > LINKED DEVICES > DEVICES > HARVI

Whichever one of the CT Clamps, which is linked onto the AC link from the Inverter, should be set to Generation Only. You should then have another somewhere set to Grid

I don't have a Harvi.

Texted the installer, he says there is only 1 clamp in place, to read the grid power. He says he'll add another one at the weekend to sort the rest.

Although won't he need 2? One for the generation and one for the export to the battery?

This is what the myenergi app is showing me:



But I want it to also show generation and battery amounts, like here:

drdidlittle

Hi Guys - thoughts on the following

14 SolarWatt 320W Panels
Solax HV 4.48 kWp Hybrid Battery
iBoost Diverter (€450 added in price below)
Solax X1 Hybrid Inverter 3.7

€8445 inclusive of the 3000 SEAI Grant (€11445 Gross)

championc

You bought a Hybrid Inverter from memory ? You cannot measure the power to the battery because it's inside the inverter. I (and the likes of Tesla Powerwall owners) can see our battery in and out power because it's it's own separate inverter.

garo

drdidlittle wrote: »

Hi Guys - thoughts on the following

14 SolarWatt 320W Panels
Solax HV 4.48 kWp Hybrid Battery
iBoost Diverter (€450 added in price below)
Solax X1 Hybrid Inverter 3.7

€8445 inclusive of the 3000 SEAI Grant (€11445 Gross)

Ripoff.

MAULBROOK

DrPhilG wrote: »

And this morning it's loopy again.

Wife put the dryer on before we left, just checked the 2 apps.

Solis:
Current use - 2.03kw
Generating - 600w
From grid - 1.41kw

Myenergi:
Current use - 1.2kw
Generating - ?
From grid - 1.2kw

Is the myenergi hub app generally unreliable? It seems to jump all over the place. One minute it shows 1.2 current use and 1.2 coming from the grid. The next it says I'm exporting 0.3kw which makes no sense at all.

Also it doesn't seem to be reading my production at all, or am I using it wrong?

https://m.ginlong.com/login.html

try the desk top version, it has a little more info

jspuds

Another option is to login to the IP address of the Solis Wifi dongle to get real time info.

DrPhilG

championc wrote: »

You bought a Hybrid Inverter from memory ? You cannot measure the power to the battery because it's inside the inverter.

Ah, poop.

Well I'll at least get it set up for myenergi to view the production. I would have thought that the Zappi at the very least needed to know what was being produced so it would know when to charge via excess.

unkel

Zappis don't work with hybrid inverters. Or has that problem been addressed by Myenergi at this stage?

championc

unkel wrote: »

Zappis don't work with hybrid inverters. Or has that problem been addressed by Myenergi at this stage?

Yep, nothing yet. You'd need to fudge it from the car's end by maybe setting the car to charge at a particular minimum rate, if that option was available, in order to use what would otherwise have gone into the battery

DrPhilG

unkel wrote: »

Zappis don't work with hybrid inverters. Or has that problem been addressed by Myenergi at this stage?

Don't work at all? I thought the system could still be set to prioritise the charger ahead of grid export? As in this post:

DrPhilG wrote: »

Another quick question on priorities, I've asked some of this before but just confirming and also understanding the output as well as the input.

When producing, the order for where power goes is:
1 - House/current usage
2 - battery storage
3 - car via Zappi (if over 1.4kw available)
4 - export to grid

Mickeroo

Have had no issues using the zappi with a hybrid inverter so far. Once it sees power going to the grid it diverts to the car (provided there's enough).

What was the issue they were meant to have?

Coltrane

DrPhilG wrote: »

Don't work at all? I thought the system could still be set to prioritise the charger ahead of grid export? As in this post:

You should be fine. My Zappi and Solis-hybrid inverter work together pretty well. Priorities exactly per your post. If you’re having issues try programming a small export margin on the Zappi, and if you have the hub installing latest Zappi firmware.

DrPhilG

Thanks Coltrane & Mickeroo

Not an issue yet, we had nice weather last week and up until Wednesday when the system was installed.

Since then I haven't seen an inch of blue in the sky and its been steadily raining, lol.

I'm still generating enough for most of my daytime use, but bugger all excess.

Geeyfds53573

Hi,
Tigo optimizers the monitoring software anyone use this? Views and cost? I know the optimizers aren’t too expensive but wondering about access to monitor them and cost..

DrPhilG

For a while I thought had cursed the entire north west. My install finished on Wednesday afternoon, and the sun proceeded to hide behind clouds for the next 2 days.

Finally peeked out today, and I was generating a steady 3kWh most of the afternoon. I even managed a free run of the tumble dryer.

Just took these pictures, at 8pm.







So I'll sod off now to the "Post your output" thread once I get a month's data behind me.

Overall I'm very happy with the system and the price. And apologies to anyone who sent a pm asking for installer details. I didn't really want to give a recommendation until it was all sorted. And I have a head like a bin so I forgot to reply to most.

And thanks again to all the knowledgeable heads here who answered my endless annoying questions and helped guide me to the end goal.

One more question for the PV owners here, does the obsession ever stop? I spent half the day checking the app, lol.

rx8

That's one hell of a system DrPhilG. I hope you won't torture Ken too much. I definitely found myself using the App a lot in the weeks after the install and micro-managing the "free" power. While July wasn't a particularly good month, May and June were fine and going by my recent 2-monthly electric bill of only €65, I think I managed it well. Best of luck with it. Glad you are happy.

DrPhilG

rx8 wrote: »

That's one hell of a system DrPhilG. I hope you won't torture Ken too much. I definitely found myself using the App a lot in the weeks after the install and micro-managing the "free" power. While July wasn't a particularly good month, May and June were fine and going by my recent 2-monthly electric bill of only €65, I think I managed it well. Best of luck with it. Glad you are happy.

And thanks for the recommendation. They came recommended by yourself, gomamochi1 and winterman1234. So they clearly made an impression.

And don't worry, I'll leave Ken alone. After he comes to tweak things this weekend that is, lol.

Mickeroo

What type of system did you select in the app?

Mine shows the battery charge too when it's set to storage system. Going by another thread it might depend on a newer version of the dongle that has an antenna on it:

DrPhilG

Ahh, I think I hit self consumption. I'll change it now and see what happens.

Actually my installer is here now making some adjustments so I'll pick his brains

DrPhilG

Bingo, I now have the battery option, thanks.

What is the "back up" icon for?

Grumpypants

championc wrote: »

With a 2kw system, every time you use any appliance like the kettle, washing machine, dishwasher, dryer, you'll be drawing energy from the grid. And on a cloudy day (even if dry), you'd be lucky to be generating 200w each hour.

That sounds like it would be very easy to use up? Surely just the fridge, freezer and air exchange unit would gobble up 100% of that. Never mind the pc and 3 monitors that are on all day too for work.

You might have a super hot day were you are not at home were you would generate more than is being used by the house, but we have 3 small kids and I work from home so are rarely away from the house.

(Just to clarify what the seller was saying. He was saying the house would use at least 50% of what the panels produced without much effort. Not that the panels would create 50% of what the house used. )

The cost is averaging out to €20 a month for ten years. For a 2.17kw system. I can put it on the ground so can face the perfect direction to maximize output.

What I'm trying to figure out is if it would produce and I could use it up, to save me €20off my bill. I pay 14.5 cent before vat for a unit now. So let's say 16 cent.

KCross

Grumpypants wrote: »

What I'm trying to figure out is if it would produce and I could use it up, to save me €20off my bill. I pay 14.5 cent before vat for a unit now. So let's say 16 cent.

You’re making it too complicated for yourself.

Get an energy monitor and see what your background load is over an extended period and work from there.

Then get some real world stats of what a given kWp system will generate each month and use that for your calculations using your background load as the base and then estimate how much above your base load you are likely to use.

Things like fridges and computer monitors are not that big a consumer. The fridge isn’t on all the time and when it is it’s relatively low power for short periods of time.

You need to get an energy monitor as every house and lifestyle is different so unless you work off your figures you will be misled by other people’s figures.

DrPhilG

My only frustration is that I didn't do this years ago.

Dishwasher and tumble dryer both running, still producing so much that I was starting to export.

WiFi switch for the immersion has a 1 hour boost so I switched that on. Still almost producing enough to power it all.



Then again the quotes I almost pulled the trigger on a few years back were nowhere near as good as the one I ended up with.

Mickeroo

DrPhilG wrote: »

Bingo, I now have the battery option, thanks.

What is the "back up" icon for?

Not 100% sure but I think that's the power the inverter itself is using. I also think that would show consumption for the other back up AC out which you can use in a power outage(if you have a socket wired to it).

DrPhilG

Mickeroo wrote: »

I also think that would show consumption for the other back up AC out which you can use in a power outage(if you have a socket wired to it).

I thought I couldn't run off the system in an outage, due to the risk of feeding excess to the grid and frying some wee ESB man?

Mickeroo

DrPhilG wrote: »

I thought I couldn't run off the system in an outage, due to the risk of feeding excess to the grid and frying some wee ESB man?

You can have a socket off the other AC connection on the inverter which can use the battery in a power outage, once the battery is drained you're done though.

DrPhilG

Mickeroo wrote: »

What type of system did you select in the app?

Mine shows the battery charge too when it's set to storage system. Going by another thread it might depend on a newer version of the dongle that has an antenna on it:

How do you get the app to display your self use rate %?

championc

DrPhilG wrote: »

How do you get the app to display your self use rate %?

The % value relates to how full the battery is.

Mind you, i wonder as to what that Backup connection is ? I haven't see that before.

Mickeroo

DrPhilG wrote: »

How do you get the app to display your self use rate %?

It's there on mine when I scroll down a bit from the diagram, think it showed up once I switched type to storage system.

irishchris

Mickeroo wrote: »

It's there on mine when I scroll down a bit from the diagram, think it showed up once I switched type to storage system.

About to get mine installed over next couple weeks but just wondering what is the app you are all using and what systems is it for or a generic one?

Geeyfds53573

irishchris wrote: »

About to get mine installed over next couple weeks but just wondering what is the app you are all using and what systems is it for or a generic one?

https://myenergi.com/product/myenergi-app/

Sorry didn’t see the recent ones it’s
Solarman app on solis

championc

Mickeroo wrote: »

It's there on mine when I scroll down a bit from the diagram, think it showed up once I switched type to storage system.

The one with black writing on a white background, with blue tracking lines is certainly from the app solarman. In my case, the wifi dongle was installed in Sofar equipment

The black one with coloured rings is from MyEnergi

Mickeroo

irishchris wrote: »

About to get mine installed over next couple weeks but just wondering what is the app you are all using and what systems is it for or a generic one?

championc wrote: »

The one with black writing on a white background, with blue tracking lines is certainly from the app solarman. In my case, the wifi dongle was installed in Sofar equipment

The black one with coloured rings is from MyEnergi

App I'm using that I took the screenshot from is Solis Home, ginlong's own app for solis inverters.

championc

And what's the "Back-up" thing ?

irishchris

Mickeroo wrote: »

App I'm using that I took the screenshot from is Solis Home, ginlong's own app for solis inverters.

assume this can only be used with solis inveter?

Mickeroo

championc wrote: »

And what's the "Back-up" thing ?

No idea, best guess is it's the power the inverter itself is using.

irishchris wrote: »

assume this can only be used with solis inveter?

Yeah, and you need the WiFi dongle attached to the inverter to use it.

irishchris

Mickeroo wrote: »

No idea, best guess is it's the power the inverter itself is using.



Yeah, and you need the WiFi dongle attached to the inverter to use it.

Would there be a universal energy app for solar or has anyone got an idea if goodwe inverters do a monitoring app

checkcheek

Quote which I’m starting to see is quite expensive

3500 (net of grant - can pay in monthly installments interest free which I like)

8 panels
Inverter
Eddi diverter

30 year warranty on panels
15 year warranty on inverter (which I think is decent)

garo

DrPhilG wrote: »

Bingo, I now have the battery option, thanks.

What is the "back up" icon for?

So the Zappi works now as desired?

PS: My obsession is still to end almost 1 year later. So I'm afraid you might be hooked for life.

garo

checkcheek wrote: »

Quote which I’m starting to see is quite expensive

3500 (net of grant - can pay in monthly installments interest free which I like)

8 panels
Inverter
Eddi diverter

30 year warranty on panels
15 year warranty on inverter (which I think is decent)

Not a good quote. You are being "charged" for the interest-free loan over the odds. For 4500 net of grant you should be able to get 16 panels.

DrPhilG

garo wrote: »

So the Zappi works now as desired?

PS: My obsession is still to end almost 1 year later. So I'm afraid you might be hooked for life.

No the Zappi still isn't working. It's very odd.

The Zappi screen shows 0.00 all the way, as though it isn't getting any info from the systems as to what is coming in from production, or what is being used by the house etc. But the myenergi app IS showing some of that.

The app shows draw from or feed to the grid, draw by the house from the grid and power to the car.

It is not yet showing the production by the panels or the feed to the battery though.

For example if I plug the car in I'll get something like this:


Shows total grid draw and how much is going to the house and the car.

But even though the hub knows that, the Zappi doesn't.

KCross

Did your installer add the extra CT clamp and enable it in the Zappi menu?
Until thats done you wont see any Solar production in the app and you will always see 0% in that middle circle as the Zappi doesnt know what Solar production you have.

You should probably start your own thread Phil, I think you'll have alot more questions to come not related to quotes!

championc

irishchris wrote: »

assume this can only be used with solis inveter?

I tried entering in my Logger ID number and it said it was already connected. So it seems to me that the ginlong is also using the same source as the solarman app, which is solarmanpv.com

Summer2020

DrPhilG wrote: »

My only frustration is that I didn't do this years ago.

Dishwasher and tumble dryer both running, still producing so much that I was starting to export.

WiFi switch for the immersion has a 1 hour boost so I switched that on. Still almost producing enough to power it all.



Then again the quotes I almost pulled the trigger on a few years back were nowhere near as good as the one I ended up with.

What company did you go with for this?

I’m starting to think about getting a system like this and am a bit lost with all the terminology.

rx8

Summer2020 wrote: »

What company did you go with for this?

I’m starting to think about getting a system like this and am a bit lost with all the terminology.

PM Sent.

DrPhilG

Summer2020 wrote: »

What company did you go with for this?

I’m starting to think about getting a system like this and am a bit lost with all the terminology.

Iw as going to say PM sent, but it's the same guys that rx8 used so, "what he said".

DrPhilG

KCross wrote: »

You should probably start your own thread Phil, I think you'll have alot more questions to come not related to quotes!

Your wish is my command.

https://touch.boards.ie/thread/2058101518/1/#post114204317