Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2022 - No PM requests - See Mod note post #1

Hello,

Just to contribute some information for battery yes/no. Please see info on the first days running the system, might be 4 days.

Living in the West and the sh..t weather, the battery has certainly so far paid off for me.

Retirement is still a few years away but single digit.

I do not mind to feed a big amount into the grid (as it will be only in summer). The big system will provide benefits in winter when days are much shorter and weather even more sh..tty. By the way I can always buy more storage capacity (waiting on the price to come down).

And without sounding too controversial. The planet needs us now. I am in the position to pay for it and therefore I really do not mind.

Controversial? Nahh - more of that type of behavior please!

I've been PM'd by a few people asking who I used for my fit as I have nothing but god things to say about the company that fitted my solarPV.

I've told each who it was, and provided contact details. I've also told them to say it was me that referred them.

I have not received any monetary compensation.

I realise it goes against the rules of the forum, but frankly I never understood the reason behind this.

I was given the opportunity to add the company to the list of companies that forum users have utilised, but sadly I could not edit the list, and despite saying so publicly, got no assistance in this.

So if I've been reported for my sins, fair play. But just to confirm, I received no monetary compensation for this. I simply wanted to pass on details of a good company, well run and not excessively expensive. I hope it helped those who asked.

This is my last post. Please remove/ban me as a member of this forum, having broken the rules, I won't be back to poke myself in the eye with people's responses!

@BoxerX

As @Jonathan says, if someone contacts you and you reply, that's perfectly OK. And as you say, you're receiving no incentive.

The issue we have faced here is that there are some people sending unsolicited PMs including discount codes in order to drive business to certain companies and those companies may be rewarding them for doing so.

This is entirely against the spirit of the forum. Any and all advice given here should be unbiased and independent.

Start with a 5kwh battery and see how you get on. With the feed in tariff coming on line the larger battery might not make sense. But only time will tell.

Unless you have the consumption (I'm 10,000+/year) I think dropping down to 5Kwhr battery and spending part of the money on 2x extra panels is what I'd do.

But if you have the consumption, then even with a FIT of €0.14/unit a battery still makes a lot of sense. I filled my 8.2Kwhr battery yesterday from solar, and it got me to midnight (8% left). I'm with SSE and it's €0.31 for day rate, so hypothetically if I exported a unit at €0.14 only to "buy it" back at €0.31 later on in the day, it's still advantageous - if you have the consumption to deplete your battery.

The whole FIT thing has complicated the math on payback. We'll have to see where the dust lies when they announce things like the standing charges associated with these "FIT tarrifs" amongst other things, but a small-medium battery is (probably) a decent purchase for most people. It's really hard to know. I'd advise (as I've always done) for people to do the math.

Unless your over 10K/year in consumption it's hard to see the payback for 8.2Kwhr I think with the new FITs.

if you have a night meter you can charge the battery at the night rate and then use this during the day, differential could be 12c or more (I think) depending on what tariff your on. So save another €1 or so a day during the winter (with an 8kwh battery), it all adds up, could be another €100 0r more a year

While your correct in general, unfortunately that's not entirely true. We might be going a little away from the "quotes" theme here, but some manufacturers over provision the battery.

For example, take the Givenergy 8.2Kwhr battery, well under the hood it's actually closer to a 10Kwhr, but it's marketed as a 8.2Kwhr battery. So you can do 100% "depth of discharge" and get your 8.2Kwhr, but in reality your probably only using 85% of that 9.8Kwhr (or whatever it is under the hood). This is also how they guarantee after 10 years 0% loss in capacity. Again, the actual capacity under the hood might be 9.8Kwhr, and after 10 years, that will drop to (say) 8.8Kwhr, but you can still have your 8.2Kwhr if you want as they've taken the hit on the "extra" behind the scenes.

Likewise as you mention, 2x smaller batteries can be somewhat advantageous for that very reason of charge/discharge rates. You might by 2 x 2.5Kwhr Polytech batteries and install them in parallel. So you would get 5kw discharge rate, instead of being limited to 2.5kw rate if you only had 1 big 5.0 Kwhr battery

@bullit_dodger - do you know the C-Rating for those LiFePO4 Givenergy batteries? In the brochure it says "0.5C-1C charge and discharge rate", which is a little vague...

Strategically, you may want to limit the charging in order to allow more excess, for EV charging, to fill the battery over the whole day.

Quote 1:

14 * 410w Jinko Type N black Panels (5.74kw)

Solis 5kw Inverter

Eddi + Harvi + hub

BER

€9,100

+ 5kw Puredrive battery

€11,500

Quote 2:

14 * 370w JA Mono (5.1kw)

Solis 5kw Inverter

Eddi

No BER

5kw Puredrive battery 

€10,380

Quote 3:

10 * 410w Jinko Type N black Panels (4.1kw)

4kw Huawei inverter

Eddi

BER

€6,800

+ 5kw Huawei battery 

€11,700

Any opinions on above?

Also what exactly is the Harvi for? Looks like something for wireless connectivity for the Eddi? Only Quote 1 mentions it. Is that a standard with an Eddi and in other quotes or something extra I'm getting in quote 1?

Are those price before or after the grant?

Quote 1a - after site visit

12 Panel PV System - 360 Watt Panel - 4.3kW System - 6 east, 6 west

6 optimisers (tall chimney casting shadow on western aspect)

Hybrid Inverter

5kWh battery

Socket from battery

Eddi

€12882 pre grant/€10482 post grant

Haggling to be done I think?

Quote today

7 panel 2.7kwh system (this is all roof space allows)

Eddi

BER

No battery. €6,950 after grant

Seems pretty expensive? What would you expect to pay?