Plans for the year ahead

4 more 345w panels on the west side are up and waiting to be connected and a change over switch going in as well. That's me maxed out on the roof at 5 x 345w east 7 x 345w south and the new 4 x 345w west.

Changeover switch

Upgrade/add to my 12v off grid backup - possible change to 24v

Get quote for heat pump

(semi renewable related) source + install back boiler for my stove

Upgrade and change battery pack from 20kWh dyness

If I fall into a lot of money, add more panels, but not really the priority for 2023, more like 2024.

Don't know about the year ahead but certainly projects we would like to get done, putting in an order for an M3 on Sat has somewhat changed things.

• Attic insulation, although mainly good, needs a bit of tidying up and some flooring put down.
• Air tightness test and will be speaking to the company that carried out our BER to do this in the next few days.
• MHRV depending on the air tightness, feel with the new doors and windows we could do with it. Have already priced the equipment with a view to a diy install.
• Have already started looking at our heat loss with a view to getting a heat pump so will be getting quotes for the install of that.
• Ideally would like to get a garden room/ office facing east west to add more panels to supplement the south facing array we have now. Most have a shallow enough roof angle so would need to look at modifying this.
• Could increase the battery capacity but not a major concern at the minute.
• Come into some money 😂

Off gridders particularly in the US but elsewhere too, generally measure their storage capacity by how many days it can support with no solar power. I'd say you're probably at 2 days with 45kWh? Excluding the car/s of course

Depends on how you look at it. I'd use not much more than 10kWh per day just in electricity from a traditional point of view of a modest semi detached house with a gas boiler. In practice I use a lot more as I heat all my water with electricity and a substantial part of my home heating is done with electricity too.

Few projects on the back of my mind.

• Getting 3x extra panels on the main roof (1.2Kwp). Couldn't get them installed while adhering to the SEAI dimension requirements, but now that the grant is done and dusted, I should be able to get these fitted onto the roof. Sadly the 50cm distances/tolerances required for the grant meant that 3 panels had to go to keep within distances.
• Toying with the idea of 10Kwhr DIY battery. I know, I know I should just get off my ass and do it, but there's always "other" things to do. LOL
• Failing a DIY battery, I'd swap out my "Gen1" inverter 2.6Kw charge/discharge limit for a Gen2 inverter 4Kw and throw in an additional 8.2Kwhr battery (bringing me to 16.4Kwhr). Advantages of the DIY battery is that I'd have a higher discharge rate of ~5Kw, but then you have the added complexity of the batteries "fighting each other". That can be overcome, but sometimes I like Occam's razor.

Other than that, not strictly renewables related, thinking of ripping out the bath and redoing the bathroom myself with a shower unit , new tiles, whole shebang. I'd be the project manager on that one, so it's a question of time to do everything :-)

2 hrs? Maybe for you unkel as you know the score, but I know from doing these type of things, I tend to think about how it will work, research things, probably end up building a box for it, insulate it, check and recheck connections. Spend time looking at various youtube videos. Play around with automation for it.

2 hrs it aint.......for sure. :-)

Ahh yeah, i'd be fairly handy with plumbing and what not. I don't particularly "like" doing it, and I certainly wouldn't be as fast as a professional doing it, but I'm good with a spanner. If something can be hit with a hammer.....I'm your man. LOL

I reckon probably 50-80 hrs for me to build a battery. Remember a lot of the time is in learning. if you know how it's done, your already half way there. Lots of stuff that takes time such as the balancing, playing around with settings. Getting it to "play nicely" with my existing one - which may involve simply setting time schedules where one is active/inactive as the case maybe. Wiring into the house. Making it look neat (like you did recently with your cabinet)

Not against doing that, and in some respects it's "fun", but lots on this year including a hike to the top of Kilimanjaro! I'm more keen on getting the 3x extra panels than an extra battery.

Perhaps a gazebo on the outside?

Main plan for 2023 is optimising what I already have. Have pretty much everything within Home Assistant now, so need to set up automations to reduce usage and maximise solar excess.

Hope to fit the first of what should be several smart sockets behind the sitting room tv unit. Main aim here is to have all the devices completely off and not in standby at night and when at work, and also to get around the missus only turning off the tv when going to bed. Won't be a huge wattage saving, but will do the same with both home office desk setups, monitors etc .

Also using such sockets to monitor power usage on WM, drier and DW for notifications. Ideally to know when the WM is done to hang out the clothes when the weather improves.

I need to figure out how to monitor the hot water temp coming from my stove to the HW tank and then use that to try and stop my Evohome controller "double jobbing" by switching on the oil burner when the rads call for heat. The stove is usually enough to keep the rads warm, but Evohome uses the oil to do it 'instantly'. Saved over 80l of oil from the Eddi last year, so this could do similar during the winter.

Depending on funds, I may add a single panel with micro inverter, to the east hip roof of the shed the existing panels are on. Was planning on doing that in Spring (and the same on the west side in 2024) but I think the works budget for 2023 will be taken up by an outdoor kitchen and patio. Though that will give me more roof space for future panels. If I could roof it with panels instead of slates, it'd be a win-win scenario.😁

I've just been looking at integrated solar panels since posting the above.

Project costs now skyrocketing,

Just checked it and all devices in the unit, on standby uses 21w. Should be able to knock that off for 16hrs a day during the week and 6 sat/sun. So an average of 275 watts a day, ~100kW over a year.

I would guess half that is saving off PV and half grid imports, so €20 or thereabouts in imports. ROI in a year. As the kids get older, will have more in there as well such as consoles, sound bar .

Plus it solves the issue of the missus not turning off the sky box when going to bed etc.

Scale that up to include both office desks and the av equipment in my office and it will definitely make an impact.

I would guess the lan switch (currently tv, sky box, PS3 all connected to it) is the biggest draw as it's never in standby as such.

I'm quite happy to use the €24 smart socket to manage it, rather than spending €10 to check if I need more €€ to replace working devices. Also gets rid of the led lights at night if I get sent to the couch 😜