Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2024 - No PM requests - See Mod note post #1

Have a read of the first few threads, plenty of tips and other helpful advise in it. https://www.boards.ie/categories/renewable-energies

12 x 435 JA Solar PV panels

5KW Solis inverter

12 x PV optimisers

€9500, 7400 after grant for 5.2kW system

Seems high? No idea how to price optimisers.

Company rep is very good though

Thats very high for an optimiser - midsummer has Tigo ones for 54 euro. I got same from spanish company for about 40-45 each.

I am planning to put around 30KW of panels on a farm shed for my dairy farm and would love the advice from the knowledgeable people of boards. Thinking of also getting 30KWH of battery capacity.

It is an East / West system evenly spread, not sure the shed is 15 or 20degree pitch.

The provider I am thinking of going with is giving me a choice between panels, inverters and battery brands.

My needs is a battery with a very good charge and discharge rate as my power consumption is spikey especially in the evening when solar is past its best. What is the main limitation to the battery discharge rate, the battery management system or the inverter?

Panels: 53 x 575 Watt Panels (Jinko 575w BiFacial N-Type (JKM575N-72HL4-BDV). From reading boards I have seen the opinion and take it that I should not over think the brand of panel, many installers are claiming they have the best and pushing glass-glass or glass-foil etc.

Inverter and Battery: They are giving a choice between Huawai inverter and battery or Solis inverter with a few different battery brands, one being Pylontech. They also mentioned that they could supply Sofar but did not seem keen on them. The Huawai would be two 15KWH stacks of capacity if I go with 30KWH.

They are pushing the Huawai saying it would suit my needs better. I do not like how you are locked into using only their inverters and batteries together into the future e.g. battery and inverters lifespan of 10-12 years, panels 30, so if in 10 years the batterys are past their best and I want to replace it, inverter is still going strong so I replace with Huawai and then 2 years later the inverter gives up I am stuck with that brand indefinitely. If they are a lot better I would get over that.

Another debate is the amount of inverter capacity. My MIC is 29KVA so the inverter needs to be lower than that. Is 20KW ok with 30.5KW of panels or will I need to get to 25KW to avoid excessive clipping? Huawai seem to have a limited amount of options of 3 phase Hybrid options, two 10KW Hybrid inverters? Or one 10KW hybrid inverters and one 15KW 3P inverter (not hybrid)? Or two 10KW hybrid inverters and one 5KW 3P inverters? Note that it is East / West but with the pitch of the roof being low, in summer both sides will get full sun for a period of the day.

The other debate is the type of hanger system to connect the panels to the roof, it is standard corrugated farm shed roof and the standard is to just screw into the corrugated sheet, the other option is the screw into the timber purlins which sounds better but as the purlins will not be at the correct distance apart it adds to the steel needed therefore more cost, weight and the panels will the further from the roof. When I research it I dont see much info. Anybody have any insight?

An Earth Rod visible outside the house? News to me.

Electricity standard rate now in the 20s with Yuno's new reduced rate announcement of 27.38c, vat included. Finally, a return to some normality, and expect the big operators to jump again. Solar quotes and savings now have to be evaluated on the basis of sensible unit prices, not the stratospheric rates we've endured for two years. This can only make the installation market more competitive, as panel prices per kw have also been dropping, batteries too, and even further with new technologies just around the corner.

Waiting on new tech will be a never ending wait in my opinion, as there will always be better tech on the horizon.

Sure in 5 years time there will be something better out, but in 5 years I would expect my current set up to have almost paid for itself.

My provider was pushing me towards Huawei saying that it was most suited to my needs, (I need fast discharge of batteries to get best use of them, in the ideal world I could empty the battery within two hours or as close as possible, the provider said Huawei would give a discharge rate of 15KW) planning 30KWH of capacity which with Huawei that would be two LUNA2000-15-SO, I am not sure would they have two Battery Management Systems or not with that. After reading the datasheet of them I am not sure they are correct that they are the best or that the 14KW discharge is accurate. It says they have a Max output power of 5KW, a Peak output power of 7KW, 10s. Can somebody explain the Peak output power to me please?

Other things to note with the Huawei is that 100% depth of discharge which is great. 10year warranty which sounds great but the warranty is that the battery will be 60% after 10years which does not sound great but perhaps that is as good as they get.

Can anybody recommend what inverter and battery combination to look at?

On Huawei I think only 2 brands work, their own and I think it's Lg but not 100% on that.

@KingPanko Mine can sustain 5 and do spikes of 7. I have 10kWh on a 6kWh inverter. What the installer said is possible; but only if you split the two BMS units accross two separate inverters.

the only real option for huawei is to use their own brand batterys with their inverter.

note that there is a new product line coming from huawei soon (next month) where the battery modules are 7kwh each rather than the 5kwh modules the sell.

if you pair 2 x BMS with a single inverter you will just get the 5-7kw discharge rate.

be careful with the charge rate though. You will only get 3kwh into the battery’s with certain inverter battery combos from huawei.

I use about 5000kw yearly just looking at solar installations. Would it be worth doing a 7.5kw system with say 10kw battery storage

Are the prices net of grant or before grant?

A word of caution, it's a 6kW inverter which likely means it exceeds the max 25A allowed by ESBN.

After grant

Ask if he is basing that only on the data sheet or if he had previously seen this performance in real world?

my strong suspicion is that it’s a typo in the data sheet of the inverter. You can’t even achieve the full 5kW output from a single 5kWh module; you need to have 2x5kwh modules to be able to discharge at 5kw.

my advice is to phone huawei and ask; they were very helpful to me several times. Alternatively you could phone SKE and ask (they are hiaweis support partner in Ireland.)

you might need to pretend your an installer and that you never worked with huawei before and trying to figure it out for a customer that specifically requested that.

i have DM you the numbers for huawei and SKE.