Solar Energy viability test.

[saleorbouy]

We are considering a solar PV system with battery storage on a passive new build. We have a year to research and I was wondering if anyone is aware of a relatively cheap solar test rig that we could set up to monitor possible performance of Kw available over the coming year so that we can make sensible and accurate choices of the system requirements. I know vendors will do calculations based on estimations but I wanted to collect real data with the time we have. Any ideas or suggestions welcome.

Watching, we are wanting a similar system, been quoted £10k!

I'm curious how many panels are required to get an acceptable output of the winter months. I was a recently at a house where a 6 panel system was only producing 140w on a bright day at 3pm. I'd love to have a system that can cater for most of our needs for a large part of the year but I'm not sure this is possible or viable in terms of costs.

Is your roof south facing?

We are looking at 4kw solar system with two back up batteries, that will be topped up on electric night rate. Our roof is SSW facing.

I'm sure there is a website that tracks real world panel output from locations across the UK, so find one near you and you can easily and very accurately determine what your output would have been.

Just to update, we had our system installed 31 March, really pleased with it, easy to track on the App. Only used a couple of units from the grid so far. Battery system works really well, tops up in the day so we can use it at night to cook (electric oven & induction hob) tv, lights, computer etc and lasts until the solar tops it up the next day. 10yr guarantee on batteries and 25yr on panels. It’s a big investment, but with the rising costs, worth it for us as we have a high usage.

This website might help OP
www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/electricity-power-output

Hi @Roselilly36 would you mind either sharing the company you used or DM me for your system? Thanks!

We used Impact Services based in Norwich. Our system is 3.9kW Solar PV System + 11.6kW Battery Storage Solution, I would recommend them,.

January and December are always very low output in western Europe due to the shortness of daylight, and you would need a very big system to produce enough, but this would result in a hefty surplus midsummer.

As a pp mentions, 4-5 kWp should be enough for a typical house with a heatpump and battery, but you will still be topping up from the grid in winter.

It's difficult to calculate exactly, and much depends on local weather and what you want to run - a cooker has sizeable demand likewise an ev (possibly better charged on night-rate?). 12-15 x 330 Watt panels would usually do it for your type of house.

Go for quality as you don't want issues after 10 years. SMA inverters used to offer a really good warranty extendable up to 20-25 years, so if you had a problem, they'd just replace the whole inverter.

Mine is about to go in with eon. We haven’t tested first but they’ve done a survey and give us predictions based on that

@saleorbouy

I'm curious how many panels are required to get an acceptable output of the winter months. I was a recently at a house where a 6 panel system was only producing 140w on a bright day at 3pm. I'd love to have a system that can cater for most of our needs for a large part of the year but I'm not sure this is possible or viable in terms of costs.

There are all sorts of factors in play, the size of the array is obviously the main one but also the precise orientation of the roof, the shading/obstruction level, whether the panels are optimise panels or just standard panels etc. then you need to think about batteries, solar immersion systems etc to really make the most of it. The buy back rates are shocking (around 3p per unit) and so you really need to be using as much as you possibly can by running appliances during the day etc.

My system is a 25 panel 9.000kWp array which should hopefully generate about 7,900 kWh per annum.