Balcony solar PV

[Joeboy]

Sods law in action! Had a huge storm blow through last night and knocked power out for a wee bit. Just went off again there so fell back on good old 5v step up to get the net back up and running.





Defo bringing the equivalent to keep echo dot playing through outages.

[AGT]

Small victories!
Things like that keep people happy, I have Wi-Fi router on UPS so helpful when working from home and the power blips, lots of work getting done in the area, so just saves a wee bit of grief, which I’m a fan of avoiding!

[Joeboy]

Small victories!
Things like that keep people happy, I have Wi-Fi router on UPS so helpful when working from home and the power blips, lots of work getting done in the area, so just saves a wee bit of grief, which I’m a fan of avoiding!

I think we as a group of solar enthusiastic types learn so much from our ongoing experiences. Etches new pathways kind of thing.

Echodot 5v to 12v step up is on order as is the 22awg cable and eyelets to jump the battery equaliser on the new stack back home (on its arrival).

A quick run up of big blue hung off on back deck to get me feeling it.

[Joeboy]

https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/04/ ... ular-home-

[Joeboy]

Set up the alfresco kitchen this time out. Zero gas use (I think the gas bottle is in year 3 now, might be more). I think we could do with a shelf or two outdoors and we'll be good to go. It was really excellent cooking on balcony. Felt connected to the process.





Looks like I can fit a couple of hundred Watts PV on the back balcony without it looking too horrendous. I'll be doing it for realistically about 100W background load compensation. It makes absolutely no financial sense whatsoever.

Yet...

If I have an Enphase IQ7 in my backpack when I come back out with cousins in May I'll know the truth.

[Joeboy]

A bit of Enphase news.

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/04/22/ ... rtnership/

[AE-NMidlands]

Enphase’s IQ8 microinverters, which provide up to 384 W to support high-powered solar modules, and IQ Battery 5P, a modular design with 5 kWh of capacity,

I didn't realise Octopus were going for smaller devices than the Givenergy stuff they currently work with - or is there a units mix-up?
At £146 from TradeSparky it really is a baby, I wonder that it is worth doing anything this small if you have to pay for all the other stuff (and labour) which goes to make up a pv system. Maybe they plan to run a dozen in parallel?
A

[richbee]

Enphase’s IQ8 microinverters, which provide up to 384 W to support high-powered solar modules, and IQ Battery 5P, a modular design with 5 kWh of capacity,

I didn't realise Octopus were going for smaller devices than the Givenergy stuff they currently work with - or is there a units mix-up?
At £146 from TradeSparky it really is a baby, I wonder that it is worth doing anything this small if you have to pay for all the other stuff (and labour) which goes to make up a pv system. Maybe they plan to run a dozen in parallel?
A

They are microinverters, so you tend to have 1 per panel and can scale up to have as many as you like, all connected together with an internet gateway. It's very efficient in terms of getting the best from every panel, but could quickly add up to be more expensive than a string inverter if you're after a full house roof system.

[richbee]

This is cool - just seen my Hoymiles Man Cave PV hit 750W - from 2 x 435W panels!
Currently exporting 3.9kW from the 2 systems as batteries are full - we are both away with work, so we can't even use any of it - hope it's still going at 4pm once the peak rate export kicks in

[Joeboy]

Off to the races for the season!

This is cool - just seen my Hoymiles Man Cave PV hit 750W - from 2 x 435W panels!
Currently exporting 3.9kW from the 2 systems as batteries are full - we are both away with work, so we can't even use any of it - hope it's still going at 4pm once the peak rate export kicks in

It really is quite liberating to be putting these diy systems in place and reaping the benefits of our own work.