where next for me with energy storage and extra generation

[rogeriko]

Lakeside Towers. Oil underfloor heating and wood burner. 4 garages and extensive outdoor/garden lighting.

[CrofterMannie]

Why all the outdoor lighting?

I find it sad that pretty much no-one in this country can see the stars properly due to all the lights - and it is getting worse.

I am in a relatively remote area (a circle 3km radius from my house would only cover 6 other houses - head south from my back door and you would travel 40km until you found any habitation) and yet I can't see stars to the north and my kids are growing up never seeing the northern lights all because of (what I see as) unnecessary outdoor lights.

[Moxi]

Cheers Stinsey

I knew when I was writing last night that i was missing something obvious and the 50 times larger array brought home that element.

So we are really saying that the answer is (presently) huge batteries sized to get us through the worst 2 to 3 months with energy stored from better preceding months, then in the better months accept that 60 to 80% of our equipment is surplus to requirements.

Is there any way to quantify the advantages of lower discharge cycles in the better months on a batteries life ?

Moxi

[SafetyThird]

Nowty Towers runs 99.6% Off Peak, you just need a big enough battery.

And a big enough battery inverter.

And a big enough battery charging capacity.

And a 100A DNO fuse.

Yes, your system is the sort I aim towards. It's going to take a while but I'm trying to make mine modular so it's expandable as money allows.

[SafetyThird]

Moxie, I looked into a lot of that but as mentioned, solar capture won't cut it during the winter. For the past 8 years I've heated the house with two woodburning stoves and a gradually reducing number of storage heaters until the GSHP went in last year. Sadly, we had to take out the woodburner with the boiler and change out the thermal store for a large hot water tank. Reason being that you don't get RHI with a woodburner attached to the system unless you go for metered consumption. So we just have a small woodburner in it's place now.

[SafetyThird]

Apparently the Victron multiplus II is pretty noisy, according to those that have them so putting that into the mudroom in the house won't fly. However, this looks like it might be a good alternative and has the bonus of taking 4kw of DC solar at up to 450v, so a 4wk string would only need standard 6mm cable for the 100m run between the barn and the house and would become pretty much a DIY install at a later date.

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/do ... ar-EN-.pdf

I now need to dive into the spec sheet to see if it really will fit the bill although I can't see it saying anything about running backup power if the grid goes down and how fast it changes over. It looks like it might only be able to handle the loads directly, anyone else able to understand this better than me?

[Joeboy]

Moxie, I looked into a lot of that but as mentioned, solar capture won't cut it during the winter. For the past 8 years I've heated the house with two woodburning stoves and a gradually reducing number of storage heaters until the GSHP went in last year. Sadly, we had to take out the woodburner with the boiler and change out the thermal store for a large hot water tank. Reason being that you don't get RHI with a woodburner attached to the system unless you go for metered consumption. So we just have a small woodburner in it's place now.

Put some storage heaters back in?

[SafetyThird]

Put some storage heaters back in?

Got rid of them all. Besides, we now have central heating. We do have electric underfloor heating in the small kitchen and I'm looking at adding that as the third output of the Eddi diverter, but the underfloor was only used in the depths of winter, the radiator in the room next to the kitchen keeps it warm enough now. Better off using the heat pump rather than putting power into storage heaters and adding some extra batteries when able I would think.

[SafetyThird]

As an aside, the Heatpump is on it's own breaker box, there's a slot spare in there, could I just put a din rail energy meter in and get accurate energy use from it for the pump? Do I need a meter that is rated for the full power of everything in the box or would a 45A meter do given that no one thing is over that rate?

Originally they had the immersion run from the Heatpump for the legionella cycle but I think that changed when I asked them to run everything through the Eddi instead.

[Joeboy]

Put some storage heaters back in?

Got rid of them all. Besides, we now have central heating. We do have electric underfloor heating in the small kitchen and I'm looking at adding that as the third output of the Eddi diverter, but the underfloor was only used in the depths of winter, the radiator in the room next to the kitchen keeps it warm enough now. Better off using the heat pump rather than putting power into storage heaters and adding some extra batteries when able I would think.

No worries, I suggest it as combined with tou tariffs you would be reinstalling cheap batteries of a kind while the cash builds for chemical batteries. Personally I can't see beyond them when combined with an app controlled plug. Multiple approaches to the solution made all the difference here.