battery + backup system, options/opinions to consider.

[Gareth J]

Have been tasked with getting a generator for the folks who, following the recent storms, fear power outages. We live on the same farm but different houses and on different phases.

Have gone off on a tangent and started looking at battery systems, which make more sense to me.

There's 2.5kw of wind and 4kw of solar on their phase so during an extended outage, with frugality, they should be able to keep their fridge/freezer alive and run lights/oil boiler for a long time, unless it's dull and still, which it can be.

Spoke to itstechnologies and windandsun today. Windandsun not very keen to sell DIY. The FOX units from its look attractive;
https://www.itstechnologies.shop/collections/fox-ess probably the 6kw inverter and 5 or 10kwh battery. I'll have a glance at the bills later to get a better idea of their daily average winter/summer usage. Should help both size a unit and take a stab at the ballpark payback time. The plug and play looking nature of the FOX boxes are attractive though not critically so.

Unfortunately the unit location will be out of WiFi range so internet based monitoring isn't much advantage.

So, any opinions on other companies/products to consider? Midsummer wholesale?

Many thanks in advance,
Gareth

[Stinsy]

Have a look at bimble.

[billi]

Hi ,

thats (for me) a very complex theme as neither a sitting around diesel generator nor a sitting around battery bank makes sense (to me)

If a battery bank and an Inverter is considered ... it makes sense to utilize that system too, to support the el. supply of the house, even while the grid is online , but i do not know how the export tariffs are

Billi

[martinW]

On wifi range, you could use some home plugs which will give you both ethernet and wifi via your mains cables. Works well and easy to fit as you just plug into a mains socket and set up with some software on either your phone or PC.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-electr ... NrPXRydWU=

Loads of different makes and types available. This one above £54, I think I've seen lower spec version for £35. TP link PC software I find a bit hit and miss, but the phone software works well.. Plus when you have set one up, you can add other slave units in various locations if you need to. Handy things when you need internet at poor wifi locations in your house.

[Andy]

Just be careful with homeplugs. If you have a chance to use a wire do. I’m regretting not putting one in a few years ago. I’ve had to remove the homeplugs as they stopped my MG5 from charging. It turns out the CCS portion of the charger uses the same frequencies. Even though not charging with CCS it would still get confused.

[marshman]

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[AE-NMidlands]

Thanks for the contributions in this thread. I am in a different position to most here, in an ordinary semi on the outskirts of a small town with relatively low flood risk. Insulation & Solar thermal thus far, Ripple membership but still Gas CH and planning lots of pv / storage (now!)

However it seems to me that the climatic risks are growing every year and the chances of a biggish sub-station getting flooded are growing all the time, meaning no mains power (or Ripple feed) for potentially several days. So I would go for several days' battery capacity (still <25kWhr) and in normal times use it for shifting our consumption away from the peaks.

Good point that it would be worth keeping alert for potential grid failures and ensuring the usual daily cycle wouldn't leave you with an empty battery when the grid went down!

I shall carry on planning... What advice from people who are already there?
A

[Countrypaul]

Have been tasked with getting a generator for the folks who, following the recent storms, fear power outages. We live on the same farm but different houses and on different phases.

Have gone off on a tangent and started looking at battery systems, which make more sense to me.

There's 2.5kw of wind and 4kw of solar on their phase so during an extended outage, with frugality, they should be able to keep their fridge/freezer alive and run lights/oil boiler for a long time, unless it's dull and still, which it can be.

Spoke to itstechnologies and windandsun today. Windandsun not very keen to sell DIY. The FOX units from its look attractive;
https://www.itstechnologies.shop/collections/fox-ess probably the 6kw inverter and 5 or 10kwh battery. I'll have a glance at the bills later to get a better idea of their daily average winter/summer usage. Should help both size a unit and take a stab at the ballpark payback time. The plug and play looking nature of the FOX boxes are attractive though not critically so.

Unfortunately the unit location will be out of WiFi range so internet based monitoring isn't much advantage.

So, any opinions on other companies/products to consider? Midsummer wholesale?

Many thanks in advance,
Gareth

Surely the first question to ask is how much electricity do they use? If they ue 20kWh /day then a battery system would be very expensive if its only purpose was to protect against power cuts. Similarly if they are very frugal and only use say 1kWh/day then a generator might be complete overkill. Also what would be the minimum amount of electricity required? No point in running say a gaming PC setup/other luxury devices when power is at a premium.

How far apart are your houses, and are you looking to do anything similar? Is there just the two premises to consider? Would a 3 phase generator make any sense one phase for each house and one spare? (Ok would be better off more balanced I know) but just trying to sow the seeds of a wider solution,

[Joeboy]

I would likely look for a propane genset maybe around 4kW or an older diesel one that will run on veg oil. If its a standby unit and not the full lifestyle I don't think batteries are appropriate?

[marshman]

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