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There's a bit of 'angels dancing on a pin head' to this discussion. I tested all my cells with the Ztech tester and I've just done a multiply Ah by 3.2 comparison to the measured Wh figures on 15 off 304Ah cells. The difference ranges from -0.52% to +1.05% with most being less than 0.55%...

I've had a REC BMS since 2015, chosen to talk to the Sunny Island. I have no complaints. At the time there was little choice and not much information, but there was a lot of valuable discussion on the CruisersForum and someone from Norway described his adventures with Nissan Leaf batteries...

Thermal storage has similar problems to battery storage; in the winter when you need the heat there's not much solar energy available in northern latitudes. (That's why it's cold!) What you would need is an inter-seasonal thermal store. A few people have tried to make these, but they are very...

It will require DNO approval to be used legally. One of the FAQs, says that German users need to register with their electricity provider, so the rule will be the same in the UK. Of course, as a very small unit no doubt people will plug use it anyway. The idea of having live pins to connect...

Another Iotawatt fan here. I have 4 of them uploading to Open Energy Monito EmonCMS instances. One is in a holiday flat which uploads to EmonCMS running on a minmal Linode server; this lets me send reasonably accurate monthly meter readings to the energy supplier when we aren't there. The other...

You need to watch that with more attention. He doesn't admit that he was wrong. He shows that his cells have expanded and it might be stressing the terminals. At about 7' he assesses the swelling and considers it to be not that bad and refers to another youtuber who had restrained his cells...

FWIW there is a fairly simple solution if you have an AC system, either grid tied or battery. There are controllable EVSE A.C. chargers which can be linked to PV systems. I use an OpenEVSE charger ttps://www.openevse.com/ and...

They seem to be another Chinese seller so you're likely to be taking the same risk as you would if buying from Alibaba. They may or may not have a UK storage facility, they certainly don't seem to provide an address for it. Grade A and B are marketing terms and don't actually have any defined...

Not quite. Adding a new circuit or modifying or adding to a circuit in a notifiable location (i.e. a room with a bath or shower) are notifiable. A bit better than the original Part P but still excessively nannying. Changed in 2013 from the original 2005 legislation.

Actually I don't. I've just spent a bit of time looking at the logs from the Tigo cloud. They log current and voltage from each Tigo'd panel, so they can work out the instantaneous power for each panel. The outputs of the panels can be compared, so if you have one panel with a low output and...

Yes. I bought 15 280Ah B grade cells at the beginning of August when they had them in stock. Prompt delivery. The cells were manufactured this year and had a capacity between 267 and 278 Ah when discharged form 3.4V to 3.0V at 40A. Quite happy with them and I'll order some more when I can afford...

They do work. 2.2kWh reclaimed out of 8kWh generated. They probably aren't worth it for 2 panels.

The pump consumption will be continuous. We have a 0.75HP pump and it uses about 800W when running at full speed. It's well worth considering a pump speed controller, ours now consumes about 440W while still giving adequate circulation. However, you do need to work out the flow rate that you...

Yes, anything imported to the UK is liable to VAT (and duty, if applicable).

AIUI from the factory they don't come with terminals, they just have a flat surface as seen in the studless pictures. The terminals are added either by EVE in the case of the twin terminal or resellers in the case of the single stud.

SMA Sunny Island 8.0H-13, except they seem to be unobtainable at the moment.

Minimum just under 300W. Average daily use about 14kWh. Minimum daily use about 8kWh.

The SI8.0 weighs 63kg, (Schneider 55kG) I'm pretty sure that it wouldn't be that heavy if it didn't have a massive toroidal transformer in it, i.e. a low frequency inverter. It buzzes at 50 Hz too. The power ratings are 6kW continuous, 8kW for 30 minutes, 9.1kW for 5 minutes, 9.6kW for 1 minute...

You get Wh from Ah by multiplying the Ah figure by the nominal voltage, so 280Ah is about 900Wh. Not completely accurate as the voltage varies a bit during discharge, but near enough for practical purposes. I am running the cells between 3 and 3.4V so that's the range that for which I want to...

Andy from Off-Grid garage has a credible view on A vs B grade. Can't say I'd put much faith in a random youtube channel, without good supporting evidence.

Oh look, Andy's just done a video explaining this.

When I installed my last few optimisers I discovered that they worked OK as optimisers without a cloud connection at first. I then foolishly connected them to the cloud, but hadn't finished setting up the system. When I tried to use the system with no cloud connection the optimisers switched off...

I have no idea, but I have no reason to doubt that some significant amount of energy is being made available that would not be available without the optimisers. There are 3 systems here with different orientations and degrees of shading. One system has a little shading in the early morning and...

Not me. Started with Winston 400Ah at £380 per kWh added EVE grade B 280K for £110 per kWh; the capacity is fine and haven't seen any performance issues. Although they are to increase capacity and aren't likely to exceed 60A discharge, which will be even lower when I get the next 2 banks of...

You should be able to transfer the FIT account to any electricity reseller who operates a FIT scheme, so I woold expect that Octopus could take over. However the FIT account can be with any provider, it does not have to be with the company who bills you for electricity supply, so you could have...

The short answer is - forget it. With your consumption and (presumably limited) amount of panels you will not be able to go off grid and it would be a technically complex and very expensive project. I wanted to do the same thing (only with more modest consumption) and have a system based on a...

Back feeding to the grid is what grid tied inverters do as part of their normal operation. Excess power generated above the local consumption feeds the grid. If the grid goes down the inverter will switch off. (Assuming a pukka inverter of course.)

You could add another 1 or 2 SI8s in parallel. That would let you use 24 or 36kW of PV. I started off with 1 SI 8 with about 14.5kW of panels and 400Ah of LiFePO4 batteries and didn't have any issues, although the panels faced multiple directions so couldn't possibly produce peak output at the...

I'm merely giving you the rules. You are required to inform the DNO if you install a heat pump or a 7kW EV charger. I suspect that the reason is so that they can ensure that the grid is capable of maintaining supply, rather than any issue of safety. As to charging batteries from mains, yes some...

It's possible that the inverter's output voltage isn't stable. Some LEDs seem to be very sensitive to voltage fluctuations, when my batteries are full some of my LEDs flicker. You could try adding a more substantial load, that can sometimes stabilise things.