Yeah some say it can be - I guess the only proof would be using two systems alongside each other for the life of the batteries and charging one at its full potential and the other at 50% for example and see if it has an effect on the life of the battery, albeit an impossible experiment. To be honest I do not worry about it at all I just use the batteries to their fullest potential and if and when they are needing changing there will be better batteries on the market and probably cheaper and they will have more than paid themselves back. But there are customers who reduce the charge rate!

Glad it helped thanks for watching

thanks very much :)

Thats awesome to hear! Thanks for sharing :)

The inverter is wired from the gateway not the C.U and is wired in 6mm

Thank you for the reply Great tidy work

Ok, will bare that in mind thanks for the feedback and for watching

You are very welcome glad I could help! :)

Thats good to know! They are lovely looking panels aren't they? And the efficiency is amazing too!

You are very welcome thanks for watching!

There is a lot of confusion around this with installers and the regulators, however as an MCS installer and accredited with NAPIT we have been advised by both MCS and NAPIT that we should be treating this as if it were a regulation and under no circumstances should we be installing batteries in the loft. If in any doubt I would recommend contacting MCS and your scheme provider for guidance on this. We have not installed batteries in loft spaces since the announcement and most others have taken the same approach such as Octopus and other large national companies.

@@alpselectrical that's interesting, my installer is also mcs and napit accredited installers but are still suggesting installing in my loft

We had our MCS annual assessment two weeks ago and this was again reiterated to us, and the assessor highlighted the problem that installers are still doing it despite the recommendation and pending change to regs! Regardless of whether this is a regulation or recommendation right now, surely as the homeowner would you wish to follow the guidance/recommendation anyway? It is highly likely it will be changed to a regulation and when it does it may affect home insurance and the saleability of your home having batteries in the loft. It is anyone's guess if insurance companies/surveyors/prospective buyers will give any consideration to whether the batteries were installed prior to the change or after. It is more likely that when they were installed will be irrelevant just that they are in a loft and we now consider this to be not conforming to regulations (when that change is made official). Another thing to bear in mind is if you ever wanted an extra battery added to the system and the regulations have then changed you could not install them in the loft at that point and the whole system would then need to be relocated. Most installers are adopting this change now,, including the big nationals as mentioned previously. There is no way we would install batteries in a customer's loft now or since the announcement back in April. It's concerning, to say the least, that installers are regulated by the same bodies and have different opinions on something so important. I am not surprised though as the way this information has been delivered has been nothing short of confusing and very sudden.

Yes it would always prioritise powering the home

I am sorry I don't fully understand the question, can you advise what system you have?

@@alpselectrical sorry it looks like auto correct is at it again. I watched somebody fitting a second battery to a stack, and they adjusted a thing they called a dip switch on the stack by the power switch. It was to adjust for the number of batteries in the stack. It was a FOX ESS cube system like mine is. I appear to not have any on mine, maybe they had older batteries????

Yes that will likely be the FOX Mira HV25 batteries they have a dip switch that requires altering depending upon how many modules are added but the Fox Cube does not. I actually have the HV25 at my home but only because the CUBE was not out at that time as I love the CUBE they are the best batteries on the market in my opinion for the fact they have multiple size variants and they are so easily added to inn the future!

@@alpselectrical I think mine are HV20 so that explains it.

No, it is 10 year warranty you just have to register it - we usually do this for our customers! Definitly no subscription cost, I have Fox myself not sure where they are getting that from?

Hi, thanks for your thoughts, if only we could all predict the future?! Truth is, nobody has any idea what the future will look like in terms of tariffs and energy cost. All we can go on is what we know and the last few years has saw a sharp rise in energy costs crippling many home owners and businesses. If that were to continue or spike again, then it could get quite scary. Regardless of the tariffs solar keeps working whilst the sun is out and so without being able to predict the future we know that investing in solar now gives you back some control for what may be. My experience of Fox is that they are just as up to speed as any of the other brands. Infact they are much better to work with and deal with than GivEnergy. The Fox system can do all the same things that one can yet it has far more options in terms of inverter sizes and battery capacity/design options. Fox has more sizing options than any other brand on the market which helps making sure a solar system is accurately specced. Fox all the way for me!

Hi my best advice to you is to contact Fox technical who will be more than. happy to help! :) Thanks for watching and good luck with it

Thank you very much for your comment :)

Can you explain your calculations of how you get to a payback of 7 years if using the full 11.52kWh capacity, and also why you believe you would in reality only use 70% of the capacity on average?

@@alpselectrical Normal unit price 25.83p - night rate of 7.5p = 18.33p Multiply by 11.52 = £2.11 Divide into £5500 = 2606 days = 7.14 years Everyone will have days where they don't use 11.52kWhr, ours drops to maybe 2kWhr when we're away, and there are plenty of days when we might only use 6-7kWhr, that's in a 150m2 bungalow in the Highlands with a heat pump.

Obviously, everyone's situation is different and in this particular case, their daily usage is actually more than the battery capacity. We suggest doing this and seeing how the figures/data look in 6-12 months, and also how the market looks in terms of tariff rates and of course battery prices and make an informed decision on whether more is required. In our experience being conservative in the beginning with the amount of battery storage is a sensible approach. This is why a battery storage solution that can be very easily added to, and importantly in small increments is, in our opinion, essential. So this customer will likely use mostly all the available capacity, but for argument's sake let's say they just use 10kWh per day over the course of a year: 10 x 25.83p = £2.58 per day 10 x 0.75p = £75p per day That's a saving of £1.83 per day x 365 = £667.95 per annum A saving of £667.95 per year with a £5500 investment is around a 12% ROI The best savings account at the moment offers around 5.5%, but even if we said 6% the same £5500 investment would earn you £330 So you are £337.95 better off per year in this example over putting the same amount into a savings account at this time until the capital investment has been repaid. Then of course it is all profit and the batteries become an asset. The payback period is only one way of looking at a solar/battery purchase. The ROI is also key to calculating the viability of such an investment into your home that you will eventually own outright with the value of that asset (Nett Present Value - NPV) increasing year on year. Of course, nobody can predict what will happen to the market, but as we have seen recently the energy prices can just rocket and we have to pay it. Investing in these renewable technologies gives you at least some control, and eventually, they will be paid off and then it is all profit. In my opinion, and it is just that, I can only see the cost of standard daily rates rising, I cannot see the lower nightly rates rising as that would discourage people from investing in renewable tech which will have a negative impact on the grid. If the cost of energy rises then of course the investment in solar and battery storage will be more prudent in every way. Further to this, Octopus Energy is now looking to offer battery-only/Go customers the same export rate as that of the intelligent Go, which would be at a rate of 15p per kWh. This would be great as you could then force discharge your batteries on days if you were on holiday for example you could continue to charge them to 100% during the night at 7.5p per kWh and export them the following day at 15p per kWh down to say 10%. Clearly, that would have an impact on further improving the ROI. But as I said, nobody has a crystal ball and we cannot possibly predict the future cost of energy, the rise or fall of interest rates, etc. We only have the option to offer a choice, and every customer we issue a proposal to receives a full breakdown of the projected figures based on what we know at that time and it is up to them to decide if it is the right choice for them.

@@alpselectrical I was going to leave ROI and alternative investments out of it, but as you say, taking those into account now pushes the break even out to 16 years The absolute cost of electricity for a storage only system is immaterial, the only thing that matters is the difference between the night rate and day rate, as more EVs and storage connect to the grid and want to charge overnight that overnight demand will increase and prices will rise and hence reduce the price difference. The shape of the UK's demand curve has already changed, it used to hit minimum at around 02:30 - 0300, now it's around 05:00, the demand through the hours after midnight is held up by EVs and storage batteries and slowly falls away to pre-EV levels as they switch off. The market will have to adapt to this change, and the only way it can do it is by raising overnight rates.

I disagree, and as I say, nobody can predict what will happen in the future with rates and energy prices. To do so is purely speculation. Everyone will look at everything differently, and we can disagree, that's fine, I am not here to convince anyone of anything, as crucially everyone can make their own mind up once supplied with all the costs and information provided to them at the time, and this customer saw the benefit of adding this system, and so they have. Looking at the ROI of such a system against an alternative investment was to highlight the improved annual return, as an alternative viewpoint to just the payback period, which many get fixated on. However, that was based on a 6% interest rate, which in reality can fluctuate and go down just as tariff rates as you say can go up. Also, you are completely overlooking the NPV which is the asset you have purchased growing in value year on year as mentioned in my previous comment. After 7/8 years in a savings account, you can withdraw your savings and that's all you have for the investment. So to suggest looking at alternative investments doubles the payback period is inaccurate. In actual fact the payback period remains the same. The systems we use to provide a proposal are MCS approved and incredibly good at a 'best guess' for the duration of the investment, and they include obviously the cost of the system, tariff rates, a homeowners usage, archetype, and predicted inflation rises. It kicks out a financial projection which includes, annual savings, payback period, ROI, and NPV. It even includes how many trees you will save, as for many customers that is their motivation for doing this, not just payback periods. Thanks for your deliberating though, it's always good to have discussions and share personal opinions :)

Hi, thanks for the comment. Yes we let the customers know about the Fox new app glitches, but as with any new app or software there will be teething problems that we can only hope will be temporary. I speak to Fox a lot and they are aware of them and working hard to fix them globally. Apart from that though Fox batteries and inverters offer excellent options and are very good systems. We do offer our customers ongoing support with altering settings in our installer portal if they are struggling with the app. Failing that Fox can help you apply settings if you are unable to a your end :)

Hi, I am back home now, and back to work :( It was a pleasure to offer some help. As I say in my videos, I actually enjoy helping people and discussing solar, and sharing my knowledge. And if it helps someone then fantastic! All the best with the system and thanks for the kind words :) Andy

Hi, thanks for the comment. The dining room was the best available option logistically on this job and to satisfy the regs and the new PAS 63100 for battery storage. There was no other option in this case and the electric meter and C.U was right in the middle of the house, basically back-to-back with this install so it could be kept as neat as possible. If the flooring is ever changed the batteries are just stacked and stood on legs so can be easily moved and replaced. The homeowner can even do this themselves. As this is just an installation video showing the installation processes we don't really go into the costs and paybacks in any sort of detail but perhaps something we can look to do in the future. The pop-up is just a screenshot of the Octopus Go tariff and shows the current import rate of 7.5p which is just what you pay to top the batteries up during the cheap period. That was just an example of the cost to import electricity at a price per kWh, not anything relating to how much a customer would save. That would be something that the customer's proposal would detail.

Hi thanks for the comment, and you are bang on right. Great to hear your batteries are working well for you! Most people increase their storage as time goes on as they see the financial benefit in doing so!

@@alpselectrical yep for sure. And once you see the system working it makes it easier to justify buying more batteries.

Yes exactly!

@@alpselectrical another thing to consider about battery storage is this... The larger the battery bank the less amp draw per cell and less often the cells will be drawn to a lower state of charge. The larger the bank the more cycles you get from the bank simply because the batteries are under less stress. Batteries are still expensive although they have been coming down in price but having around a week or so of reserve power with very little or no charge is a great investment that adds that extra couple levels of security to a good solar power system.

Hi, yes that is actually a very good point! :)

Hi thanks for the comment. The BMS does control the batteries and communicates with them. The inverter has a CT clamp that is placed around the main incomer of the electric supply that monitors home usage. When the inverter sees the house load demand it will supply it from the batteries until they are depleted and then you would pull from the grid. If you have solar too then the load would always first be supplied by the generation from the panels, then from the batteries, then the grid. This happens automatically. It doesn't shut off the mains, it is effectively just routing power that it holds to your house load but you will rely on the grid when they are empty, or if for example you require 5KW but only have 3.7KW available then the remainder would be topped up from the grid. You can set your batteries to charge in the app, for example during the night to charge at the cheap rates, or if you have solar they will automatically charge from solar. Hope that helps!

@@alpselectrical Thank you. I wondered how the system managed to monitor itself and now I know. I googled CT clamp and there was the very thing.

Great stuff!

I had solar with Fox kit installed about 6 weeks ago. The system usually senses the change in use (load) and takes from solar first, then battery, then grid if need be, to make up the total load at that time. I see on my chart that it glitches sometimes and takes from the grid needlessly, it's irritating but doesn't happen often.

Hi, thanks for the comment. You are looking around £5.5k for a system like this with this capacity of storage, depending upon what is already in place, ie, suitable consumer unit, earth bonding to gas and water and location of components for cable run feasibility and cost

Hi, thanks for your comment. The new PAS 63100 document that has brought in new guidance is actually active now and all installers should be abiding by it. This installation ticks every box as it is in a frequently visited room with good ventilation, good access, structurally sound flooring to support the weight, not in a loft or small cupboard under the stairs. Not close to any gas appliance or water cylinder, not in a bedroom or close to a bedroom where people will sleep, and so on. Batteries can still go inside, but there are lots of restrictions to bear in mind now. We do install batteries outdoors, and in garages, but not everyone has the options. There has to be an element of common sense used. If a customer wants to put batteries in their house then we follow the rules and try to make that happen for them. We look at the best available option that follows all the regulations - of which there are many!

Hi there, thanks for your kind comment....do you have solar and battery storage? When I go away I leave turn off my force charge cycle during the night but I leave the force discharge on to take the batteries down to 10%. Thereby leaving the sun to charge the batteries as when we are away we will not need any battery capacity for the morning as we do at home. I don't bother to change the work mode as that works for me. I am on Octopus Flux!

@@alpselectrical Good Evening and Thankyou for the response and opinion. I have now added a further 2 2.9Kwh batteries to my stack. I am wondering when do you think you cross over too too much storage capacity. I note most people have around thier daily usage which for me over a 15month period average is 9kwh, However this is not a money making situation but more a money saving. The arbitrage between force charging and dicharging is 10p currentlyso when would you consider having too much or would you gently ramp up to the maximum possible on the stack. Regards Rob

Hi, thanks again for your comment. I would always suggest that you build gradually, as of course the cost of the batteries may come down, and also you can look at your data and check it against costs before jumping in. If you are considering an extra battery and want to buy and sell energy too then you can do your calculations taking into account the cost of adding it and you should see the time it will take to pay it back/ROI. For me, I would always go with building in small well informed increments. Remember that in 6-12 months the energy tariffs may look very different!

@@alpselectrical Thankyou

Hi thanks for the comment! They say you learn something new every day and that is the first time in my life I have heard 'deviation from the mean'! Had to google it haha! Honestly, I spent way too long on this video as it was, hopefully gives folk some idea, but thanks and I will try to look at 'deviation from the mean' on the next one! Glad you found it helpful :)

Hi, thanks for the comment. I sam afraid you can only have one or the other. What is your FIT rate? The reason I ask, is that there are some great export rates available now, that may be better than what you are receiving on your FIT payments so you could switch if it was financially justifiable.

Hi, I am afraid we don't, sorry. I would recommend trying to find a local installer rather than a national. Look on Checkatrade and check their reviews! Best of luck...

Hi, thanks for the comment. There is a little more to it than just the 10 minutes to lift the battery into place, with registering it, set up and MCS paperwork etc, obviously transport and travel, and believe it or not the DNO need to be notified of additional batteries so we do all that too. But we charged this customer next to nothing on top of the cost of the battery (less than £80) due to him being a solar customer of ours, and we look after all our customers ongoing as we want them to get the very best from their systems for the life of them.

Hi, thanks for the comment, yes there are brands that offer varying sizes, but usually those require wall mounting which means you need space adjacent to the existing batteries. So much to consider with batteries, but plenty of options out there!

Hi thanks for the comment. What battery is it? Is it the cube like in the video? Usually the inverter will automatically see the new battery, as long as it has been set up correctly with the communication cables etc, but there shouldn't be anything to do in the app. I would advise asking the original installer to do it for you just incase though! :) Fox service centre technical helpline are super helpful and can help you with any queries you may have :) Best of luck with it

Hi Yes it is a cube battery and it is made up of 2x2.9Kwh - I want to add an additional 2.9 if not 2x as my calculations suggest an average annual use of 9.3 per day but currently this time of year it is between 4-6, This would suggest I think thta winter use is going to be above 10KWh ? Oh and thankyou for your response. Very much appreciated.

The cube is the best battery on the market in my opinion currently, not just because it looks great, but because of the ease of installing and adding to it. It couldn't be easier for you, firstly shut down the system from the AC and DC side, and turn off the master switch on the BMS, simply lift off the BMS (top module with the leads connected) add your new module on top of the one under the BMS and put the BMS back on. The you are done! 10 minutes max!

The fox cube looks like a sungro battery pack

Oh no, sorry to hear you are having a few issues, hope you get it sorted! Thanks for your comment :)

Hi the app is having real issues at the moment. Honestly the easiest way to get it sorted and set to how you want it, would be to call Fox and get them to set it over the phone - 02475100078 - you will need your inverter serial number. You can also ask them to update the firmware at the same time :)

@@alpselectrical Thanks for the relpy. It needs to be working properly though, can't be expected to call them every time I wasn t to tweak the settings. the chart for PV prduction is constantly saying 0.87kwh at the mo too. Not the installer's fault but its really giving me the hump now, Paid good money for this a month ago and its not working properly and unable to get te best out of it. Will try calling them. thanks

Yeah for sure it needs to be working properly, and every time I call Fox I am assured that they are working hard to rectify it. Hopefully it won't take too much longer :)

Hey Alex, thank you so much for the comment! It was a pleasure working for you guys and so glad to hear you are happy with the system! You have definitly been my sons favourite customer making him the 3d model of Darth Vader :)

3.7KW is the max via a G98 (post notify DNO route) and above that would be G99 which is a pre-approval DNO application. It isn't much of a ball ache to be honest, it usually goes through in a matter of weeks without an issue in our experience!

No worries :)

Wow, there is somewhere with worse weather than us here in the UK? Thats a large system, you must see the benefits of it, or I am sure you wouldn't have had it installed? Not sure if you guys also have cheap evening tariffs like we do to be able to charge your battery storage etc which helps with winter periods? Do you have batteries? Must do with that size array??

@@alpselectrical For now we have 16kWh of LiFePo4 storage. Also we run HVAC on it, mostly heating at this moment It's very windy and cold 8°C this morning and only 14°C right now. We are planning for big boilers to store heat. During winter we mainly use our four woodburners for heating. Our water supply system and in summer irrigation pumps also run a lot. Most electricity is used during daylight as we handle our horses and run the workshop machines. The PV system produces 34MWh over the year, we use about 40% of that directly. When our boilers and more batteries get installed that number should go up a lot.

Thank you!

Hi, thanks for the comment and sharing your system! It certainly would be the case that varying locations in the country/world would have an effect on seasonal performances, orientations and even pitches and of course height above sea level

Thank you very much for the comment and for watching! Great to hear your system is performing well. I will be sure to keep the videos coming, I have loads of content to deliver, its just finding the time! :)

haha! thats my idea of short and sweet :)

Hi, thanks for the comment. We haven't installed the PW3 yet, but it has a lot of improved features, such as max discharge has increased significantly, and it can handle I believe up to 20KW array? The main bugbear for me is that with the PW3 it has a built in inverter whereas the PW2 does not. Keeping the inverter separate gives you more flexibility with choosing different inverter brands and sizes, but also if you did have a problem with the inverter side of things after the 10 years warranty has ran out you could easily change that and inverters are much cheaper than the battery. In our experience if any component is likely to fail or have a shorter life span, it is the inverter. But then there ar egreat benefits from the PW3 so it is swings and roundabout's, but something to bear in mind!

@@alpselectrical Your right about the inbuilt inverter in the PW3, it would potentially have a longer lifespan if it was separate from the batteries. It would be even better if they switched to an LFP battery configuration, I can only hope. I’m still searching for a solution for my £1350 quarterly bills; We run two long range EV’s, Heat pump, all cooking, heating and lighting in our home is electric. We have migrated to the lowest tariff in our area and yet the bills are still £5.4k per year. There is room on our south facing roof and even ground mounting on our 3/4 archer site, any back of the fag packet suggestions will be most welcomed. In the meantime, I’ll keep watching your videos. Cheers👍

Absolutely!!! 100%! Thanks for the comment :)

Hi thanks for your comment! Gosh, it so difficult to recommend anything to you without seeing your property of what can be achieved and basically running a proposal for you. I hear you about double glazing salesmen! There are lots about, you need en established electrical company who install solar, not a solar company that employ one electrician to do the AC bit! And stay local, do not go national! That is my opinion based on experience and horror stories! Your usage is quite high but it looks like you have great roof sizes to maximise the panels and output. You would need a generous amount of battery storage with those figures and especially if you have a large array, you want to capture it to try and avoid using the grid during peak time! Any installer should be doing the DNO application as part of their proposal. We offer it free even if it is G99 where some companies charge for that. I am happy to give you more advice if needed, I am not sure where you are based but we are in the North-East!

@@alpselectricalthanks for taking the time to reply. I'm in Warwickshire and yes the current electric usage has been high due to holes in ceilings and gaps around front door and old suspended uninsulated floors which I'm working on making as air tight and as insulated as is feasible. (Something our builder couldn't grasp). It's been a conscious decision to move from gas boiler wet heating to far IR panels and MVHR to control the ventilation and humidity and to include a solar array/s to offset the running cost. We've used 1 unit of gas in total with the hob since December. It may be that we include a small air source pump to heat the hot water for showers and bath instead of the immersion heater in the mixergy. I'm hoping that the MVHR will balance out the room temperatures and that the IR panels are on less often than they were in Jan to Apr. Currently the panels have not been on for all of May. It's been a bumpy ride trying to work with those that are stuck in the past and yet to embrace the change we are all going to have to make. The more contributors like yourself share real world data, the better it becomes for the rest of us to make informed decisions. Having been an Engineer in many practical applications of automation I'm probably the worst customer going as it's made me very intolerant of BS and baseless claims 😀 It's a bit of a trek into Warwickshire from the NE and you might get a nose bleed coming this far south. Keep up with the videos and don't ever worry about the luddites.👍

I am sure you will find the right installer with the right advice, there are good ones out there! Best of luck with it :)

Hi, thanks for your comment and for watching! I wouldn't say it was very low, my highest yield for 2023 was 613kWh, and July was 515kWh. May was 562kWh and so July was my 3rd best month of the year. My system is only 4.9KW on a 3.7KW inverter and my orientation is 71 degrees off south so we lose the sun at 4pm(ish). I am seeing a similar pattern this year with my system where I have had a really good April at 544.9kWh, and May at 584.7kWh. Obviously the weather has a say in how the months will look, but in my case my orientation will decice when my best yields are in the year. Not every house will have the same best month due to different orientations, and pitches, arrays shared over two roofs, and of course array sizes, and panel quality too! Lots of varying factors. I have just posted a video comparing my stsem to 3 other customers of ours too see if there are any patterns and how we all perform during winter in particular. Interestingly it highlights the point about diferent systems having different best months! Check it out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKXRopaHg9ycfNE

@@alpselectrical ok I misread it, because it might help if you Point Zero after your figure otherwise ONLY looks like 45.9 so yes July was ok after all.

Oh yes, I see what you mean! Well pointed out! I can see the confusion there :)

Hi, thanks for your comment, yes they work perfectly together. Most customers tend to use the Tesla app for day to day solar information and household consumption etc. If you want to alter the Zappi settings its necessary to use the Zappi app! :) Hope that helps!