Post Install

[Nicky pies]

Hi Everyone, first off what a superb forum and by far and away the most helpful reading I’ve seen anywhere online. Pleasantries aside I’m, now at the stage where I need to decide a couple of things for my system.

System is 20x400w Perlight panels
2x Growatt 6.5 kWh batteries
Growatt SPH6000 Inverter

We are fairly average consuming household at 7.0kWh per day with no EV.

1. Which Octopus tariff import and export tariffs would be most suitable?

2. Is their a best settings for our Inverter and will their need to be a switch in these settings from the winter months into the summer?

Hopefully those questions aren’t too vague, I’m just wanting to make the most out of the system, lord knows I’ve spent enough (wife doesn’t however) Again any help greatly appreciated

 

[johnb2713]

That sounds a good sized system, I have the same inverter and battery (only one battery though).

You dont mention a solar diverter eg EDDI, maybe you dont have an immersion heater?

Octopus Tariff, I use is GO which currently gives me 7.5p and 29.2p off peak / peak, the inverter scheduled to charge my battery during the off peak time. Technically you should have an EV to be on GO but they dont check and if asked, you have one on order.

I cant think of any need to change inverter settings between winter and summer, one thing you may or may not be aware of is when running on battery the inverter has a maximum output of 3kW which I found disappointing for sure.

 

[Nicky pies]

That sounds a good sized system, I have the same inverter and battery (only one battery though).

You dont mention a solar diverter eg EDDI, maybe you dont have an immersion heater?

Octopus Tariff, I use is GO which currently gives me 7.5p and 29.2p off peak / peak, the inverter scheduled to charge my battery during the off peak time. Technically you should have an EV to be on GO but they dont check and if asked, you have one on order.

I cant think of any need to change inverter settings between winter and summer, one thing you may or may not be aware of is when running on battery the inverter has a maximum output of 3kW which I found disappointing for sure.

Thanks for the reply John, I have Eddi being installed as well yes. That is disappointing with the output when running from the battery, guessing on the nighttime’s we may be drawing from the grid in that case but not sure if TV and sonos system would be under 3kwH. We don’t tend to do a great deal else on the night.

I spoke to Octopus today and call handler recommended calling back when I have certificates to switch.

I think I’ve narrowed it down to two tariffs combos Outgoing Octopus with Octopus standard variable or Octopus Go, maybe worth switching between the two with agile but not sure I’ll have the time to get the most out of agile efficiently. Think it’ll be a case of trial and error perhaps.

 

[johnb2713]

I think I’ve narrowed it down to two tariffs combos Outgoing Octopus with Octopus standard variable or Octopus Go, maybe worth switching between the two with agile but not sure I’ll have the time to get the most out of agile efficiently. Think it’ll be a case of trial and error perhaps.

I'm on GO as we run 2 EV's, I have been watching Agile but it always seemed more expensive than GO. I have been playing around with Home Assistant and have done some coding to changing scheduled charging times from HA. I have also got HA to import Octopus Agile pricing so with a bit more logic written it should be capable of enabling charging when the price is below 'x' amount and SOC less than 'y' etc. It is quite complex but I will finish it eventually. I'll run it as a simulation for a month and see how good or otherwise it is.

J

 

[Nicky pies]

Just about finished the install

 

[bladerunnerpv]

Will be interesting to hear how you get on if you have time to share a generation/usage update pre-christmas

 

[Nicky pies]

Will be interesting to hear how you get on if you have time to share a generation/usage update pre-christmas

Definitely will be sharing everything I can that’s useful. Found a YouTuber called Northern Solar who’s provided a spreadsheet in one of his videos to enter and monitor data.

 

[johnb2713]

Just about finished the install

Looking good...... mine is similar