OV9

I need to find one of those electricians

I want to maximise the return and treat the money invested in my own solar set-up like a dividend return. X amount saved a month and x amount earned compared to what the money would have earnt in interest/ investments.

Dave!

Part of the game is being clever with the timing of energy usage. In theory, I should be able to fill my battery in an hour and a half at full power, and in summer I should get 6 hours of peak sun, just at the time when my consumption is low, so, without feed-in there will be quite a lot of wastage.

One strategy I'm planning is to rig up my electric hot water cylinder to run directly, and effectively use it as another 4.5kwh battery. I have 2 old-skool storage heaters too, and all the wiring already in the house from the old economy7 set-up, so I may add those as well. I need to see how it all performs in wintertime and see if the numbers make sense (I suspect they won't).

Winter is a shit as depending on panel location you could be down to 10% of your summer production easily. I think either maximising what you can achieve in the summer or changing how you run the system in winter is the best bet. For example if in winter you see your battery storage as just what you need to run the base load of your home each night then thats a good strategy as its doable and shouldn't need a lot of messing about or monitoring.

Currently I have more storage than needed and less panels but the aim of it all isn't to just throw panels at it, it's to use what you have the most efficiently. I think i'll even run a dedicated charging station supply to the house as I know when its cold or wet the kids will just plug their devices into any old socket. It's like the thermostat police but for USB cables

So when do you buy a Nissan Leaf and mounted it vertically in the garage for cheap storage ?

Dave!