New PV installation issues.

[Peterev]

Hello,

My first post here so thanks in advance for any advice offered.

We had a 4.86kW array installed on 29th March, the panels are Longi 405W units and the array is split into a bank of 4 panels and a bank of 8 panels due to physical limitations of our roof slopes, the 4 panel faces ESE and the 8 panel faces SSW. The system comprises an Ergocell EC 5000 inverter, Eddi and a 5kWh battery.

Since the installation was completed I've turned off hot water by our oil fired boiler in favour of the immersion and Eddi. I have several concerns such as the PV1 array (4 panel) not producing any energy (I mean zero) for over a day despite PV2 kicking out over 3 kW, a number of alerts including under and over volt but my main concern is the fact that we appear to be continually importing electricity from the grid apart from periods when the PV is really chucking out significant wattage. Even at night or periods of really low demand with a battery showing >50% charge, we are still importing. Please see screenshots below of our meter data from ESB showing imported grid power. The Eddi is programmed to boost at 10.00am every day and obviously it tops up when there is surplus available.

I've also loaded up photos of our consumer unit which now has a hum which wasn't there before. The electrician told me that I should get the mains MCB changed but wouldn't do it himself despite me offering to pay him.

I would be really grateful for any comments or observations.

Many thanks,

Peter.

 

[JohnD]

How does your usage graph compare to that before you had the panels?

You are in Ireland so I would expect your generation to be similar to central England.

My panels face due South and are on the South Coast so will generate more. Before 9.30, after 4pm, and on cloudy days, it is practically nothing, not even enough to run the fridges, LED lighting and stuff on standby.

Your grid contribution graph looks like you had a couple of sunny days, and several cloudy days, not unusual.

How many kWh did you generate, per sunny day and per cloudy day?

 

[Peterev]

Usage graphs attached, we are importing significantly less electricity as one might expect. I'm expecting our electricity bills to be a fraction of what they were.

We're near Clonakilty so just north of London, daylight hours are about half an hour behind London but as you can see, both arrays start producing before 7.00am but don't really get going until well after 8.00am.

Yes, cloudy days are a struggle, see myenergi graph attached for 4th May which was very cloudy.

Overall I'm really chuffed with the system. After they returned to reconfigure the panels and to correct some other issues with the original installation it's been behaving well and should prove to be a good investment.,