Could it have been done better? Any examples of something better?

given the latest regs I’m thinking it’s time to move them to the lower floor and into the utility room or kitchen.  Can anybody give me the heads up on how difficult this would be. Should I make new battery leads, can I purchase leads to extend and can I purchase a new communication lead.  The distance is minimum since they sit above the kitchen.  Plan B would be to simply lift them out of the loft into the bedroom. The easiest option to be honest.  A mission impossible to cool the loft and it keeps the insurance happy. 

No idea if you can have these alongside any other batteries?

https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/storage/octopus-energy-launches-the-a-nooka--20260622

So we embarked upon removing the old oil boiler and fitting a shiny new 10kW ASHP with £5K BUS grant contribution. We fitted 3.6kW of Solar PV, and we retrospectively added 13kW of BESS. Our heat pump install was done well and the ASHP has been flawless from the get-go, but the commissioning and handover were non-existent. Over the years we've learned through trial and error. We've benefitted from the huge contribution of knowledge this forum has provided - thank you @editor and all. A host of parameter settings needed to be adjusted, and numerous small tweaks made here and there. Over a couple of winter heating seasons we optimised the ASHP CH and DHW control and efficiency and found that elusive weather compensated heating curve sweet spot. If only it could have done it for us out of the box!

We soon realised however that we needed to load shift our electricity import to cheap rates, to allow the ASHP to run continuously for best efficiency while remaining a cost-effective means of heating compared to burning oil. So we added 2x 6.5kW BESS. We work the BESS hard, charging it whenever Cosy has a low rate 3x a day, to leverage the advantage and load shift most of our import to Cosy low rate. (Around 88-90%)

We've recently completed our journey having sold our two jalopy petrol and diesel cars, both with 130K+ miles on them and getting increasingly expensive to keep on the road. The cars owed us nothing. We've gone Chinese - like most things these days - with BYD. A new Dolphin Surf EV and an ex-demo Seal U DM-i PEHV. We've never bought new or nearly new cars before, so this was new territory. Our daily commutes are now all-electric, with the hybrid having a 1300kg towing capacity for our trailer tent family holidays. EV fast chargers on campsites are still anathema in the UK, but on some sites you can cheekily granny charge at 10A load from the electric hook-up.

Both cars are fantastic - we're well impressed with the quality vs value of them. The small EV returns 5miles/kWh, costing 2p a mile on Octopus Cosy cheap rate, less when solar surplus contributes. More Apps on our phones, more head-scratching and yet more settings! We installed a Zappi 7.5kW home charger at home, which is very capable but I didn't find it very intuitive. I've now found the sweet spot where it will timed boost at 7.5kW on the two Cosy cheap overnight rate periods, and granny charge at 1.5kW ECO+ setting at other times drawing from the BESS. Using the BESS that way gives us up to 10hrs of low rate charge overnight in a 'granny-boost-granny-boost' pattern, which no EV tariff offers. We can fully charge the EV overnight that way, but we've never had the battery lower than 45% charge yet on a 200 mile range city EV car used predominantly in a rural environment. One car gets plugged into the Zappi, and if needed one granny charges from an outdoor socket at 2kW. Whichever needs more juice overnight goes on the Zappi. I can charge the PEHV for free at work during the day. What we now save on petrol and diesel per month more than pays for the PCP on the small EV.

* I should add that in the current geopolitical climate where Billionaires send rockets into space for fun, and missiles are fired at anything that moves in the Middle East, our C02 savings seem futile, but we sleep easier knowing we've done our little bit.

Thank you to all who have helped us along this journey. It has been quite a ride!

* 6 x Ecoflow plug-in batteries, including 2 × EcoFlow Stream Ultra X 3.8 kWh, 1 × EcoFlow Stream Ultra 1.92 kWh, 3 × EcoFlow Stream AC 1.92 kWh, for a total of 15.36kWh, fed by various DIY solar panels totalling 2.98kW.

While the SolaX and Ecoflow aren't integrated and don't "talk" to each other, we use Home Assistant, Wonder Watt, plus an Ecoflow CT-clamp smart meter, and 2 x Shelly CT-clamp smart meters to monitor and manage the home usage.

In terms of energy draws, we're running a Nissan Leaf EV, and a Hyundai IONIQ PHEV, and a Daikin ASHP with hot water tank (and Solar iBuddy).

We have an 80A grid connection, and use the Octopus Intelligent Go tariff, with an Ohme Go Commander smart charger and an Ohme (dumb) EV charger. This setup works well and gives us 2330-0530 "cheap" energy (8p kWH) and some nice bonus "cheap" slots during the day (which WonderWatt takes advantage of to top up our batteries).

This will be the first full year that we'll have had the above setup running, but in previous winters, the batteries didn't cover peak-time use of 35kWH during the day, peaking at 50kWH.

So, we're exploring options to expand our battery setup to completely time-shift energy use, even during the coldest, darkest winter days.

The challenge is:-

* We cannot upgrade the Solax battery system, as it is both loft-installed and our existing installer isn't interested in lugging any more heavy batteries into the loft or for building safety regulations.

* The Ecoflow system is limited to 6 x batteries, which we've already maxed out.

* We have no more space for batteries inside our home, so are looking to outdoor units.

Therefore, I'm wondering what our options are to add an additional 30kWh (or similar sized) IP56 rated battery system to an outside wall.

I've been drawn to the Fogstar Energy 48V 40.96kWh IP56 Outdoor Battery System and Cabinet combined with a Victron inverter, but I'm sure there are other options.

Our challenge is finding an installer who will work to combine a new system with an existing setup. Most installers seem to want "green field" sites where they can install a standalone system. Therefore, a secondary question would be, which technically competent and experienced installers (we are based in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the North East) would forumites recommend for more complex installs.

I appreciate the above is a fairly comprehensive setup, so feedback and suggestions gratefully received!

Our house has a 3.5kW ASHP and finally a working smart meter.  Our second vehicle is dying (K reg Golf) and won’t go past the MOT in September.  We live on an island so most of our driving is quite short distances.  An EV would make some sense.  We currently have no battery storage of any sort.  Ideally I would like to use a time of use tariff to charge the car and use that energy during the day to power the house - when the vehicle is not in use. Our house typically uses max 10 to 15kWhrs a day.  Is the concept of pursuing V2H a logical direction to go and should that influence our choice of EV if we buy one now - or should we wait a few more months or years?

Little story of battery woe, and then an appeal for any help/info/hope people might be able to offer. 

The Story:

We moved into our home in Dec 2022.

In March/April 2023 we had the following installed:

- 6 solar panels (3.27kWp) and

- Pure Drive 10kW AC coupled battery installed (gateway AC connection), with

- Solis inverter (S6-GR13PK, inverter topology is non-isolated).

Small local installer.

We told the installer that we wanted a system that worked off grid, and would re-charge from solar in the event of a power outage. We're pretty rural, and we knew that when storm Arwen came it took this area out for two weeks. I was pretty 'green' to renewable energy and didn't understand the specs we were given by the installer. My bad. Had I understood the specs, I would have understood that the system would not do what we wanted. In my defence, I had a phone call with the installer and specifically asked if it worked off grid, and was told it did. The written specs (had I understood them) told a different story.

It was installed, and in August that year there was a power cut and (imagine my surprise!) it didn't work off grid. I queried it. I then spent 10 months chasing and chasing and getting no where (there were actual tears) before being told by the installer "We're busy doing commercial work not residential." I got the message. I spoke to Pure Drive, and they put me onto two other approved installers in the area who could look at it. One came out. Explained that based on what I'd said I wanted, I'd been sold a dud set up. Absolutely gutted, because we'd spent £15k on the system in total (panels and battery plus install).

That second installer agreed to do a 'work-around' for us whereby there is a back-up circuit installed in the house that has sockets (they're all on one circuit) and lights, and not the kitchen. In a power cut, we get the heating still working, sockets (so fridge freezer is OK) and lights. We can use what's in the battery at the time, but it doesn't have capacity to re-charge from solar. I was told there's no way to get that capability without replacing both the battery and inverter, which we can't afford.

I queried this with Pure Drive, wondering if I could replace the inverter with a hybrid inverter, but alas no. The same answer: I'd have to take everything out, and start from scratch.

There have been a couple of other niggles.

- Most mornings the battery trips out when the sun comes up, and we have to flip it back on at it's fuse board. No idea why. If we miss that, it's just out until we notice.

- Intermittently but at multiple occasions in the day the Solis inverter presents a 'NO GRID' error, mostly when it's sunny. The upshot of about 2.5 months of query, chase, and investigation regarding that with the original installer, second installer, Pure Drive, Northern Powergrid, and Solis is that the panels and/or battery are 'overloading' the Solis inverter in sunny periods and it shuts itself off to protect itself, and then turns back on again. It also turns out that the Solis inverter wasn't installed with remote monitoring, and my original installer agreed to install the required piece of kit so that it could be remotely monitored, and then didn't. All in all, I gave up pursuing that further because it doesn't seem to massively effect performance - the inverter switches off for 30secs to 1min30secs at a time, during sunny periods, multiple times a day, but, it comes back on again and the battery can then get back to charging.

Apart from that it, it does charge, store, and power the house as it should. I have it to charge at night, and have it in 'power cut' mode so if the worst happens we should at least have a decent amount of charge in the battery to keep things ticking over. 

The Question:

Is there any way - any at all - that I can affordably (I'm thinking £2k-ish...?) get this system to work as I originally wanted it to: panels and battery, optimising home usage, and in the event of a power cut to have the ability to charge up the battery from the panels and run the (low-power) essentials of the house from the battery, off grid.

So far I haven't found it, so I'm not hopeful. I last looked into this maybe over a year ago (early 2025) and it was gruelling trying to get answers - that's partly down to me not really understanding the tech (again, my bad).

I know this is very technical and no one can see my set up, so there's maybe a limited amount anyone can say - I think I'd even just appreciate some commiseration at this point.

I've wondered about selling the equipment, and using that to fund the correct kit/installation, but I expect we wouldn't get close to covering the cost from the second hand market.

As I say any advice about options or ways forward very welcome, and thanks in advance for anyone willing to read my tale of woe and even consider replying.