Posted by: @batpred

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Just wanted to share a link here to the "process" I am following to get a contract (possibly with Octopus) to export. I do not have PV at the moment, but may as well have it ready.

And by @majordennisbloodnok 's calcs, the battery that could have cost me £1000 can be worked by Solis AI to get  a yearly return of return of £87..

I'll be interested to see how you get on. Are Octopus still charging for this route, or is it free now?

I also don't have an MCS certificate. As ours would be installed in our detached garage, I fitted it myself through the garage consumer unit that I could easily isolate.

Doing it myself came in at just under £5000 for 48kwh for everything. I did have to dig a trench in our granite chipped driveway to get the data cable to the smart meter, but other than that it was very easy, (even the application and sign off with UKPN).

I reckon I probably did a better job than most installers also and it only took me one day for the install and another to lay the data cable under the driveway.

I was happy to sacrifice the MCS certificate as I had no plan of exporting, although I might be tempted in the summer months, as we will have spare capacity when the HP is switch off for heating.

@bash Octopus does charge for the admin. The process also seems iterative. 

By the way, Solis seems to be ready to quizz the modbus connections. 

And the initial support became more frugal. 

Where it matters, they hinted at deploying hotfix firmware to improve how the inverter deals with what they claim are BMS comms errors. 😉 

I've been looking at the S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS, but put off by the two fans. How have you found the noise so far? It'll be placed in a garage, but noise seems to travel up in to the rooms (The IVT GSHP noise travels already, albeit a 20yr old HP and different frequency!). 

@energy9165 

I too had this concern with the 8kw unit, that there are fans as well as passive cooling through the large heatsink.

I chose the 6kw Solis inverter as it has no fans.

It operates silently most of the time. It only becomes audible when under load (about 3kw+), which tends to be when charging, or the few times during the day when the discharge rate is high.

The noise under load is actually not as much as I thought it would be and not offensive at all, so am pretty happy overall with the noise level.

The 6kw unit will happily sustain about 6.25kwh peak (discharge and charge) and sustain that continuously for many hours, so maybe enough for your needs. 

@bash brilliant, thanks for the feedback

Just wanted to add something to this in regards to Octopus OIF and GivEnergy, which was the only reason I got the GivEnergy System, but now they expanded their apprived list for Octopus Intelligent Flux. Also talking about Hybrid Inverters, well, ALL systems have it, Tesla probably does it better than everyone, as it adapts to your use, so it starts to learn when you use the most electricity etc, and store it for that time.

Going back to OIF, Octopus got smarter and are now locking users out of their systems. Also, I have no idea if they mess around with MODBUS, maybe DDOS, but my GIVTCP is falling over often now. Initially I thought I killed the hardware constantly sending commands and fighting Octopus, but Octopus is managing to control my battery just fine.

My setup is local laptop using Desktop Docker, I wonder if I should use something else. I did purchase one of those mini AMD PCs from AliExpress. I did so because the Raspberry Pi prices how gone up so much, they are no longer what they used to be.

Local Connection:

This is on the GivEnergy Cloud Page:

The annoying part is that the locking ability of the inverter was only introduced this year, and I doubt any of the users wanted and asked for it. I wish I never did the Firmware Update on it. FYI Octopus can lock your inverter FOREVER, the only way to remove your lock is to get them or GiVEnergy to remove the lock. Swapping Tariffs or removing the API Access will NOT remove the lock, isn't that genius, as while you battle to remove the lock, Octopus will continue to control your battery as they see fit.

I agree, @drei, that I dislike companies having control of my own stuff. However, the “I” bit of the tariff is, as we all know, “Intelligent” meaning the deal is a preferential rate in exchange for letting Octopus control your hardware. That’s not letting them share control; it’s letting them have control.

Personally I wouldn’t sign up to an Intelligent Octopus tariff since I don’t want anyone else dictating my choices for me, but if I did (to get that preferential rate) I’d have to accept my side of the bargain - to let go of the metaphorical steering wheel.

Posted by: @energy9165

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I've been looking at the S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS, but put off by the two fans. How have you found the noise so far? It'll be placed in a garage, but noise seems to travel up in to the rooms (The IVT GSHP noise travels already, albeit a 20yr old HP and different frequency!). 

Good question, I thought the same before I purchased it. 

I use quiet mode, which reduces the use of fan(s). I have it at the bottom of the stairs and nobody hears anything in the 1st floor bedrooms. We have fireproof doors. 

Apart from the odd click from the relays, it is silent when working without the fan. The fan only operates when it is charging or discharging more than 3.5/4kw. It is waterproof so can be installed outdoors if not south facing, etc, but an unheated garage seems ideal. 

Hope that helps!

@drei 

With the octopus intelligent flux (as I have EV), so far they did not insist to control the car charging - but I wonder if they will in future.

I also made a mistake and tried ev.energy (where I programed the tariff and let it control the charger). It was charging the car at random times, overriding what I programmed via the ohme app. If I did not have the battery, I would have bought power from the grid unnecessarily. 

It was not straightforward to get off ev.energy, but eventually I got control back.. 

Posted by: @batpred

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By the way, Solis seems to be ready to quizz the modbus connections. ...

Where it matters, they hinted at deploying hotfix firmware to improve how the inverter deals with what they claim are BMS comms errors. 😉 

Solis are working to resolve some comms design issues between the inverter and the app/cloud. 

The datalogger they shipped (essentially a USB dongle that adds wifi and ethernet connectivity) needed some firmware fix (that they already applied).

So, until the comms are more robust, I will avoid using soliscloud. Instead, I am using modbus over ethernet (with HA) to program some fixed charging slots. I also reduced the default polling rate of the solis modbus integration, just in case it would overwhelm circuits. 

To be honest, the issues I saw were occasional. Even if using "Solis AI" (that makes a lot of sense for agile rates, and is cloud based), I doubt that the typical user will notice it. When I looked at other inverters, I also saw that there is not much public information on programming different modes of operation. So the documentation of the HA Solis modbus integration (and its 400 registers) cannot be easily married with the replies from the Solis Engineers. There´s some trial and error learning involved. 😉 

The inverter hardware including info seems solid. It is the software design and testing approach that has probably been more aimed at the use of inverters in solar farms, rather than home niche use cases. And given how quickly Solis has been responding, I am reasonably hopeful that the improvements will not be kicked into the long grass. 

@drei 

Personally I didn't see any point paying the significant premium for branded eco system batteries. For me the amount of kWh's was more important.

I have 45kwh's of Fogstars storage and including the inverter and sundries cost significantly less than 1 Tesla Powerwall.

Posted by: @batpred

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With the octopus intelligent flux (as I have EV), so far they did not insist to control the car charging - but I wonder if they will in future.

Possible, but unlikely, I think. Flux is currently purely for solar PV and battery, whilst Go is purely for EVs. Rather than join them together to insist on controlling both, I would expect a new tariff to be dreamt up  precisely for targeting both together and to run alongside Flux and Go. Based on past performance I’d wxpect Octopus to provide more choice rather than risk alienating existing customers.