Back in November 2016 we had solar panels fitted to our roof. Our house was almost made for solar panels. It is east-west aligned with a 30ft length of south facing roof with an unobstructed skyline on which to place the panels. We had eighteen panels fitted at a cost of £11,00, and I have to say it was one of the best investments we have ever made. The installation was undertaken by Greenscape Energy and, apart from a minor hiccup immediately following installation, which was rapidly addressed, the system has worked flawlessly.

We included in the installation an immersion heater shunt, which means that whenever we are generating more electricity than we are using, the immersion heater kicks in and heats the water. The end result is that for six months of the year we use almost no energy, have reduced our energy bills by around £600 p.a. plus earn over £400p.a. in feed-in-tariffs and since installation we have generated over 45MWatt hours of energy.

Battery Storage

In 2020 Cambridgeshire County Council initiated a project called Solar Together to try to encourage residents in Cambridgeshire to install Solar Panels and/or battery storage units. The County Council would put your request out to tender with a number of approved installers, and the you would be provided with the cheapest quote, which would be further reduced by 10%.

We decided to take them up on the offer for a battery storage unit. The proposed installation was for two 2.4KW hour batteries, at a cost of £3200. Greenscape Energy was the proposed supplier. We decided to proceed.

Our experience with the battery storage units, I will say has not been stellar. First, I was not aware that the Inverter (needed to invert DC to AC and visa versa) actually uses power, continuously. Not a lot, around 10 watts, but it is permanently on.

Second, the batteries take preference over power for the house. Now the batteries charge at a rate of around 1Kw, so the solar panels need to be generating over 2Kw before we see a reduction in our domestic energy usage. Yes we get the energy stored in batteries back later in the day, but the energy storage and extraction processes are not lossless, which means it is less efficient than if the batteries were storing from the excess energy that we generate.

Third, the batteries have a minimum level of power that they need to maintain. If the level drops below that level then power is extracted from the grid to boost the level stored. Every night we see at least one massive short spike in energy usage to top up the batteries. In winter there can be multiple numbers of these spikes throughout the day.

I estimate that the battery storage facility is saving us around an extra £100pa off our bills, but at an upfront cost of £3200, it is going to be a long time before it pays for itself. The batteries themselves have a life expectancy of around thirteen years. So we will need to replace them well before the system has paid for itself – and that assumes that there will still be compatible batteries available when we do need to replace them.

My advice on installing battery storage is, if you are doing it to save money or as an investment, don’t. There are more cost effective energy saving mechanisms available. If you are doing to help save the planet, again there are probably more planet saving house improvements you could make.

Battery Storage – Operational Issues

The first operational issue we encountered was about four months after installation and the first bright sunny late spring day. I received an ‘Over Charge Alert’ email message from the system stating that the batteries had over charged, please fix. What I found particularly worrying is that the equipment is peppered with Fire Hazzard warning stickers and is located in the garage, which is integral with the house. I called Greenscape Energy and asked how am I supposed to ‘fix’ the problem. Greenscape Energy informed me I can ignore the message. Well it’s all well and good for them to say that, it’s not their house that is at risk of burning down.

These Alerts regularly happened on bright sunny days. I am presuming that the inverter hasn’t cut out quick enough when the batteries are fully charged and some limit has been breached. Greenscape Energy did eventually send out an engineer, who I believed changed the limit on when these Alerts are triggered and their frequency has reduced, but we still do occasionally receive them

Issue Two. The batteries stopped charging. Do not know why, only that one sunny Sunday, about six months after installation, the batteries were showing No Charge and not charging. Engaging my Windows User processes I decided to restart the system. Instructions for restarting the system had been provided following the installation and were pinned to the side of the Inverter. Problem was they were the wrong instructions. They referred to a completely different set-up. So on to the internet and try to find enough information that would enable me to accurately translate the instructions provided with those needed for my installation. Did manage that, restarted the system and all worked fine. I then wrote the correct procedure and pinned that to the side of the inverter.

Issue Three. One Saturday, with the system about two years old I noticed that the inverter was alarming and the batteries were not charging. I tried the re-set procedure mentioned above and initially all appeared to be OK, but a few minutes after the restart the system again alarmed. Repeated the process, with the same result. So called Greenscape Energy. Their suggestion was to shut down the whole system, wait 15 mins and then restart. This I did and it did seem to resolve the problem.

However, it is fair to say that, two years on and the system has not been issue free.

Solis Inverter – Wifi Connection

The Inverter installed with our Battery Storage system is manufactured by Solis. These are a global name and have a reasonable reputation. They can be fitted with a datalogger which can attach wirelessly to your internet and transmit status information to the SolisCloud web site where you can log-in to view the status of your installation: Energy Used, Energy Generated, Energy Stored in a nice graphical form.

We recently changed our internet provider, and our SolisCloud page went off line. Fair enough, I thought, I just need to re-configure the Inverter’s WiFi with our new SSID and Password. And that is when I hit the problem. The Inverter has a small LED screen which allows error status to be displayed, and some settings to be configured but not the WiFi settings.

Called Greenscape Energy. Their response was that it requires an Engineer visit to change the WiFi configuration. The cost of the visit is £120 + VAT (£144). Would I like to arrange a date. I declined the offer, but instead made a complaint along the lines that necessitating an Engineer visit to re-set a WiFi password is an appalling piece of equipment design, plus there was no mention of this little gem in any of the literature.

Greenscape maintained their position that as I had occasioned the change, I would have to pay for the Engineer’s visit. Not believing that anyone would design a piece of equipment designed for the domestic market that would require a qualified engineer to attend just to change the WiFi configuration I resorted to the Internet. And low and behold on the Solis Service web-site in the US were the instructions on how to re-set the WiFi Configurations.

The issue is that it is not the Solis Inverter that links to the WiFi but an add-on piece of equipment called the DataLogger. In theory the installation company could attach any compatible DataLogger to the Inverter, but given that Solis manufacture DataLoggers, there is a fair chance that it will be a Solis DataLogger that is installed. And certainly for my installation that is the case.

The instructions on how to re-set the WiFi SSID and Password differ slightly depending on which model of DataLogger is installed. The difference lies mainly in the mechanism to re-set the Datalogger. Once the DataLogger has been re-set then all you need is a Tablet or Smartphone.

• Go to Settings>Wifi on your smart device
• Selected SSID AKxxxxxxxxx – which is the WiFi of the DataLogger
• Open a browser on your Smart device and enter http://10.10.100.254/ into the address bar
• You will be taken to the Login page of the DataLogger’s embedded web site.
• Enter admin:admin for User:Password
• At this point you will be presented with the Settings menu, which includes entering the connection details for your WiFi network.

All done in a matter of 5 mins and absolutely no need for an Engineer to visit at a cost of £144