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What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

scotthelme.co.uk

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Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#331

Post by mbesto »

pchew wrote: post #318
mbesto wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inrush is exactly what it says it is, it's inrush current These are not terms commonly used in the industry, thanks for the clarification. > Lots of appliances in your home have a large inrush, much larger than the breaker they're on. And inverters are designed to compensate for short term surges too fyi. The 18k provides 65A for a few seconds as an example. > well, hell, how the hell you gonna charge ~40kwh of bat…

>These are not terms commonly used in the industry, thanks for the clarification. It's such an industry term that it's literally a named feature on multimeters. >The 18k provides 65A for a few seconds as an example. Yes, you'll see I gave you that spec in the opening comment. It's not a good spec for a whole home hybrid inverter. >the 18k can push 50A on each leg and most residential are sized at 150a or 200A That's…

Ok lol...so it turns out you're not even correct on a powerwall's spec...each inverter maxes out at 48A/240VAC...LMAO

Be gone troll.

https://energylibrary.tesla.com/docs/Public/EnergyStorage/Po...

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#332

Post by pchew »

mbesto wrote: post #331
pchew wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These are not terms commonly used in the industry, thanks for the clarification. It's such an industry term that it's literally a named feature on multimeters. >The 18k provides 65A for a few seconds as an example. Yes, you'll see I gave you that spec in the opening comment. It's not a good spec for a whole home hybrid inverter. >the 18k can push 50A on each leg and most residential are sized at 150a or 200A That's…

Ok lol...so it turns out you're not even correct on a powerwall's spec...each inverter maxes out at 48A/240VAC...LMAO Be gone troll. https://energylibrary.tesla.com/docs/Public/EnergyStorage/Po...

Yes, 48 amps at 240 is 11.5kw. Each Powerwall 3 is 11.5kw(edit: not to be confused with its capacity which is 13.5 kwh, one is a power output, one is a storage capacity. Just so you don't go thinking that's some amazing mixup between the comments). The original comment is all within your framework of 3 Powerwalls vs one EG4 18K with 3 batteries. That's 12kw AC for the EG4, and 34.5kw on 3 Powerwalls. I've never stated a single powerwall has more output than that(hell I even rounded down on the output of the 3 powerwalls to 34kw), only that they have a very impressive inrush and solar capacity. The incongruity of the comparison between the two systems is the entire origin of this discussion. Do you even remember what you posted and I responded to? You don't know how to use an amp clamp and don't understand the American split phase power grid. Stop consulting ChatGPT for 'gotchas' and actually read what you're writing.

Just to be perfectly clear on your continued misunderstanding - each powerwall is also an inverter, it has its own AC power output. That stacks. The batteries strapped to the EG4 are all limited to going through the EG4. That means no increased output for adding more batteries. No stack.

With 3 EG4s in the comparison you would have a similar standing load capability(36kw claimed), however you'd still only have roughly 1/3rd the inrush capability(190 amps).

Honestly, I thought I started this conversation nicely enough and went out of my way to be informative and you've only tried to insult me and be snide while having the loosest grasp on the subject matter.

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#333

Post by [deleted] »

mbesto wrote: post #331
pchew wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These are not terms commonly used in the industry, thanks for the clarification. It's such an industry term that it's literally a named feature on multimeters. >The 18k provides 65A for a few seconds as an example. Yes, you'll see I gave you that spec in the opening comment. It's not a good spec for a whole home hybrid inverter. >the 18k can push 50A on each leg and most residential are sized at 150a or 200A That's…

Ok lol...so it turns out you're not even correct on a powerwall's spec...each inverter maxes out at 48A/240VAC...LMAO Be gone troll. https://energylibrary.tesla.com/docs/Public/EnergyStorage/Po...

[deleted]

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#334

Post by pchew »

mbesto wrote: post #329
pchew wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>These are not terms commonly used in the industry, thanks for the clarification. It's such an industry term that it's literally a named feature on multimeters. >The 18k provides 65A for a few seconds as an example. Yes, you'll see I gave you that spec in the opening comment. It's not a good spec for a whole home hybrid inverter. >the 18k can push 50A on each leg and most residential are sized at 150a or 200A That's…

> This isn't even relevant but just as an aside, the EG4 isn't even a good value for the DIY scene I would respond to all of your items individually again but its clear by this comment I can't you seriously and now you're just trolling.

I'd love to know why you'd choose an EG4 18k (which is actually a 12k AC inverter, with a questionable track record on support and warranty) over a Sol-Ark 15k (which is actually a 15K AC inverter, and has tech support that responds) now that Sol-Ark dropped the price on 15ks to sub $5,000 MSRP.

I'd rather land wires in a Sol-Ark, it has better support, it has a higher AC output, it has a higher battery charge rate, and it's the same price.

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#335

Post by floatrock »

Aurornis wrote: post #219
jillesvangurp wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's going to be a bloodbath in that market in the next years. There are a lot of battery producers and most of them are not producing at full capacity. At the same time, manufacturing cost is dropping as well. Some battery makers are producing batteries at a cost level of around 60$ per kwh. At that cost, the 16kwh battery would come out below 1000$ (not the same obviously as the product price). Sodium ion might…

I'm not so sure. There are a lot of large-scale applications that would gobble up battery supply if it hit a certain price point. Grid-scale storage and datacenters, for example. If prices for residential gear falls too much, I expect the manufacturers would just stop making it and focus on the commercial options instead.

Why does it have to be zero-sum?

Why not commercial demand creates the economies of scale that bring the residential stuff down in price with them?

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#336

Post by QuiEgo »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #165
mbesto wrote: post #52

It's wild how overpriced Tesla Powerwalls are. 16 kWh battery with all of the UL supported listings etc = $3300 [0] 13.5 kWh Tesla Powerwall is $12k~$15k You would get your return way back quicker. [0] - https://www.ruixubattery.com/product-page/lithi2-16-battery-... EDIT: As others have pointed out, powerwalls have inverters built in so it's not totally apples to apples. You can get a beefy inverter for $5k and it's…

There's going to be a bloodbath in that market in the next years. There are a lot of battery producers and most of them are not producing at full capacity. At the same time, manufacturing cost is dropping as well. Some battery makers are producing batteries at a cost level of around 60$ per kwh. At that cost, the 16kwh battery would come out below 1000$ (not the same obviously as the product price). Sodium ion might…

I suspect the traditional grid operators will fight this very very hard.

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#337

Post by cman1444 »

ishtanbul wrote: post #198
bob1029 wrote: post #139

The rooftop solar game in Texas is strongly into scam territory. Most homes I see with panels on the roof are two story homes where you have a negligible amount of area to work with relative to interior space. There was a point where you'd have to deal with a door-to-door salesman approximately every 48h for an entire summer. The most realistic residential installation I've seen was firmly on the ground at a ~2 acre…

what is the scam exactly? Installing a small amount of solar isn't categorically worse than installing a lot of it. Its just smaller.

Surely it is? The fixed installation costs are spread over a smaller number of panels.

Which do you think is cheaper: installing an acre of solar panels across 300 seperate homes, or an acre of panels in one go on a solar farm?

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#338

Post by nnf »

raddan wrote: post #317
torginus wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Europe, we got more than a month's worth of foggy, cloudy weather (something that looks like will keep being a thing), which is something I became painfully aware of as an owner of a solar setup. No amount of battery banks can tide over such a long stretch. By the way, let me ask you - considering your location, you must be getting a lot of snow, how do you deal with it, is it a problem? Panels are quite hard…

I do indeed get a lot of snow. In January and February it snows roughly once every two days, although usually in small amounts. Fortunately I have a ground mount. The bottom row is roughly at waist height. I can (and have been) sweeping the panels off with a large push broom. Because my array is so large, I can only reach the bottom half of the array. But this usually is enough. When the panel starts to generate powe…

I've got a similarly sized ground-mount array, and I push the snow off with a triple-telescoping aluminum pole with a large squeegee on the end. An actual snow rake might be better, like the one you describe, but my setup gets it done. It takes some effort, but it's worth it to be able to collect the solar energy that would otherwise just reflect off the snow for days.

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#339

Post by stickfigure »

fullstop wrote: post #262
IAmBroom wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weird. I'm in PA, and my electrician quoted me a flat fee of $100 for replacing my outlets with GFCIs (each).

This wasn't replacing outlets, I do those myself. This was moving a receptacle four feet to the left and doing it through a finished basement.

Including drywall work? How many hours was the whole job?

Re: What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025

#340

Post by fullstop »

stickfigure wrote: post #339
fullstop wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't replacing outlets, I do those myself. This was moving a receptacle four feet to the left and doing it through a finished basement.

Including drywall work? How many hours was the whole job?

Ha, they actually messed up a bit and I had to repair a bit of the wall / wainscoting. Because of this they knocked $100 off of the price that I listed earlier.

It took him maybe two hours to run the wire.

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