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Rank 5
Jonathanprentice
Rank 5
June 19, 2023
Solved

Importing energy from the grid for usage despite having solar panels and energy storage?

  • June 19, 2023
  • 17 replies
  • 8596 views

Good afternoon,

My first post/question. 
 

I have aded solar panels and battery storage unit. 
 

Does anyone experience other solar panel users that grid power is used, not much but say overnight with full battery I use 50watts. Not much but want to know other opinions. 
 

Thanks. Jonathan 

    Best answer by BPLightlog

    Hi @Jonathanprentice and welcome to this customer forum. 


    Some of what happens to your solar PV and battery power depends on how the system is set up. Generally, this will be to supply the property first and then charge batteries second. The third phase is to send excess to the grid. 

     

    What can happen depending on your system, is that as power demand changes, the system can’t always keep in step and so you might see occasional draws or feeds into/from the grid. Power switching is still behind some of the demand frequency and as the whole system needs an immediate balance in place you might see what you describe. 


    One other thing to bear in mind is that the system might be programmed to top up the battery charge overnight if it is below a threshold. 
    Just for interest, what type of system and inverter control do you have?

    17 replies

    Show previous replies
    BPLightlog
    Super User
    BPLightlogSuper User
    Super User
    June 19, 2023

    My instruction to the family now is “before you switch on the kettle, microwave, oven, air fryer, hair dryer, washing machine, tumble dryer or shower, check what else is switched on!”

    Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
      J
      Rank 5
      JonathanprenticeAuthor
      Rank 5
      June 19, 2023

      So true!!!! 😂 

        C
        Newcomer
        Caroline Roberts
        Newcomer
        December 5, 2023

        We have a solar installation with a solax battery. The fitting was completed in June of this year. I noticed that from mid September onwards out electricity consumption has doubled ( it may have happened earlier and been masked by general usage. There are regular surges that show up on the smart  metre and on OVO.

        There can be between 3 to 6 each day  for example 3rd december ½ hour at 12.30. 2.3 to 4 am , 6.30 to 8.30.

        This is from the 3rd december and these surges totalled 13.4kwh. It happens at night as well. We have  now isolated the fault to the solar installation by switching off circuits and consumer units

        We are baffled as to what is going on. Before we approach the installer, we would like to know if anyone has any explanation. I did mention it to the company who did a cursory check of the installation and said it works! the explanation they gave me was that the early morning surges were because of my standby lights!

        Anyone any ideas?

         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
         
        Emmanuelle_OVO
        Retired Moderator
        Emmanuelle_OVO
        Retired Moderator
        December 6, 2023

        Hey @Caroline Roberts,

         

        Welcome to the OVO Online Community,

         

        I’ve moved this topic to ‘Smart Home’ so that it gets more views from Community Members with similar green tech.

         

        Renewable Energy? Big Fan.
        BPLightlog
        Super User
        BPLightlogSuper User
        Super User
        December 13, 2023

        Hi @Caroline Roberts , I can’t quite see what level of individual ‘surges’ you are looking at. 
        There is a time when the inverter juggles input from the solar vs what is required by the property but that should be fairly limited in power. 
        Another possibility is that the inverter is pre-programmed to top up the battery at certain points. If you have access to the inverter control you should be able to check that

        Bring me Sunshine ~ E&E {Solar PV, Battery Storage, Hybrid EV, ASHP and Home Assistant automation}
        C
        Newcomer
        Caroline Roberts
        Newcomer
        December 13, 2023

        The surges were approx 2kwh, but we have sorted the problem , the ct device has been incorrectly connected causing the battery to pull down from the grid to top up .  This has been verified by Solax. So it is an installation fault 

          Abby_OVO
          Community Manager
          Abby_OVO
          Community Manager
          December 14, 2023

          Hey @Caroline Roberts 

           

          Glad to hear you’ve got to the bottom of that issue.

           

          If there’s ever anything else we can help out with, always feel free to pop back to the Forum.🙂

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