Newbie to everything EV/Solar

[_speedyellow_]

Hi Everyone.

I have just placed an order for a Taycan and now I have 10 odd months of waiting time I wanted to get some prep done at home for charging.
I am currently on a standard rate British Gas Tariff having just finished my fixed rate for the last year and I would like to install:-

1. Solar panels
2. I think a Tesla Powerwall 10kwh
3. Charging wall plug for the car

I went on the Octopus Energy website and they say they don't support a Porsche Taycan charged via either BP or Andersen wall points?
This has tripped me up..

I live in South Northants and recently got a quote for panels and Huwawei battery from E-on which was rather a lot, in fact Solar only £8600, 1 Battery (5.6kwh) £12,513.

This seems a bit pricey for what I am getting - would be interested in anyone recommending a local company that would do the panels and a Tesla Power wall?

Then - Octopus Energy, I don't have the EV yet - I expect around April 23 - do I need to have the car before they give you the tariff or could I get it soon and use the low cost to schedule dishwasher and washing machine/hot water etc during those off peak hours?
Do I need to have a Tesla car or is the Powerwall ok for their tariff?

Thanks

Tony

[Maracus]

Hi Tony,

I'm in South Northants too, so will be interested in how you get on with Solar and a Battery storage. We now have 2 EVs, so it's definitely something we are looking at. I'm luckily still on Octopus Go @ 5p off and 15p on until December.

I would have had my EO Mini Pro installed in Feb 2020 before my Tesla Model 3 arrived as part of a promotion that Octopus had but it was delayed for a few months due to COVID. I'm not sure if this is compatible with solar/batteries.

[Moonpie21]

I was in a similar position, waiting for an I3s and choosing to get solar etc so whilst I can't comment specifically to your questions I might be able to offer a point of reference...

I had 14 360W JA Solar solar panels installed giving me 5kW I also had a 6.5kWh Growatt battery installed and a Growatt inverter. It included all the MCS certificates, warranties, building regulation certificates, optimisers, scaffolding and birdproofing etc. This cost me below £8k including VAT.

Although I don't recognise the brands a quick internet search suggests I go reliable/good stuff. The app is a bit budget, but it does the job of telling me how much I generate.

I only really use my car for local journeys so just charge of a good 3 pin socket I maybe do 100 miles a week so it's not really an issue I tend to plug it in on sunny weekends through the day to top it up when I am generating beyond battery. No point in selling it to buy it back later at a greater cost.

Couple of lessons learnt for me that will come as no surprise to a smarter person.

1) You don't generate that much on cloudy bad weather days my lowest generation over the winter I think was somewhere around 2kWh in the battery which didn't do much. (On a sunny summers day I can generate around 20kWh)

2) 6kWh of battery doesn't power that much (Quite often over the winter you don't fill it given UK weather, so getting a bigger one would be daft). We have a little 2,000w oil filled radiator we like to use sometimes rather than central heating the whole house, you only get 3 hours of that free, running microwaves, kettles etc do take their toll.

All told though very happy with the investment. Just go in to it with eyes open as to the limitations of solar and battery. Plus really think if you need to wall charge your Taycan or you can 3 pin it when the sun shines and randomly topping up using a BP pulse fast charger or something for the longer journeys. I think if we are honest with ourselves most the time there is not a need to replenish 100+ miles overnight.

[Uncle boshy]

_speedyellow_ said:

Hi Everyone.



I went on the Octopus Energy website and they say they don't support a Porsche Taycan charged via either BP or Andersen wall points?
This has tripped me up..]

That’s for intelligent octopus, where they work out a charging schedule to minimise cost by following the 30min wholesale costs. Needs to be able to talk to the car and charger via an API, not all cars and chargers do that.

If you use go instead, which is fixed cost at night between certain hours you can use any car and charger.

_speedyellow_ said:

I live in South Northants and recently got a quote for panels and Huwawei battery from E-on which was rather a lot, in fact Solar only £8600, 1 Battery (5.6kwh) £12,513.

This seems a bit pricey for what I am getting - would be interested in anyone recommending a local company that would do the panels and a Tesla Power wall?

Costs are ballpark ok, I paid £7500 for 5kw recently with another £2500 if I wanted a 4kw battery (I didn’t)

Tesla power wall is circa 9k on its own but is a bigger battery. Octopus and Tesla do a special tariff for the power wall.

_speedyellow_ said:

Then - Octopus Energy, I don't have the EV yet - I expect around April 23 - do I need to have the car before they give you the tariff or could I get it soon and use the low cost to schedule dishwasher and washing machine/hot water etc during those off peak hours?
Do I need to have a Tesla car or is the Powerwall ok for their tariff?

For intelligent tariff you do as it talks to the car

For powerwall tariff you don’t need the car as the deal is all about using powerwall battery

For go I wouldn’t bother yet as the day kWh cost is slightly more than the standard so you’d need a lot of dishwashing to see a benefit

[Discombobulate]

_speedyellow_ said:

Hi Everyone.

I have just placed an order for a Taycan and now I have 10 odd months of waiting time I wanted to get some prep done at home for charging.
I am currently on a standard rate British Gas Tariff having just finished my fixed rate for the last year and I would like to install:-

1. Solar panels
2. I think a Tesla Powerwall 10kwh
3. Charging wall plug for the car

I went on the Octopus Energy website and they say they don't support a Porsche Taycan charged via either BP or Andersen wall points?
This has tripped me up..

I live in South Northants and recently got a quote for panels and Huwawei battery from E-on which was rather a lot, in fact Solar only £8600, 1 Battery (5.6kwh) £12,513.

This seems a bit pricey for what I am getting - would be interested in anyone recommending a local company that would do the panels and a Tesla Power wall?

Then - Octopus Energy, I don't have the EV yet - I expect around April 23 - do I need to have the car before they give you the tariff or could I get it soon and use the low cost to schedule dishwasher and washing machine/hot water etc during those off peak hours?
Do I need to have a Tesla car or is the Powerwall ok for their tariff?

Thanks

Tony

Are you doing this just for the car?
If so, it is never worth it. Indeed it is dubious for the whole house.
Just tick the box for 150kW on the Taycan options sheet for when you are charging publicly and fit a normal smart charger at home and use cheap night time tariffs if that works with your daytime consumption.

[OutInTheShed]

Discombobulate said:

Are you doing this just for the car?
If so, it is never worth it. Indeed it is dubious for the whole house.
Just tick the box for 150kW on the Taycan options sheet for when you are charging publicly and fit a normal smart charger at home and use cheap night time tariffs if that works with your daytime consumption.

People don't buy Taycans to save money.
I don't think anyone in the UK is saving money with a powerwall either.
Maybe they're 'worth it' in other ways, like bragging rights at dinner parties or something?

[Grebby]

I've just had 16 panels (6.4kW) and 9.6kWh of battery installed.

If you are doing this to charg ethe car then be aware that to use your own leccy you will only really be able to charge at a slow rate.

On a perfect sunny day we could get 6.4kW from the panels but the batteries would then have to top it up to the standard 7kW charging that a standard type2 charger does. That also means that you are then not charging your house batteries.

I do low miles and basically charge at a reduced rate (3kW) when it is sunny. The (house) batteries fill in for when clouds pass but are not a solution for long term charging the car.

[phil4]

There are two ways you can use the Powerwall when with Octopus.

The Tesla Octopus tarriff gives you flat rate in and out. So for example you provide electricity to the grid at 11p, and the cost use it is 11p. That would work for you with a Taycan.

The other options is to use a tarriff like Octopus Go, which gives 4 hours of really cheap off-peak power, which you can use to charge your car and top up your batteries, and then use that saved power during the following day. It's not a precise science as with solar you're predicting tomorrow's weather though.

Either way the biggest problem you'll have is getting a Tesla Powerwall. My solar installer has put me on a waiting list, as apparently Tesla a) aren't making any, b) won't be doing for some time so c) don't know what the price will be... so they're not even allowing the solar companies to order them.

This all may be resolved by the time your Taycan arrives though.

Good luck.

[_speedyellow_]

Hi All

Really appreciate your input here, quite a few comments and its made me do some sums and bit more thinking, and a slight viewpoint change.
It doesn't look like I can actually use solar to charge the car, not at least regularly and would be a challenge in the winter, so I am thinking the use of solar to run the house as much as possible would be a good start.

Thereafter setting up a 5/10kw battery will help with overnight usage where it gets filled up but the offset of that means my EV charging from the grid at home would not increase my usage too much.. Also found Costco now do installed Solar with Battery packages which are very competitive.

As many say - I have a Tesco near to me and one next to Porsche Silverstone so I could leave the car in the dealer and do some shopping whilst its charges.. at 150kwh meaning the 90ish KW/H battery is mostly charged up in 30 mins (It wouldn't be empty).

I've installed ZapMap on my phone so will investigate that - I noticed in the test drive a Porsche Charging network, but that was based at Shell Petrol Stations- again high speed 150KWH.

[Moonpie21]

Firstly I like Costco, but one thing I will say is, any of those other "offers" they do are provided by a third party and not necessarily guaranteed... Costco is just the front.

I looked at them for an automatic garage door, but when I read up on the company actually providing it they had a bit of a hit and miss reputation, very much depending on the local contractor that they had booked to do the install. I opted to go elsewhere where I had a little more control and better reviews it worked out a little cheaper too. The Costco headline offer I found as a useful price comparison for fair though.

I am not sure if I am allowed to post who installed my solar, but they are based in Crawley so would likely cover your area and so far 8 months later seem to have done a very good job at a good price. If interested and you message me I will tell you who they are so as not to break any of the posting rules I am not familiar with.

[phil4]

I might have missed why you'd rather use (typically expensive) public chargers instead of charging at home.

Even if you didn't have solar and a battery, you can get rates better, or much much better than paying for public charging.

If you were going to get free public charging, then I get it, but beware that option may be removed.

[JonnyVTEC]

Grebby said:

I've just had 16 panels (6.4kW) and 9.6kWh of battery installed.

If you are doing this to charg ethe car then be aware that to use your own leccy you will only really be able to charge at a slow rate.

On a perfect sunny day we could get 6.4kW from the panels but the batteries would then have to top it up to the standard 7kW charging that a standard type2 charger does. That also means that you are then not charging your house batteries.

I do low miles and basically charge at a reduced rate (3kW) when it is sunny. The (house) batteries fill in for when clouds pass but are not a solution for long term charging the car.

You need a EVSE that controls the charge rate based on solar output, so excess goes into the car and nothing more. Myenergi zappi has that covered aswell as a number of others, any excess then you want either topping up your battery or immersion heater into a hot water cylinder.

[Grebby]

JonnyVTEC said:

You need a EVSE that controls the charge rate based on solar output, so excess goes into the car and nothing more. Myenergi zappi has that covered aswell as a number of others, any excess then you want either topping up your battery or immersion heater into a hot water cylinder.

In our case we had the car and charger before the solar. Also as I do so few miles I can easily charge at a slow rate with time to spare. As for pumping extra solar(PV) power into the hot water cylinder, we also have a solar thermal panel (it was on the house when we bought it) so the water will most likely be at max temp anyway once all other electrical draw is minimised. I have a Project EV charger (I think ) that has loads of stuff I don't use but I'll have to see if it can be linked up as you suggest as it would mean potentially faster charging.

If you are starting from scratch then yes, a charger that links to your solar excess would be good, but even then you are going to be on a limited charge rate (compared to the normal 7kW Type2) unless you have a bucket load of panels. Much simpler though to use though.

[SDK]

I have solar, battery storage, a diverter to heat water and an EV.

My setup is as follows
- 14x 390w panels
- 10 kWh Huawei battery
- 5 kw Huawei solar inverter
- MyEnergy Eddi diverter
- Pod Point 7 kWh EV charger, which isn’t smart to read and use excess solar.
- Octopus Go electric tariff at 30p peak and 7.5 off-peak
- Polestar 2 Dual Motor Long Range (75 kWh battery) EV

On a good day in summer I generate about 36 kWh of solar and export about 5-10 kWh to the grid at 4p kWh (SEG)
My main daily priority is to power the house, re-charge the battery and heat water. Any excess solar goes into my car using the 3-pin charging cable at about 2.2 kWh. During the summer this is enough to cover my 100-150 miles per week trips just on solar.

In the winter when solar isn’t enough I will re-charge the home battery, heat water and charge my car overnight on the off-peak Octo Go tariff.

My approx energy bill savings from April to October are about £200 per month and £100 for the other months.

Next year I will probably get a Huawei EV charger (released around Sept 22). This is a smart EV wall charger (same as the MyEnergy Zappi) and can adapt to excess solar to add into the car. Basically means I will export less to grid with more going into my car.

Edited by SDK on Sunday 17th July 08:26

[LowTread]

At what point will you break even over a really economical ICE car?

(I realise that's not the point for you personally)

[SpeckledJim]

LowTread said:

At what point will you break even over a really economical ICE car?

(I realise that's not the point for you personally)

It’ll take a long time, but you’d be better comparing the Polestar to something like a BMW 340i.

[SDK]

LowTread said:

At what point will you break even over a really economical ICE car?

(I realise that's not the point for you personally)

I lease my cars through Salary Sacrifice, so with the low BIK for EV's (started at 0%, then increased to 1%, now at 2% until 2024/25) I started saving from month one when I got my Polestar 2 (October 2020) from my previous car - BMW G31 520D Touring.

[Cuoco]

Moonpie21 said:

I was in a similar position, waiting for an I3s and choosing to get solar etc so whilst I can't comment specifically to your questions I might be able to offer a point of reference...

I had 14 360W JA Solar solar panels installed giving me 5kW I also had a 6.5kWh Growatt battery installed and a Growatt inverter. It included all the MCS certificates, warranties, building regulation certificates, optimisers, scaffolding and birdproofing etc. This cost me below £8k including VAT.

Although I don't recognise the brands a quick internet search suggests I go reliable/good stuff. The app is a bit budget, but it does the job of telling me how much I generate.

I only really use my car for local journeys so just charge of a good 3 pin socket I maybe do 100 miles a week so it's not really an issue I tend to plug it in on sunny weekends through the day to top it up when I am generating beyond battery. No point in selling it to buy it back later at a greater cost.

Couple of lessons learnt for me that will come as no surprise to a smarter person.

1) You don't generate that much on cloudy bad weather days my lowest generation over the winter I think was somewhere around 2kWh in the battery which didn't do much. (On a sunny summers day I can generate around 20kWh)

2) 6kWh of battery doesn't power that much (Quite often over the winter you don't fill it given UK weather, so getting a bigger one would be daft). We have a little 2,000w oil filled radiator we like to use sometimes rather than central heating the whole house, you only get 3 hours of that free, running microwaves, kettles etc do take their toll.

All told though very happy with the investment. Just go in to it with eyes open as to the limitations of solar and battery. Plus really think if you need to wall charge your Taycan or you can 3 pin it when the sun shines and randomly topping up using a BP pulse fast charger or something for the longer journeys. I think if we are honest with ourselves most the time there is not a need to replenish 100+ miles overnight.

Hello, I have a quote for a similar system but much higher.

Obviously prices change, things are more now, but could you share who you had install your system and when it was done? Please DM if you don't want to post here.

[Aldos Army]

SDK said:

I have solar, battery storage, a diverter to heat water and an EV.

My setup is as follows
- 14x 390w panels
- 10 kWh Huawei battery
- 5 kw Huawei solar inverter
- MyEnergy Eddi diverter
- Pod Point 7 kWh EV charger, which isn’t smart to read and use excess solar.
- Octopus Go electric tariff at 30p peak and 7.5 off-peak
- Polestar 2 Dual Motor Long Range (75 kWh battery) EV

On a good day in summer I generate about 36 kWh of solar and export about 5-10 kWh to the grid at 4p kWh (SEG)
My main daily priority is to power the house, re-charge the battery and heat water. Any excess solar goes into my car using the 3-pin charging cable at about 2.2 kWh. During the summer this is enough to cover my 100-150 miles per week trips just on solar.

In the winter when solar isn’t enough I will re-charge the home battery, heat water and charge my car overnight on the off-peak Octo Go tariff.

My approx energy bill savings from April to October are about £200 per month and £100 for the other months.

Next year I will probably get a Huawei EV charger (released around Sept 22). This is a smart EV wall charger (same as the MyEnergy Zappi) and can adapt to excess solar to add into the car. Basically means I will export less to grid with more going into my car.

Edited by SDK on Sunday 17th July 08:26

I've got a similar system
6kw worth of panels
4.8kw battery, just expanded to 9.6kw

Generations rates:
Apr - 692kw
May - 677kw
Jun - 777kw
Jul - 673kw
Aug - 762kw
Sep - 447kw so far

Electric bills cut from average 1000kw a month to about 300kw so approx £200 pcm saving. With the new battery I expect this to be more.

I have a Tesla m3 and a hypervolt. The hypervolt has a solar only setting which isn't that reliable so I just set it on a trickle charge if needed for solar. The Hypervolt can do schedule charging which I have set up. Recently set up Octopus go so if it is sunny I will set it to use solar only, maybe get around 10 miles charge per hour which is fine if leaving during the day. I'm not a heavy mileage user so this would cover most of my usage. Then I'll use the cheaper Octopus rate overnight to do a full charge every now and then.

Apparently I can set the solar inverter to charge the battery from the grid at certain times so during winter I'll set this to charge overnight back up to full, during summer I'll let Solar charge the battery fully.