DIY SOLAR POWER UPDATE - Winter & Spring

In September last year, I built my own DIY Solar power system. It’s just three panels, but they are Trina solar 400W panels, meaning on a clear sunny day I should be making 1.2kW. I built my own, admittedly janky, battery pack too using LiFePo4 prismatic 280Ah cells, for a total of around 7kWh of capacity. I’ve been making use of that power since, and I thought I’d give you a bit of an update on the system, and probably more importantly, how much power I’ve been generating, using, and how much money I’ve saved.

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[jmpcrx]

I did the same, slightly bigger scale, diy 3kw panels on shed roofs, diy lifepo4 14.4kw, armoured cable into loft etc, double sockets into each room, all in one epever 3kw inverter, run the whole house (1.5kw immersion element for hot water, 1.5kw air fryer oven and 500w multi cooker for cooking) . Not used a drop of grid power since end of march. Charge storage from the grid economy 7 rate (8p kwh edf) in winter and use in the day. Use up any extra power in the summer with a crypto mining rig. Home assistant, tablet on wall etc. Total cost £4000, payback in 2.5 years. Saving me £130 a month. Awsome setup, beats all the posh setups hands down 😎😎😎😎😎

[ddEEE]

You're missing an easy win. Put a generator on the rowing machine and pump that into the battery, too. 😁

[trancematics]

Nice setup. I did much the same fitting a solar system to my van, albeit with only 3 x 100 watt panels. Luckily I bought the LiFePo4 cells before the prices went silly but even so it'll take a long time to recoup my investment, if I ever do. That said, I did it for the convenience for having power when I'm on the road. Last summer I regularly saw peaks of more than 320W around early afternoon so solar panels can definitely exceed their rated output.

The only bit I'm confused about is when you mentioned air conditioning. I must have either misheard or was momentarily transported to an alternate universe where the Scotland I know and love is hot and sunny 🤣

[stevejeffrey]

You may want to chop off the height of your wooden frame supports, any shadows onto your panels may affect your production.
Thanks for your video.

[Surms]

This is awesome man! I like the detailed graphs of power generated and used, and what exactly you're powering with that.
Great video! Hello from GN.
Also, funny, but you could use your leg power to add some more charge with the rowing machine to spin a genny😀

[leighreid]

Any chance on an update on how summer went?

[Spreadie]

Nice vid. More power to your... um, panels?

[llFXIl]

How did you connect it to your home? Or is it stand alone syatem

[dukemaximus]

Hi, nice video. I am trying to make a 800w garden solar system with Micro Solar inverter. This one is grid tie. So did you had to notify DNO? If so how did you do that?

[BritishAnts]

BE CAREFUL WITH THE VOLTS ON THAT MPPT! I’ve maxed mine to the max and you’ve gone past me by 400 watts! How do you have the panels connected, not sure i heard it mentioned! X❤

[jodajackson]

There are numerous big ticket purchases that people make and they never consider a return on investment. A car for example. Solar power isn’t all that different than buying a gas generator as a contingency. It doesn’t necessarily have to make financial sense

[chris_mksupra]

why not daly? got 26kw on daly and it work great