Battery Storage

[farmerfred86]

Has anyone on this forum installed a working battery storage solution on farm yet? I'm not really talking about the large scale grid tied systems outside, I'm generally asking about house or on farm systems? Size of Tesla power wall or fridge sized systems?
I'm hearing alot of noise but don't think any companies are actually installing yet as the battery tech is still some months away?

 

[wasted years]

No, and I've not heard of anyone else doing it.
The message I get is that it isn't economic but I don't know for sure.

 

[farmerfred86]

No, and I've not heard of anyone else doing it.
The message I get is that it isn't economic but I don't know for sure.

Same here... not heard of anyone doing it although the companies that have set up seem to be acting as if its all about to take off!

 

[wasted years]

Same here... not heard of anyone doing it although the companies that have set up seem to be acting as if its all about to take off!

I think that they are trying to harvest grid connections and thats about it.

 

[Accidental_Farmer]

Hi, Yes we have a 14KW Battery Storage Solution in our barn that powers the house and buildings onsite. To be honest, we aren't a massive power user on the farm itelf but the batteries provide the house with almost all its power for about three quarters of the year, the rest of the time we buy in but what we get from the FIT more than covers that.

Pic Attached

 

[e3120]

Sorry to be fussy, but is that 14 kWh or 14 kW? They are 2 very different things! The former would deliver 1kW for 14 hours, which might keep my house ticking over.

 

[farmerfred86]

Hi, Yes we have a 14KW Battery Storage Solution in our barn that powers the house and buildings onsite. To be honest, we aren't a massive power user on the farm itelf but the batteries provide the house with almost all its power for about three quarters of the year, the rest of the time we buy in but what we get from the FIT more than covers that.

Pic Attached
View attachment 738124

Finally! Would you mind sharing who your installer was?

 

[sjt01]

Hi, Yes we have a 14KW Battery Storage Solution in our barn that powers the house and buildings onsite. To be honest, we aren't a massive power user on the farm itelf but the batteries provide the house with almost all its power for about three quarters of the year, the rest of the time we buy in but what we get from the FIT more than covers that.

Pic Attached
View attachment 738124

Those look like Victron inverters - is this a home designed system? What batteries are you using? Lead acid looks the most cost effective at the moment.

 

[Accidental_Farmer]

Sorry to be fussy, but is that 14 kWh or 14 kW? They are 2 very different things! The former would deliver 1kW for 14 hours, which might keep my house ticking over.

Hi, its 14KWh. Overnight, whilst everything in the house is off apart from the essentials, we use about 20% of the battery storage. We do have some undefloor electric heating though, in a big room....if we have that on when we aren't generating as well, then we get 3 or 4 hours of of the battery. During the summer though from about march to September we heat all our water with an immersion heater and have the underfloor heating off. Most days (in the summer) the batteries are fully charged again by about 10AM and then we use energy direct from the solar inverter and still pump nearly 50% back into the grid. We have 56 solar panels which I think are 260watt each.

Those look like Victron inverters - is this a home designed system? What batteries are you using? Lead acid looks the most cost effective at the moment.

Yes, they are Victron. We have 3 as we have a 3 phase supply, so 1 per phase. They are wired so all three can charge the batteries. The house is then on one phase, and the farm building are on another. We also have some 3 phase motors on various machinery.

The Batteries are lead acid. We decided to go with a proven manufacturer, not just one that has popped up recently. This company have made batteries for the marine industry for years. They are made by PylonTech

Finally! Would you mind sharing who your installer was?

No problem, I'll just check with them that they don't mind me passing on details.

 

[Zetor]

I never thought batteries/inverter would be viable (unless off grid) as the installation would be £££££ and batteries have a limited life?

 

[Accidental_Farmer]

@Zetor : your absolutely right, it was a bit of a gamble on our part in terms of cost, but in our case it was all done at the time the buidling was erected so that did factor down the cost slightly. We've had it nearly two years now, and so far, taking into account electricity savings, gas savings (we heat our water with immersions during the summer now), feed in-tarrif payments and an assumption that electricity costs will go up by at least 2% per year we are looking to pay back in between 8&9 years. It just remains to be seen if that is also the life span of the equipment as well!

We were lucky to still get a decent FIT rate, but if they disappear then it really wants a jump in battery technology to increase the viability! We would need a battery big enough to be able to store all our excess summer generation for use during the winter! At the moment the FIT smooths out the fact that from December - March the batteries don't really charge to more than 25% on any given day.

One of the things that the installers we used were discussing was that as electric cars become more prevalent, the technology is already available so that when you plug you electric car into your house to charge, that battery capacity can then become part of the load available to run your house. Even the smallest electric car has a 30KWH battery so that will be more than enough to run the house for a while. The assumption is then that you only draw a heavy load on your house when your home (and hence a car is there) so you only need to have a small battery to run the equipment that in your house that is left on when you (and your car's battery) are not.

I might put a dyno on my Saw bench/MF35 combo so when I'm chopping logs during the dark winter months I'm also charging the batteries!

All remains to be seen though!

 

[farmerfred86]

Good post... Its a real thought as to where we are all going. Perhaps in the next 50 years we could do away with houses powered by the grid altogether. Makes sense and every new house should have a minimum of 1 renewable source providing the houses own supply.
A new 50 house development near us has been held up by the environmental impact - there solution was to add a vehicle charging port to every property. Pretty cheap on their part but makes it easy for home buyers to choose their next car.

 

[thesilentone]

Good post... Its a real thought as to where we are all going. Perhaps in the next 50 years we could do away with houses powered by the grid altogether. Makes sense and every new house should have a minimum of 1 renewable source providing the houses own supply.
A new 50 house development near us has been held up by the environmental impact - there solution was to add a vehicle charging port to every property. Pretty cheap on their part but makes it easy for home buyers to choose their next car.

I agree, some interesting developments to come from battery power including export, home, vehicle, communal (eg 10 cars powering the village hall etc). The impact on the environment and human health will come up the agenda as more is deployed.

 

[Daniel]

Your car isn't going to be much use as battery storage, if the house has pulled power from the battery during the night, the car won't work in the morning, if you've been out in the car, when you get back the battery is flat..

 

[e3120]

Your car isn't going to be much use as battery storage, if the house has pulled power from the battery during the night, the car won't work in the morning, if you've been out in the car, when you get back the battery is flat..

Completely agree if solar is the source; maybe more useful if wind or a mix of generation.
No-one goes out to work here which means a car battery would be available more, but hard to predict when it would disappear. An amount of fixed capacity would make sense as well if it would stack up.

 

[Spear]

Isn’t one of the main money saving features with battery storage the ability to charge them overnight on cheap rate electricity and then use it during peak rate?

 

[thesilentone]

Completely agree if solar is the source; maybe more useful if wind or a mix of generation.
No-one goes out to work here which means a car battery would be available more, but hard to predict when it would disappear. An amount of fixed capacity would make sense as well if it would stack up.

Battery development is on a very steep upward curve, with power doubling and size reducing about every 20 years. New battery power such as solid state and lithium - oxygen will increase the capacity x 10. The science exists and developers are struggling to ensure we have a stable generator that is not a bomb

However. we are at the stoneage end of battery development at the moment, exiting times ahead.

 

[Accidental_Farmer]

Battery development is on a very steep upward curve, with power doubling and size reducing about every 20 years. New battery power such as solid state and lithium - oxygen will increase the capacity x 10. The science exists and developers are struggling to ensure we have a stable generator that is not a bomb

However. we are at the stoneage end of battery development at the moment, exiting times ahead.

Agreed, we looked at Saltwater batteries as an alternative to lead acid. They were cheaper, slightly more powerful but took up a lot more space but I see even they have now come on a long way in the two years since we opted for lead acid still!

 

[Accidental_Farmer]

Isn’t one of the main money saving features with battery storage the ability to charge them overnight on cheap rate electricity and then use it during peak rate?

I assume your thinking back to the "economy 7" days. Certainly with all our local providers the electric charges are pretty much the same 24 hours a day unless your a big user nowadays.

 

[thesilentone]

Economy 7 is alive and well and also has a big part to play both for utilisation and export in the future.