10 Years of Trouble-free Solar PV
It’s been more than 10 years now since Tony Brett invested in solar PV technology with NGRE and he has now used the considerable savings to invest in a state-of-the-art GivEnergy battery storage system.
Mr Brett, from Oxford, said: “The PV system has been a great investment and it’s still going strong 10 years later. It has comfortably paid for itself and has now paid for our storage system.
“Yesterday, on a typical March day, we used 12.8kWh of energy, but only bought 3.5kWh from the grid, getting the rest from the PV and energy stored in the battery. It’s already making a huge difference.”
Greg Bishop, managing director of NGRE, said: “What better endorsement than a happy customer coming back to us after 10 years and saying, “We’re really satisfied with the job you did before. We trust you to help us make that next step.”
Greg added: “In fact, we’re seeing more and more customers like Mr Brett, who already have solar PV and subsequently order a battery storage system.”
Solar PV System
Mr Brett’s original PV system consists of 18, 185w panels (3.3kWp) covering the whole south-westerly side of his townhouse roof and a 3kW solar inverter.
Smart Battery Storage System
It has now been augmented with a new GivEnergy battery storage system featuring an 8.2kWh Lithium battery and 3kW AC Coupled inverter.
Mature, Reliable Technology
Mr Brett said: “I’m very happy with the new system. I’m one of those people that likes to adopt new technology but not too early. I think it’s fairly mature technology now and there have been plenty of case studies of people using these systems successfully.”
Greg added: “The technology is proven and while energy prices are continuing to rise the cost of battery storage and PV is coming down.”
Huge Savings and Using Energy Smarter
Mr Brett’s GivEnergy battery storage system is designed to help him use his energy in a smarter way and can be configured using various modes. For example, stored energy generated from his solar PV can be used to supplement solar PV generation during the daytime when demand is high, maximizing self-consumption, or held until after dark or for expensive periods. Another mode enables the battery to charged from the grid when prices are low to be used at home when prices are high or sold back to the grid when export tariffs are high to make a profit.
Mr Brett said: “We wanted to be even smarter with our energy usage. We’ve also signed up to Octopus Energy’s smart tariff, Agile Octopus, so for example, today I could ask the system to charge the battery, say, at 2pm and stop when it gets too expensive at, say, 4pm. I’m not sure everyone realises it, but the difference between energy tariffs at different times is huge.”
Greg added: “Sometimes when there’s a surplus of energy on the grid, those with the ability to store energy can also actually get paid to charge their battery system.”
Energy Security
Mr Brett said: “We’re moving into a period of economical difficulty and we’ve moved out of the European Union, from which we are dependent on buying a lot of our energy. The combination of these two systems gives me a little more control over my energy.”
GivEnergy Options
GivEnergy also provide a Hybrid Inverter in 3.6kW or 5kW iterations while batteries are available in 2.6kWh, 5.2kWh or 8.2kWh and 5 can be combined, providing a potential storage capacity of up to 41kWh.
The system can be monitored and controlled via the GivEnergy Cloud, an online monitoring portal, or via mobile apps, which provide user friendly visual representations so you can track exactly how your system is operating. It shows home demand, when the battery is charging or discharging, when your solar PV is generating and when your system is importing from or exporting to the grid in real-time and historically so you can see exactly how you are using your energy.
Why NGRE?
Mr Brett said: “Greg was very helpful and I was able to have a good discussion with him about the whole thing. He was very responsive and professional and does an exceptionally tidy job.”
Are you interested in solar PV and battery storage solutions?
If you’re interested taking advantage of the benefits of a battery storage system, whether to add to your existing PV system, a complete PV and battery storage system, or a stand-alone battery storage system, fill out our contact form, and one of our experienced team will be in touch.
NGRE specialise in the supply of the latest renewable solutions for architects, builders and homeowners in Oxfordshire and surrounding areas and have more than 10 years’ experience. We are MSC accredited installers of solar PV systems which all come with a 25-year warranty.
GivEnergy inverters come with a standard 10 year warranty and GivEnergy batteries come with a standard 10 year standard warranty or a throughput of 10MWh per 1kWh stored capacity (whichever comes first).