I’ve decided to document our experience with a solar panels installation, aimed at helping people make decisions.
Installation – July 2022
Largely, installation very smoothly with a couple of anomolies. The first team arrived, unpacked the solar panels and brackets. They fitted the brackets to the roof and then left, leaving the 18 panels in the front garden. Erm, left out there, they would have been gone by morning. We moved the quite heavy solar panels into the garage.
Team 2 arrived and fitted the 18 solar panels and the battery, except as the last screw went in, he realised it was the wrong battery. 3 days later he arrived with the right battery and completed the installation along with configuration and set-up, making the system live.
Observations – July 2022
APP… omg the app! Page 47 of the installation guide has a QR for the APP. Unfortunately, it goes to a 404 Cannot be found page. Searching the APP Store for AlphaESS gives a number of options. The first result is a business app by AlphaESS. Next is Alpha ESS Co., Ltd. I tried and tried but could not get this app to connect. Next is Goanna Solar Batteries, a developers app that connects to AlphaESS. I installed and connected this APP in a few short minutes and will be the basis of stats I include in future.
Interestingly, sales talk went from “zero energy bills” during the sales pitch to “much lower energy bills” after it was installed.
Understanding there would be teething issues, I noticed that the system was drawing power from the grid even though there was power in the battery. When I questioned this with sales, I was told it would do this until the battery reached full (100%). My logic suggested we fill the battery from the grid so that it could become fully operational.
I sent them a screenshot of the app current useage and received this.. For the load of 1630W in that screenshot you were drawing 467W from the panels, 1048W from the battery and 115W from the grid. The technician advised me to look at it and think about it as more of a distribution of how your power is being used and where it’s drawn from.
I am yet to have explained why its drawing from the grid when the battery is charged?
Power outage – July 2022
Albeit brief, and I mean very brief, the power goes off for a split second. I can hear everyone saying “so what”? Well, it shuts down computers and internet connections. Computer software does not like hard shutdowns, neither does clocks, apps and other systems that require electric connections. Its never happened before the SS was installed.
Useage – July 2022
As I commented above, even though the battery is charged (70-95%) it is still drawing power from the grid. An electrician evaluated the system last week for a completion certificate. Although it didn’t pass for a minor reason which is meant to be rectified soon, he explained that the grid power being drawn is very low (right now its 14w) but I question why is it drawing anything at all specially when there is 99.2 charge in the battery?