My Energy Storage System - DIY ESS - has been running with Solar for 3 Years now and saved me 800 EUR

On July 7, 2016, my home made Energy Storage System, named DIY ESS, has been running fine for 3 full years :)



Link from July 7, 2013 : http://www.myelifenow.com/2013/07/uni-solar-pvl-sma-inverter-finished.html



After several months of building and testing it back in 2012 & 2013, I finally had my Solar panels connected to a working SMA inverter and I have been storing my Surplus Solar Enegry ever since ...
(Solar panels install had been done several before that http://www.myelifenow.com/2012/10/solar-panels-installation-13-uni-solar.html)

During these last 3 years I had no breakdown what so ever, and absolutely no LiFePO4 Battery pack problem using it 24/7 (8 CALB CA180FI prismatic cells)



Today, few days after, it shows that I saved 577 EUR but you have to add 220 EUR approx. that were not taken into account during the first months (Wattson Anywhere portal data gathering came later)
For more details on my last 500 EUR update in April : http://www.myelifenow.com/2016/04/diy-ess-update-500-eur-of-savings.html
So the total savings as of today is 577 + 220 = 797 EUR, almost 800 EUR :)



I also sold few kits online to people around the world during the same period and it is still available here : http://www.diyesskit.com

I will continue using it until I have a Tesla Energy Powerwall installed later .... and the beauty of it is that all the of the shelf components used in it will be sold and bring me a good part of my money back ;)


Links:
http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chris75sf

DIY ESS Update : 500 EUR of SAVINGS logged but 720 EUR since the beginning

Goods News for my DIY ESS - Energy Storage Sytem : Another step reached with 500 EUR of Savings logged by the online portal as of this weekend :)

Since I started logging usage + generation data with the EnergyHive hub in June 2014, it says 502 EUR has been saved on Imported Electricity

But my DIY ESS has been running with Solar Panels since July 9, 2013, and the additional savings figure for the first period should be close to 11 x 20 EUR/month = 220 EUR

So the total amount of Energy Saved on my Utility bill is today around 720 EUR ! after 2 years and 9 mobths of service
And since the price per kWh of Electricity is always going up, the savings will continue to increase faster with time !

Even if I do not care about ROI really, I can now say that 1/4 of the money spent to build my DIY ESS (3,000 EUR) has been payed back in Energy Bill Savings (720 EUR) over the 2 years and 9 months : 720 / 3,000 = 24%


Using cheaper Electricity rates to Charge at night (TOU) during winter, and Solar Surplus during the day, my Energy Storage System automatically tries to match the Power Consumption at home, in conjonction with Solar Generation when available, to have a Net Usage (Home Usage - Generated Power) close to 0W : No Import & No Export = Self Consumption of Solar Production

EnergyHive Free Online Portal enables instructive and user friendly graphs for real time and historical data display

I often checks that my ESS is working fine during the day, using my iPhone, Mac, PC on http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit

Power Graph


Energy Graph


Energy Generation Chart : Imported vs Generated Energy


Another real time way of checking what's going on is through a Logitech Broadcaster Webcam displaying Live on Ustream 2 Wattson units : one with Generation (Solar + ESS), the other with Net Usage (Usage - Generation) : http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chris75sf

More info on my DIY Energy Storage System here : http://www.diyesskit.com or http://www.storeyourenergy.com

EVTV Friday Show - December 18, 2015

- Visit from a Russian EV entrepreneur

- Our rebuilt OEM component development bench

- The end of the lithium battery business

- Ultimate Solar System using Tesla Battery Packs by Jason Hughes

DIY ESS Update : Open Energy Monitor can be used instead of Wattson as an Input

I am thrilled to announce that the famous Open Energy Monitor can used as an input in the build of my DIY Energy Storage System or ESS instead of the original (also famous) Wattson Energy Monitor

From the very beginning back in 2011, I purchased and installed Wattson at home and loved it: I could finally see in real time how much power my appliances use and modify my behaviour to reduce energy consumption at home

Later on I got Solar Panels installed on our building roof and used another feature of Wattson which is Solar Surplus detection: When Usage < Solar, Wattson simply lights up Green to indicate there is free Solar Power to used (and the Net Usage is Negative)

Wattson Solar Surplus (and other color codes): 


Based on these simple lights (Blue, Purple, Red and Green) I built my Energy Storage System back in 2013, had it running for over 2.5 years now with Solar (july 2013), and saved over 650 EUR on my Electricity bills

Last friday, inquiring on the Open Energy Monitor and their interesting open source work over the last years, I realized that their emonGLCD, the equivalent to Wattson Display, is actually using the same Color Codes, in a simplified version:
- Green: Solar Generation > Usage
- Red: Usage > Solar Generation

OpenEnergyMonitor emonGLCD Solar Surplus :


Simply wiring the pins of one of the bi-color LED pins to the input terminal block of my DIY ESS, it will get the color codes and perform exactly like if it was a Wattson display :)

OpenEnergyMonior solution is open source, meaning it will be improved over time (and you can participate too)

It is also now possible to get a ready to use emonPi, meaning there is nothing to solder and build, just clip your CT Sensors (or clamps) on usage and generation wires, plug them in the device, power it up, and you're good to go !




But there's one more thing ...

Connected to you home internet router, OpenEnergyMonitor will post data to Emoncms.org, allowing you to see great graphs of your usage, generation, temperature, etc ... All this for free, so I think it's just perfect :)

Links:

OpenEnergyMonitor : http://openenergymonitor.org
OEM Graphical Display emonGLCD : http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/emonglcd
Solar with the OEM : http://openenergymonitor.org/emon/applications/solarpv

DIY ESS Kit : http://www.diyesskit.com or http://www.StoreYourEnergy.com
Real Time DIY ESS Cam : http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chris75sf
DIY ESS Real Time Graphs on EnergyHive : http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit

DIY ESS Switched Off during my summer vacation for 15 days

For the 3rd summer in a row, during my vacation, I switched Off my home Energy Storage System, this year for 2 weeks only

Since it is On all the time, day and night, with people at home or not, this year I wondered if I should have left in On for once, but since everything at home is Off, including the high energy consuming water heater, I figured for safety reasons I should turn it off as ususal

Here is the Energy graph the month of August showing this 15 days period where I dumped some surplus solar energy ...



Still over this month half of the Energy used at home comes from Solar & Storage ...

Back last saturday night, I immediatly switched it back On, and it has been performing as usual since

All these graphs are from here: http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit

DIY ESS - Savings = 320 EUR / 80+% of Usage covered by Solar + both Energy Storage Systems

DIY ESS Update:

- Savings went past 320 EUR (over a year and 2 months)

- 80+% of my Home Usage is covered by Solar  + both Energy Storage Systems these days :)

Screenshots from http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit :

More on my DIY ESS Kit here: http://www.diyesskit.com

DIY ESS - Already 2 Years of 24/7 Service with Solar at Home !

Yes, it's been 2 years yesterday, since I started producing & storing my Solar surplus at home for re-use whenever necessary, during the day, or in the evening when the sun goes down
http://www.myelifenow.com/2013/07/starting-first-full-day-of-solar.html



My Energy Storage System was actually working several months before that, and my Solar Panels where installed on the roof almost 9 months before too, but I was waiting for my solar contractor to complete the install with his own special inverter, which was too delayed in the end, so I asked him to installa regular one, and we agreed on an 3kW SMA unit

Once installed, I could finally generate my own solar electricity, and my ESS being ready and tested, it worked right away seamlessly :)
http://www.myelifenow.com/2013/07/uni-solar-pvl-sma-inverter-finished.html



That was two years ago, and it has been doing great over time: No breakdown, no Battery problem (I read so many things about sceptick folks on this), it has been working like a charm



With less solar generation during winter, I used the Forced Charge function to charge from low cost electricity at night, to help push low cost energy back into my home grid to help heating, lighting and cooking



As we can see on the Wattson / EnergyHive portal where my generation & usage data are collected in real time, it is saving around 250 EUR per year (over the last year), and since the price per kWh goes up all the time, it will save evne more in the future
http://wattson.energyhive.com/dashboard/diyesskit



My ESS has been registered on the DOE - Department Of Energy - Global Energy Storage Database back in July 2013, few days after, under PRojet Reference 720
http://www.energystorageexchange.org/projects/720


But wait, there's more ...

A second unit, called Mini ESS, based on 3 Nissan LEAF battery modules, installed in october, has helped store and save even more, at night during winter, and now from 11AM to 4PM, harvesting during the peak production period of sunny days



Also I am in the process of building and testing a second version of this DIY ESS, called DIY ESS V2 with Enphase, because it will use the famous Enphase Micro Inverters - M215 or M250 - for more efficiency
It's design & build should be simpler, but it is not ready yet ...



With the new Tesla PowerWall, Enphase AC Battery coming, it really shows everyone that Energy Storage is a serious business and a perfect complement to solar and/or wind installs, at the residential level !

To Celebrate this 2 years milestone, I decided tho slash the DIY ESS Kit price and remove 100 EUR from it, dropping from 249 to 149 EUR ! (Kit #2 is also reduced by the same amount of course)

Also the Kit Building Documentations are now available to anyone FOR FREE on the DIY ESS Kit website ! "All our Patents are belong to you" ;)
http://www.diyesskit.com/p/documentation.html   (look for the "=> Get the PDF File" links)



To have more info about the Kit and why not build your own, go to:

http://www.diyesskit.com
or
http://www.storeyourenergy.com


Now, you can start building your own DIY Energy Storage System for your Home !