lol-lol

Plug in solar not directly linked to Electric vehicles thought it is possible to link solar, via battery, to charging electric cars as I and many others do this. Perhaps we need a specific thread for plug in /balcony solar ? Feeding back in to the house ring main is an interesting practice and millions do it all over Europe and other continents. Meanwhile, the VW Group, Skoda etc, has a big meeting today to decide jobs and production cuts which some would say is due to the weakness of its EV offerings over the last 5 years or so, compared to the Chinese, Koreans, Renault, TESLA etc.... Sad time for those of us who loved VAG cars. Particularly as the new ID2 /Polo platformed cars look much better than previous offerings......

Bjorn Nyland and Batterylife Youtubers do lots of this testing and publishing all the way up to genuine 130 kph. Most EVs not good at speed limit motorway speeds as they are tallish due to the battery pack beneath the floor. Those who need to do such long journeys at speed tend to go for TESLAs, Polestars, some Mercs and increasingly BYD models. Happy with our 5, Mini and Scenic. In the Scenic most of my braking is with paddles which can set level of regen. On motorway I put it in level 0 which is freewheel when no power being applied.

I don't believe solar panel catch fire, they are very inert items, can get quite warm though. I would summize that any fire has come from the wiring from the panels to the solar inverters or batteries. Thus us the only issue i have seen with my two solar arrays mounted on my metal structures which hold the panels abmnd then I choose to out the panels in parallel or series to feed the solar controllers. I strong suspect any detailed investigation will point at wiring and the installation. My wires got hot as they were carrying lots of current and in this exceptionally high temperatures. Fixed now as a few wires were running too hot. This has been solved in many parts of the workd, Europe for example, my doing more installs over car parks, perhaps playground shade seating rather tgan roofs which always seemed to me not the best place to put panels. Put them in other places where tge angle to tge sun can be optimised rather tgan roofs which are very compromised and to angle and also clearly not ventilated or the wiring done properly can result in biulding damage.

My third EV charger ie the Granny cable, has a 16A setting ad do many of these devices sold in the UK. Dont think they disable it for the UK sales. I could change a twin socket to a Commando 16A socket. Be nice to maximise EV charging when the price goes negative. It could mean 15 KWs plus house load which would push the 80A main fuse those nice people from the Grid reduced me to.

I would love to have 3 phase like so many European countries do as well as 16A as the normal socket output. Solar panels as well as batteries are tested and have tens of millions of examples running in much higher temperatures than the UK so I am not worried in that regard. Their efficiency can drop a bit in high temperatures and in some super hot places they do a bit of water cooling which restores their peak efficiency. As with tve batteries just amazed how robust they are. Plugged in, not plugged in, hitting maximum capacity of the batteries and the battery stops the panels adding power no problem. Cooling of the batteries seems very conservative with the fans kicking in to cool the cells regularly when temps on high side. Since China is the world supplier of so many electrical devices from small devices to cars, trucks etc and in to so many markets ie cold to very hot, I am pleasantly surprised at their quality. Not surprised they have come to dominate most consumer markets.

A couple of million Germans and several million other Europeans are running this fine. We do UK electrical networks are inferior in some ways ie only 13A sockets instead of 16A which is the UK norm for heavier duty outlets in Europe. I do not see the commissioning of the reports as trying to push on plug in solar in the UK but more to make sure the UK government does not get burnt by consequences that pop up later. Still more to do as the report states and many of us are generating our our electricity already, not from roof top solar and powerwall type batteries but by exactly this sort of tech but we are not feeding back through wall sockets but via shoebox batteries that link between the solar and the power hungry devices like our fridge freezers and TVs. looks like it is making progress and and at quite a pace and we should be looking to not fall so far behind what many other countries are doing and put up with high energy bills because most of our energy companies, not Octopus, are profit maximising entities.

Good news for UK Balcony / Plug in solar to start catching up to Germany etc with its multi-million install of this tech. Report attached.... I wonder how much it can be used and crucially enough to provide some charge to EVs as well as power all the home electricity needs instantly during the day and via charged battery for nighttime using the freely harvested solar and charging shoe box sized batteries to store and use electricity when cheap so bills much smaller. Pay back 2 to 3 years. Plug-in-solar-PV-study.pdf

Octopus teaming up with world's largest battery maker CATL... This Youtuber seems to say renters can have these batteries, we will see, I think there is a battle to be had here. Greg of Octopus is doing 3 year stint with UK government so has some influence.... Smaller range, Nook, might bee able to transfer some charge to an EV, Colossus is more for that I suppose but also reverse charging possible with these setups and the right EV.

Apparently 90% of power lines use aluminium rather than copper. Steel core to give it strength.

was a long time ago but think it was being trialled for power lines when copper went silly expensive and being lighter one could have pylons further apart ie less of them. Also use in cars making recycling easier. All such things worth reviewing periodically for cost and technical reasons. The world's richest man wants cars to do 48v rather than a nominal 12v also to "phase out" AC for DC everywhere. I think he might think he is Nicola Tesla reborn !

I gather aluminium is being used in several areas as a replacement for copper as it being much cheaper and lighter and as long as one compensates for the lower ability to transport current for the same diameter it can be a good replacement. It also can be that when scrapped it is less hassle to split metals as chassis etc maybe aluminium.

One can use aluminium as an alternative to copper of course and if one does use lots of strands one xan reduce eddies which crank up losses. Heat is the enemy and the extension is was using to charge the EVs warns current should be a measely 5A ie 1200 watts which shows how the poor heat dispersion when the reel is wound. Another reminder of our new world was when I was having the second wallbox fitted abd the National Grid guys came and said they were reducing by main fuse size from 100A to 80A due to average house and ring main temperatures being higher it was a safety measure to lower the fuse size as more electricity was being used in summer rather than the winter as was !

Yes a nominal 220v according to the manual. Have a multi meter which can read up to 750 volts but a bit scared to try and measure. Suspect the 220 can fall to 210 or lower under high load and then further losses in the extension lead. There is the temperature effect took ie when starting up when warm ie it is 30 -35 C and then it warms up another 5 or 10 C in operation which will further reduce the delivery voltage and therefore power in watts.

It's a 10m 13a rated lead but tests have shown on can lose 2% or a bit more. It is not just the loss but the lower than ideal voltage means a slice less power being delivered to the car. The reel lead probably use 1.25 mm wire whereas the Arctic lead uses 1.5 mm sq wiring and is rated to 16 A. I could go further and get the 2.5 mm sq Arctic cable which would be 32A I gather. Quite a bit more expensive. I can crank the Granny charger box up to 10A which my battery should be over capacity as it is only rated at 2200 w continuous but I reckon it would be ok for a good while. Looking to get a 3 to 4 kw output battery but not aeen any great deal on them but wi be interested to see what Octopus-CATL offer.

Car says something like cannot charge and this is nearly always the car is not happy with the earthing and this is invariably doe to lead not having a connection with the car and either a wiggle of the lead ie just apply slight downland or upwards pressure and that oft works or unplug and replug in. Does not oft happen and seems to happen more in wet weather. Biggest problem I come across on those rare occasions I do public charge is the different chargers have different sequences of doing things and a bit of a faff. Gridserve expensive but works quickly, BP and Shell awful and I avoid. As I said the Type 1 and 2 chargers at home seem very robust but the voltage display on the Granny charge box wax showing an incredibly low 200 volts when charging the car from my home batteries but it still charged. J think a combination of the home battery unit being more like 220v, the losses in the extension lead and maybe the unit under reporting. Have build another Arctic spec extension lead but yet to test. At only 8A set current the Granny charger was showing about 1500w, battery close to 1600w output and xmcar showing about watts 1400. Also car showing over 24vhours to hit the target charge level. Free solar energy or like today electricity negatively priced so not too worried abd an interesting project to work on. Will be interesting to see what the Octopus-CATL home batteries are sold at.

Zero issues with Error codes relating to out of range voltage. Very occasional issue with car being not happy with the Earthing not being good enough but this is normally solved by reinserted, checking the charge lead metal terminals are dry and clean. Leads have boots to go over the end when not in use but some don't always fit them back after each charge. The voltage tolerance is massive from what I can see. The wallboxes and granny chargers setup the voltage from 200 to 250 volts up to 400 volts which the car needs to charge. Interesting to see how all electrical devices cope in the UK as the National Grid rachet done the UK voltage down from 240v nominal towards 220v nominal to align with European normal voltages.

Does sound like heat island conditions. Having spent much of my time at Heathrow I have experienced concrete heat island mucho.

99% of scientist believe in the link between CO2 and global warming. Just see what happened to Venus !

Indeed af big cities can add 10F or more than 5C. Going to get much worse for Heat Island cities as more and more of us get aircon belting out masses of hot air in to the atmosphere. Gosport not much of a town if memory serves from my times at Portsmouth and Warsash seeing it in the distance from land and sea. We will see if the result gets tweaked.

Outrageous price, that unit should be about £299 at most.

Yes was on Amazon, was about £239 i recall but had 10% or so off and ended up about £204 but had a window kit but not the best and i will probably get a better one, longer exhaust pipe and better fit to side opening windows. Yodel delivery which worried me but was OK and it was delivered ahead of time. Probably get similar one for upstairs and as a back, if it failed I would have to get in the car and go for a long, in time, drive. Temp here showing 33C currently.

Presumed Gosport was an automated Stevenson box and the Gosport one wi be reported recalibrate after reporting its record 36.1C so the reading maybe be tweaked and confirmed by the Exeter based Central Met Office which will be interesting. Just wish they would report temp in Kelvin which I prefer.

Temperatures were / are well over 30C so unless one is fresh out of tropical zone then it is uncomfortable and especially, like now, when the humidity is so high. I am emptying the water drain every couple of hours as the air-conditioning unit is taking so much water out of the cooled air. Think I will get another one of these units for the upstairs, exhaust the hit air in to the loft ad i have before. Prices gone nuts as well as choice. Got my 7000 BTU one for £200 with a window kit but now they seem to have spiked up in price. One supplier wanted £999 for a 12000 BTU aircon unit. Con forvorice rather than con for conditioning. Lots of evaporation units trying to pass off as proper air con units. They work a bit but not enough for neaf blood temperatures.

I know, weird, still has to be verified but that seemed strange. We are nestled here with the Welsh mountains to the West. I remember the physical geography saying about the sea moderating temperatures. Much more severe in places like central Asia and of course Canada and the US where the Rockies abd the Apalacha mountains create a corridor for low winter temps and high summer temps. Midlands has the second lowest regional temps after northern Scotland. Wr got down to nearly minus 20 in 2010 whilst we get 35c plus so a 55c temperature rangecis probably the biggest margin in the UK.

I wish I was living close to the sea like I use to but Worcestershire had over 33C yesterday and 34 predicted for today. Bought one of those £200 mobile air con units, 7000 BTU, and that is working well but the window kits are not great with windows that open on the side rather than from the bottom which would work better. Trips abroad down to South Wales are nice in the Scenic and I thought energy consumption wax brilliant. Clearly heat pump / air con works better in heat than cold. Did the usual 68 miles to South Wales and still had well over 200 miles range showing in a car with WLTP of 267 miles. Same sized battery pack in the new Megane up to 67 KWh I see as the pace of battery improvement goes at pace.