Hi there,
For the past weeks I have been reading up on this forum and now I decided that it was time to make my own topic seen as there are multiple Belgian powerwall owners here.
As the title says, I'm currently making a "feasibility study" for myself on what is possible and what isn't.
Currently in our house, wejust have a basic grid connection, where we use about 2700Kwh yearly (divided as 1133Kwh Daytime / 1620Kwh Nighttime).
The idea is to put a solar setup in place as our house has a south-facing tilted roof.For this I have already received some price quotes.
The estimations there are based around:
10 x 270w panel
2,5KW inverter (typically an SMA Sunny Boy 2.5 is referred to here)
For this, the best offer so far appears to be around 4.9K EUR (all work included). I have no idea how competitive this price is...
On top of that, I would need to get my day/night meter replaced by a single tariff one.
Now the real questions I'm having are based around the Belgian regulations enforced on grid-connected solar setups.
1.There is a yearly fee to be paid which is based on the inverter size. In my case that would be +/- 260EUR per year. -> I'm not very fond of this as it directly cuts into the profit, without taking actual production into account.
2. Any overproduction (at the end of the year)completely goes to waste without any financial return for it from the electrical company.
3. There is a motion to introduce so-called "Smart energy meters" in every home within some years. These meters will even further split used vs created power which seems like a way to differentiate between daytime production vs nighttime usage.
My conclusion to counter these three "issues" was a battery setup. At this point however, I am running into a more practical set of issues:
- The grid connection and electrical box in our home is next to our front door, in a medium sized cabinet.
- Our basic solar setup would have the panels on the front side of our roof, with the inverter being added inside the cabinet next to the front door.
- For safety reasons I do not wantto have a battery bank inside the house. We do have a decently sized (12sqm) garden shed to which there is already an underground mains connection straight from the electrical cabinet.
- For budgetary reasons, I want to be able to start with solar and build the battery part on top of this system while gradually expanding that part.
Having said all that, my current most burning questions are:
- Is this a good idea at all? I have been said that our power usage isn't that high to start with, so the high startup cost of the infrastructure will cause for a very long payback time.
- I have read that it's possible to have a grid-connected inverter in one place, with a battery-based inverter somewhere else physically. Are there people here running such a setup? I imagine there has to be communication between the solar inverter and the battery inverter in this case?
- Is there a way to get around the Belgian fee for grid-connected inverters, while keeping a proper (legal requirements etc) power infrastructure within the home?
- Generally, how do the Belgian powerwall users deal with this?
I am sure there will be more questions as I go forward in this journey, but for now I would really appreciate any feedback really
For the past weeks I have been reading up on this forum and now I decided that it was time to make my own topic seen as there are multiple Belgian powerwall owners here.
As the title says, I'm currently making a "feasibility study" for myself on what is possible and what isn't.
Currently in our house, wejust have a basic grid connection, where we use about 2700Kwh yearly (divided as 1133Kwh Daytime / 1620Kwh Nighttime).
The idea is to put a solar setup in place as our house has a south-facing tilted roof.For this I have already received some price quotes.
The estimations there are based around:
10 x 270w panel
2,5KW inverter (typically an SMA Sunny Boy 2.5 is referred to here)
For this, the best offer so far appears to be around 4.9K EUR (all work included). I have no idea how competitive this price is...
On top of that, I would need to get my day/night meter replaced by a single tariff one.
Now the real questions I'm having are based around the Belgian regulations enforced on grid-connected solar setups.
1.There is a yearly fee to be paid which is based on the inverter size. In my case that would be +/- 260EUR per year. -> I'm not very fond of this as it directly cuts into the profit, without taking actual production into account.
2. Any overproduction (at the end of the year)completely goes to waste without any financial return for it from the electrical company.
3. There is a motion to introduce so-called "Smart energy meters" in every home within some years. These meters will even further split used vs created power which seems like a way to differentiate between daytime production vs nighttime usage.
My conclusion to counter these three "issues" was a battery setup. At this point however, I am running into a more practical set of issues:
- The grid connection and electrical box in our home is next to our front door, in a medium sized cabinet.
- Our basic solar setup would have the panels on the front side of our roof, with the inverter being added inside the cabinet next to the front door.
- For safety reasons I do not wantto have a battery bank inside the house. We do have a decently sized (12sqm) garden shed to which there is already an underground mains connection straight from the electrical cabinet.
- For budgetary reasons, I want to be able to start with solar and build the battery part on top of this system while gradually expanding that part.
Having said all that, my current most burning questions are:
- Is this a good idea at all? I have been said that our power usage isn't that high to start with, so the high startup cost of the infrastructure will cause for a very long payback time.
- I have read that it's possible to have a grid-connected inverter in one place, with a battery-based inverter somewhere else physically. Are there people here running such a setup? I imagine there has to be communication between the solar inverter and the battery inverter in this case?
- Is there a way to get around the Belgian fee for grid-connected inverters, while keeping a proper (legal requirements etc) power infrastructure within the home?
- Generally, how do the Belgian powerwall users deal with this?
I am sure there will be more questions as I go forward in this journey, but for now I would really appreciate any feedback really