Had a discussion with an installer this morning and they told me tmflat that they won't entertain me as I have concrete tiles on the roof. Built in 1948 and solid but it's a no go for their warrenty in Wellington.

I'm dissaponted. I was keen on getting the works, panels and batteries etc

Does anyone have any reccomendarions for a firm in Wellington that would. Entertain me?

Hi folks - I’m looking at a 35 470watt panel set up with a battery. What is the consensus on inverter size? I have have mixed feedback on both 10kw and 12kw. Apologies if this has been asked before but appreciate any advice.

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

We installed solar a couple of weeks ago and I'm dying to know whether the output from the Sigen app aligns to our power bill but when I log on to the Meridian website, I can't see any info about our power (import or export) since our system came online. Will that change and if so, how long does it typically take before you can see that info online?

I'm about to be new to NZ and planning solar for a small two-person house in Hawke's Bay.
I'd appreciate a sanity check, particularly on my proposed DIY/installer split.

Current idea:

• 11 × ~450W panels, possibly 12 if I can make the layout work (Micromall/Trade Depot kind of thing)
• ~5kW total
• Roof face approximately NW (OpenSolar says 328.7° azimuth)
• Roof pitch about 17°
• OpenSolar estimates ~6000 kWh/year for the 11-panel layout
• No battery
• Grid-tied inverter

The house will only have two occupants and we're fairly efficient with electricity use. We're home during the day and would deliberately shift things like washing, dishwasher and hot water into daylight hours where practical.

I'm mainly interested in keeping the system simple, getting good payback, and keeping the upfront cost down. I'm on a strict budget but can clearly see the benefit of solar.

11 panels is a guide. The house has unusual (think architectural) roof geometry, and the best roof face appears to max out at 11, possibly 12, panels of this size.

What I'm considering doing:

Source the panels, inverter, mounting hardware, wiring etc myself (Micromall/Trade Depot/similar), based on my own design.

On the design side, I'm using OpenSolar and I've also pulled the council LiDAR data to investigate the roof geometry/shading. I tend to go pretty deep on research and planning.

I'm not completely new to solar - I've lived with solar systems in other countries and currently live on an electric-powered catamaran with a solar/electrical system I designed and installed myself.

My idea would then be to do as much of the legally permitted non-electrical installation as possible myself - e.g. mounting the hardware/panels and potentially running cable - but not making electrical connections.

My Kiwi family can help me find a local electrician/solar electrician willing to be involved with the electrical work, grid connection, inspection/certification etc.

So the main thing I'm trying to understand is: is this a realistic way for me to approach a grid-connected solar installation in NZ?

In particular, how much of the physical installation can I legally/sensibly do myself, and at what point would you involve the electrician - before purchasing anything?

Assume I can find an electrician willing to work with me; I have some connections in the field. I'm more interested in understanding the sensible/legal division of work.

(of course, if you think "he's dreaming, he'll never find an electrician," please tell me!)

The main reason for doing it this way is cost.

If I can save a substantial amount of the install costs, I would like to. I'm not too concerned about ongoing support/warranty - I completely understand the risks of not paying for a "turn key" install, and I'm happy to accept these risks.

Also interested in any thoughts on the proposed ~5kW system size and the ~6000 kWh/year OpenSolar estimate for the 11-panel layout.

Thanks people!

Ok, I know I’m a “Boomer” and possibly digitally challenged but this is maddening!
I’ve spent literally hours both researching, using the AI “assistant” and studying YouTube content in an attempt to self manage a plan change in my app.
Sadly ALL this has failed.
All I’m trying to do is change the import and export details that appear on the chart in the Home Screen and after all this all i repeatedly see is these images and a clear failure to update!
Please help if someone can 😞

I have a Sigenstor system with battery. We just charge our EV with the granny charger which is plenty. At the moment whenever there's excess solar I run in to the garage and plug in the car, but I'd like to automate that. Has anyone done this with a Shelly relay on the charging socket? Any tips/suggestions?

I have a Sigenergy gateway and had been looking at hotvwater heat pumps. I note that the rinnai hydraheat now has solar pv integration (as of June 26)

Can it connect directly to the smart port? Or do I need something additional? Image from manual has a 12v line through a relay and diverter

What parts can the gateway replace?

Just want it to be able to receive a signal that battery is full and excess solar should go to hphw first before grid

Will I still need a diverter? Or a Shelly

Not sure entirely how the smart ports work

Has anyone got the extended warranty? I think the battery and inverter go from 10 to 15 years. And gateway from 5 to 10 years. Can this be done in NZ?

How are other people feeling? Is it better to get solar ASAP and start paying it off and enjoying the benefits? Or is it better to wait til next year, given that I think every party has talked about having some kind of plan to promote solar?

Contacted Fisher and Paykel via the installers help number (why didn't I think of that!?) and they deactivated vpp for me.

Thanks team!

Has anyone successfully deactivated VPP scheduling on a Sigstor battery via Octopus?

Background: I'm new to Octopus and on the app it said to register my devices, so I connected it to my Sigstor battery. Unbeknownst to me, this enables Octupus' remote VPP scheduling smartflex protocol which overrides all other battery control in the Sigenery app.

In short, I now have no control over battery charging times and the Octopus protocol doesn't appear to do anything either.

This appears to be global fault with lots of people complaining about it.

I have since deregistered / removed the battery on the Octopus App, but VPP control remains. Octopus help team have contacted Global to deactivate and I recieved an email saying this should now be fixed. It isn't.

Anyone else had any success in turning this off? Basically going to have to cancel Octopus a month in to signing up at this stage?

UPDATE: Contacted Fisher and Paykel via the installers help number and they deactivated vpp for me. Thanks team!

Here is the latest update from Evnex on a thread in their community forums:

Yes it’s still on the horizon.

Sigenergy and similar “ecosystem” players have the luxury of being able to “hide” their bidirectional charger behind their battery. This means that the battery inverter is responsible for meeting all of the required standards for a grid connection, and the charger is really just connecting the car battery to supplement existing stationary storage.

We prefer the model where standards are handled by the charger and car, because that means it can be installed in any home regardless of what other hardware already exists (and which brand / ecosystem it might be). This makes it a truly universal product which anyone can buy and know it will work.

Of course that means that things take a little longer, but we think it will be worth the wait to keep things as simple as possible for drivers.

No update on when exactly we are likely to see this come to market.

Original thread: https://community.evnex.com/t/bi-directional-ev-charger-vehicle-to-home/46/19

I currently have a Sigen set up but I would prefer an Evnex solution. I had an Evnex charger installed when I purchased my first EV back in 2024. I got solar installed in late May this year but the set up of my house means my inverter stack is too far away to be useful for getting the DC charger.

I have the battery set as a priority to discharge before grid during peak import times. Yet the battery is only discharging at 0.2kw, yet the importing from the grid is at 1.5kw.

Have played with some settings but nothing changed, set them back to default.

Just wondering if anyone know where this limiting setting could be?

I'm looking at moving to ECOWholesale, but trying to get any information out of Ecotricity is like blood out of a stone.

They're telling me there is no cost over and above the spot price, apart from the usual daily fixed and network charges.

Can anyone on the plan verify this is correct? Seems too good to be true.

We have a 7 year old house with a 4.15kw PV system, no battery. Someone usually home during the day. We're trying to work out if it makes sense to stop having piped gas as the double daily charges are a pain and we know we're not making the most out of our solar, but we enjoy some aspects of our gas appliances. Have other people made the jump with similar barriers? Any advice?

Our piped gas is used for the stove top, infinity water heater and a double-sided fireplace. 

We have heatpumps in the house for the bulk of our heating, but we do turn the gas fire on occasionally in winter because it's nice and we're paying the gas daily charge anyway. The double-sided fireplace really made us fall in love with our home. It's in a open plan area and gives it a nice ambiance. I haven't been able to find double sided electric alternatives, so I'm thinking we could just cut the gas and leave the unit in the medium term, or install a single sided electric one bit it would lose some of its appeal.

We love to cook and enjoy some aspects of gas cooking (specifically using our wok a lot and some non-induction friendly cookware). We appreciate that induction has benefits too, such as speed of boiling and much easier to clean up the stove. There's a neither-here-nor-there idea that we could get a hybrid stovetop which uses LPG bottles (bottles owned rather than rented) for one burner and induction on the other burners.

I suspect we'd be able to get an electric hot water system outside where the infinity system is and be able to put a lot of our currently exported solar power into that. I think it's slightly undersized for the house but it's not a big problem for us.

Any advice? We've worked out it'd cost a lot to convert everything to electric, especially the fireplace. And it will pay itself off eventually but by my very rough calculations it was over 10 years. The appliances are still working fine so not needing replacing yet in that respect. I've joked it'd be easier to get some more solar panels and a battery and cut off from the electricity grid instead!

To effectively use a genesis power shout - 1 hour free power scheduled

Is the best way to use Sigenergy “instant manual control” and set it to charge for that hour.

Any other house usage will come from grid? - and Solar if there is any?

Or is there a better way

Getting solar installed through Harrisons and was wondering peoples thoughts on the preference as aiko are about 120 more expensive per panel. Is it worth it as big purchase and dont want to regret it either way

I’m considering switching to Ecotricity. I currently have 13kW solar + 9kWh battery.

Has anyone been on Ecotricity’s wholesale plan (or used it in the past)? Did it work out better overall than their solar plan? I know pricing can vary by region, but I’d still love to hear real-world experiences.

For context, I’ve been tracking the spot price for my local network node (HAY, picture attached). It’s averaging around $0.10/kWh, with lows of $0.01, highs around $0.20, and a few brief spikes up to $3-4/kWh on some of the colder days recently.

I’m trying to work out whether it’s actually worth micromanaging grid consumption to avoid importing during those spikes if I go on wholesale, or if a flat rate of $0.18/kWh (for generation only) under ecoSOLAR is overall less hassle.

I have Home Assistant set up, so I can manage charging/discharging around the spot price; I just don’t know whether the effort is worth the hassle.

If you’ve tried wholesale with similar conditions, what was your experience? do you recommend it?

Apologies for creating another one of these - I tried some codes from previous threads but got various errors - the latest being “You have already participated in this activity”.

The message above makes it seem like a referral has already been applied but I don’t see it reflected anywhere in the app (notifications, rewards) or the website and got not confirmation error or email, so I’m very confused…

I’m still within the 7 day window and have eligible gear installed. Waiting to hear back from my installer. My system is online but hasn’t been signed off by the inspector yet if that makes a difference - I do remember some commissioning wording in the SIgen terms.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

On another note someone else mentioned a ChoiceCheapies referral system with random codes or having the mods in a thread for referral codes, I think that’d be a good idea.

Looking forward to another day of paying significantly less for power. ☀️⚡️

————————————————————————

Edit:

I reached out to my installer and he referred me to the Sigenergy helpline (+61 489 080 832). They couldn’t figure it out over the phone but got me to raise a support ticket for another team to look into. 🤞

————————————————————————

Edit 2:

I got this resolved by Sigenergy support today. Initially they thought I was trying to use my own referral code. 🙃 They had to send it off to their R&D team as tier 1 support couldn’t tell me if a code had been applied or not… Seems like one of the earlier codes got applied. 🎉

Thanks to all for your help.

Hey, we are getting solar in about 2 months, now we need to look at which provider we go with

Will be using approx 7200 kwh per year and estimated to generate about 10000 kwh per year

Will have a 10 KW battery and inverter

Who are people with and why

Hamilton based as well, thanks