A solar-powered house I wired myself.
2.32 kW of panels, a hand-built 8 kWh battery, and Home Assistant running 91 automations. I designed it, installed it, and it powers the house every day. The numbers on this page are live.
The whole system at a glance — solar into a hand-built 8 kWh battery, then out to the house, office and shed; grid-charged only on the cheapest Octopus Agile slots by TightWatt.
How it fits together
Everything above is real kit that's installed and running. The diagram mirrors the actual wiring, and the readings come straight out of Home Assistant.
Solar to battery
Two Victron BlueSolar MPPT 100/50 controllers run the two panel strings. They charge a battery I built myself — 8 kWh of 8S LiFePO4 prismatic cells with a JK active-balancing BMS — which feeds two inverters: 4 kW for the house and 3.5 kW for the office and shed.
Buying power at the right time
When the battery needs a top-up, my TightWatt automation switches a 40 A mains charger on only during the cheapest half-hours on Octopus Agile — and holds out for negative prices when it can.
It grew in two stages
What it actually did
Four things I've built and run
Each one is written up properly: how it works, the decisions behind it, and the numbers to back it up.
Home Assistant
91 automations running the house — shifting the big loads to cheap electricity, restarting kit that falls over on its own, and arming the cameras when everyone's out.
Open →Solar & battery
The whole install: two panel strings, a hand-built 8 kWh battery, two inverters, the wiring diagrams and a real day of generation data.
Open →TightWatt
A Home Assistant blueprint I wrote and published. It works out how much grid charge the battery needs and buys it on the cheapest Agile slots.
Open →Certifications
My Microsoft certifications, dated and grouped by level — the credentials behind the day job in Microsoft 365 and Intune.
Open →The stuff people ask
Did you really build all this yourself?
Yes. I designed the solar and battery setup, mounted and wired it, assembled the LiFePO4 pack from bare cells, and wrote the Home Assistant automations. The write-ups walk through the decisions and trade-offs along the way.
Is the data on this page live?
The panel near the top reads from Home Assistant. When it can reach my system it shows the current state of charge, today's generation and grid cost; otherwise it falls back to a representative day and tells you it's doing so.
Can I use TightWatt on my own battery?
Yes — it's a Home Assistant blueprint, free to import from GitHub. You point it at your battery, charger and Octopus Agile rates, set a target, and it does the rest. The TightWatt page has the full install guide.
What do you do for a living?
I'm an IT professional in the Microsoft 365 and Intune world, with MSP client work alongside it. The Certifications page lists the credentials; the projects here are what I build in my own time.
Want to talk shop?
Whether it's the solar build, the automations, or work — email is the best way to reach me.
Email me