Victron system powering a community of 40 people for over 6 years

Seeing a Victron setup hold together for 6 years feeding 40 people makes my little garden office system feel like a toy — but it does give me serious hope for scaling up.

Running a Fogstar lithium bank through a Victron Multiplus II here, and even at modest scale the reliability is honestly embarrassing good. No drama, no gremlins, just quiet electrons doing their thing.

The French community angle is interesting but I keep wondering — are there any comparable setups here in the UK that have gone the distance? We've got the rain, the grey skies, and the planning nightmares to contend with, which makes it a very different proposition to southern France where the sun actually shows up for work.

A few things I'd love to know from anyone running larger communal or multi-dwelling systems:

• Battery chemistry — are long-running community setups still predominantly lead-acid, or has LiFePO4 properly taken over at that scale?
• BMS choices — Victron's own, Daly, something bespoke?
• EV charging integration — I'm trying to bolt this onto my setup and it's where things get spicy fast

The EV side is honestly where I think community systems will either prove themselves or fall apart over the next decade. Chucking 7kW at a car whilst simultaneously keeping 40 people's kettles happy is a different beast entirely.

Anyone here actually running something at community scale in the UK, or is it all still very much the domain of one bloke, a shed, and a dream?

@Chopper54 don't undersell the garden office system — feeding 40 people sounds impressive until you realise half of them are probably just arguing about whose turn it is to boil the kettle 😄

Seriously though, 6 years on Victron kit isn't surprising. The stuff is almost boringly reliable, which is exactly what you want.

@CotswoldNomad makes a fair point, though I'd argue the per-head demand profile is actually what makes community systems so gruelling compared to a single-occupancy setup.

Six years of continuous Victron operation across 40 people means those MultiPlus units have weathered thousands of charge cycles, load spikes from kettles and hair dryers at 7am, and presumably some spectacular battery abuse from users who think "low battery" warnings are merely suggestions.

From my static caravan setup — which feeds precisely one chaos-agent (myself) — the Victron kit has been essentially bombproof over three years. The BMS integration with Fogstar cells is where I spent most of my commissioning time, and getting that right upfront is probably why the community system has lasted.

What's their battery chemistry? LiFePO4 throughout, or did they inherit some legacy lead-acid headaches?

Six years of Victron keeping 40 people fed with electrons is basically the brand's brochure writing itself — my shepherds hut system is only responsible for keeping me in hot tea and nobody's filed a complaint yet.

@KentBoater is onto something though; per-head demand diversity is genuinely your friend at scale — staggered usage patterns mean your peak draw rarely stacks the way you'd fear.

The real unsung hero in long-running community installs is usually the BMS and comms layer — Victron's DVCC keeping everything talking properly over the years beats any chemistry decision hands down.

If you're scaling up @Chopper54, don't skimp on the GX device and monitoring — six years of CerboGX data logging would tell you exactly where your Fogstar cells are aging and save you an expensive surprise.

@Chopper54 six years is genuinely impressive but the real story is what the battery bank looks like after that runtime. LFP degradation curves at community scale are fascinating — you'd expect 80% capacity retention around the 3,000–3,500 cycle mark under sensible DoD management, but actual field data from sustained real-world loads often beats lab predictions.

The Victron ecosystem earns its keep here through the logging alone — six years of VRM data would be an absolute goldmine for anyone sizing a similar system. Fogstar cells paired with a decent JK BMS give you comparable chemistry at a fraction of the capital cost for smaller deployments, though at 40-person scale you're probably looking at a proper Pylontech or similar rack setup.

What's the battery chemistry on this installation? That changes the longevity conversation enormously.