Solar panels

[RAF96]

British Gas, my FIT reimburser has declared they will continue to pay me but they will not accept new FIT customers so when I flog my house and PV installation the new owners will be on their own. 
I may ask my energy provider Octopus if they can give me a better tariff than BG does.

My system is solely FIT for energy generated to the grid, not battery storage or meter wind-back.

[Kris]

Another saving session earlier today complete with about £2 off your bill just for signing up to it.

[hayfield]

I was out and missed it and had no notifications from Octopus

[Kris]

8 hours ago, hayfield said:

I was out and missed it and had no notifications from Octopus

My wife gets them via WhatsApp, this one only arrived a couple of hours before the session started I believe. 

[hayfield]

58 minutes ago, Kris said:

My wife gets them via WhatsApp, this one only arrived a couple of hours before the session started I believe. 

 

I thought I set it up via Facebook, but in the past they have sent emails, then just stopped sending them. How do they expect people to take part in them when they don't tell anyone ?

[DaveF]

Scottish Power are now offering an energy use reduction app with an e gift card as the reward.  I've just signed up so I'll see what happens.  They will use notifications sent to my mobile to tell me when.

 

David

[Kris]

Saving session today 17:00-18:00. @hayfield

 

[Kris]

And another saving session between 17:00 and 18:00 tomorrow (15th December).

[hayfield]

December is always our worst month, with the sun so low in the sky for half of the daylight hours our panels are affected by trees in other gardens, having said this its only the winter 3 months its affected and with last year we only generated 21kwh and 20 kwh the previous year in the scheme of things over the whole year its a fraction of oyr production. If anything we loot more production on the excessive heat days.

 

With a day to go we have generated about 19.7kwh so much the same as previous years

 

With a day to go we have generated this year 2.252MWh against last year 2.482MWh, so down 230kwh, both are above the projected annual production of 2.205 MWh. 

 

One other addition we are making is to make our central heating even more intelligent. We have the Tado system which has worked very well over the past 6/7 years, however we have decided to add intelligent thermostats to most of our radiators. Rather than relying on 1 thermostat to control the whole house we are fitting 6 programable radiator thermostats and just leaving the odd dumb thermostats in areas like the bathroom etc.

 

At the moment we control out heating from our phones, now we can control all the main rooms from the phones. Simply we only heat the bedrooms when we are in them and when they are in use. Main room for when we get up and go to bed, guest room when we have guests and wife's sewing room when in use. All other times at a lower ambient temperature

 

Like wise the family room is in use during the day, lounge normally evenings, simply each radiator calls on energy as and when its needed, any room can be brought into use at a click of a button. We still have the benefits of the system turning itself down/off when we are out, plus any of the other mainstream energy saving features. Not saving electricity but allows us to have rooms in use a bit hotter without heating all the house, plus we have brought these thermostats at half price (£44 each)  

[hayfield]

Well whilst not perfect January has started better, the past 2 years Jan has been just over twice the amount of production of December both will less cloud and the shading diminishing as the sun gets higher in the sky and less leaves on the trees. Only 2 of the last 5 days have reached past the 1 kwh but today looks to be the third past 1kwh this year

 

Still its good to be on the upward trend again and looking forward to the few days of the year when electricity costs me nothing, but even better seeing the panels starting to earn/save money 

[Stevebr]

A bit of a belated update due to the festive season.  I installed a solar system in mid December consisting of 21 X 405W solar panels, a 16kW inverter and 2 X 10kWhr batteries.  It is a fairly large system as we are in a the Lowveld area of South Africa and experience high (35C+) summer temperatures when we run 2 large ac units and pool pump.  We also experience the effects of loadshedding of 2-6 hours per day due to power shortages, Our house is basically all electric except for the stove (not oven) which is bottled gas.  To date the system has performed well with all power being generated by the panels (except for a 50W trickle from the mains). On the hot days (which have been considerably less that normal due to lots of rain) we have generated around 35-35kWhr per 24 hour period and 15-20kWhr during the overcast/wet days.  The system is fully charged at the end of the afternoon and the batteries are typically 77-82% charged as the sun rises the next morning. There is no feedback to the power utility as yet.  Will update as things go.

 

[Metr0Land]

I only had the powerwall mid Oct and changed to Octopus Intelligent Go 23Dec, so there's little direct comparison month on month especially with dire solar in December.

 

The latest bill which is most of Dec plus first week of Jan is 60p more than previous month on Octopus Go, just shy of £57* (approx 1/3rd of month was at new rates). However it's's all down to solar. For the calendar month of Dec I got a meagre 67kWh of solar and drew 518kWh from grid. In calendar month November I had 130kWh of solar and drew 421kWh from grid.

 

Yesterday, 16Jan I reached the same figure as the whole of Dec for solar.

 

*approx £15/standing charge, £22/house, £20/Car (which is a PHEV max 11kWh per charge)

[hayfield]

4 hours ago, Metr0Land said:

I only had the powerwall mid Oct and changed to Octopus Intelligent Go 23Dec, so there's little direct comparison month on month especially with dire solar in December.

 

The latest bill which is most of Dec plus first week of Jan is 60p more than previous month on Octopus Go, just shy of £57* (approx 1/3rd of month was at new rates). However it's's all down to solar. For the calendar month of Dec I got a meagre 67kWh of solar and drew 518kWh from grid. In calendar month November I had 130kWh of solar and drew 421kWh from grid.

 

Yesterday, 16Jan I reached the same figure as the whole of Dec for solar.

 

*approx £15/standing charge, £22/house, £20/Car (which is a PHEV max 11kWh per charge)

 

My past 2 Decembers plus this one is within 1 kwh a miserable 20/21 kwh, but I have a small system, which is in the shade for half the daylight hours and the roof is on a shallow rake

 

As for January it has been 44 and 47.3 kwh for the past 2 years, well the first 7 days I struggled to average 0.5 kwh, now its up to an average of 1kwh. 7 days ago on good days it was up and slightly over 1kwh and yesterday it produced 2.5kwh (todays cloudy 0.4 kwh produced) but with slightly longer hours and the shading starting to reduce the system is waking up

 

On the downside I am using a lot more gas, our heating usage has gone up 57% on last year and to date this Jan (17 days) heated for 57 more hours (3.35 hours per day) we have decided to stay warm. It says its 3 degrees colder this month against last year (I think the national average is higher) and we have been in 7 hours more than this time last year. We are also bedding in electronic radiator valves, designed alter room temperature according to our average usage during the day (eg out bedroom only heats when we wake up and go to bed, off during the day) So we are tweaking things  

[Metr0Land]

18 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

My past 2 Decembers plus this one is within 1 kwh a miserable 20/21 kwh, but I have a small system, which is in the shade for half the daylight hours and the roof is on a shallow rake

 

Fortunately there's no risk of shade until much later in the day with my setup.  I did have a minor shock on a couple of mornings in Dec when the sun went AWOL.  A couple of mornings I woke thinking I've actually got solar today but nothing was registering until later in the morning.  It was only on the second occasion I realised the sun was so low it was only reaching the guttering on my bungalow and couldn't 'see' the solar panels.

 

Edit: curr getting 2.2kW streaming in, as I write - not seen that level for a few weeks

Edited January 18 by Metr0Land

[Stevebr]

My first month has passed without issues but it is mid-summer here although lots more rain than normal. Generated power was 724kWhr with batteries at 100% by mid-morning or so.  Best day was 36kWhr with a bit in hand and the worst (with rain etc) was 13 kWhr. Heating of water does need a bit of thought to prevent battery draw but I've fitted a Wi-Fi switch and thermostat so can now control it either manually or automatically based on solar availability or battery status, Peak generation was 8335W which is in line with the panel ratings.

[hayfield]

I am always comparing monthly performance against the previous 2 years, with December (the worst month of the year) only producing 20kwh's January is a welcome sight when production increases. The past two years saw production of 44 & 47 kwh respectively

 

The start of the month was disappointing but by the 10 had picked up to an average of  0.97 kwh per day, the second 10 days saw an average of 1.49 kwh per day. Another good sign is that yesterday was not a good day but the system managed to produce 1 kwh rather than nothing

 

It must be remembered that my panels are on a shallow 22 degree rake and during mid day I have 2 periods of shading, we knew this when buying the system and its not a loss every day in winter when cloudy weather has a greater affect. And I have been trying to see how the effect of shading is reducing without too much luck. Certainly we seem to be producing power for more than an hour in the afternoon and about 20 mins earlier in the morning

 

Another sign is that the value of our generated power increased from £1.34 in the first week to £1.76 the next and last week £2.94 which in itself is much better than projected 56p per day average, and 42 kwh average per week

[Metr0Land]

On Jan 16th my cumulative solar for Jan exceeded the whole of Dec.  The Tesla s/w cut in yesterday evening and this morning dur to storm Isha, filling the powerwall twice at full price instead of night rate.  Prob cost ~£2.50 extra given the price diff but of course that's insurance.  A couple of friends locally had power cuts due to trees bringing down power lines and several 'dimouts' here looking like it was going off but just hung on.

 

Edit: just discovered a friend ~2 miles away as crow flies, was off most of night. The benefits of rural living, but also not so unhappy at paying extra £2.50 for the insurance provided by powerwall

Edited January 22 by Metr0Land

[hayfield]

We live in a semi rural village, our mains power is underground, but the village is surrounded by National trust woods and common land plus a few fields with a lot of SSI listings, many who are either on the fringes of the village or in the woods/common have overhead wires, quite often with very high winds we have the odd power cut. Several power cuts last night, the main one lasting 90mins,

 

Part of the cost of country living, at least we are on mains gas, but when the power goes off so does the central heating (I have never bothered trying overriding it with the main thermostat) but it works with either the wifi or bluetooth on the radiator stats

[hayfield]

On 22/01/2024 at 10:04, hayfield said:

It must be remembered that my panels are on a shallow 22 degree rake and during mid day I have 2 periods of shading, we knew this when buying the system and its not a loss every day in winter when cloudy weather has a greater affect. And I have been trying to see how the effect of shading is reducing without too much luck. Certainly we seem to be producing power for more than an hour in the afternoon and about 20 mins earlier in the morning

 

Another sign is that the value of our generated power increased from £1.34 in the first week to £1.76 the next and last week £2.94 which in itself is much better than projected 56p per day average, and 42 kwh average per week

 

Its difficult to say exactly how we are affected by the shading as its directly affected by the weather conditions, and my wife said a few months back that the afternoon can be cloudier than the mornings.

 

The morning shade now is much less now than at the start of the month, the midday shade is getting better but still affects the for a much longer time, I guess the shading in the afternoon will last a few more weeks

 

But sunnier days do produce much more power, now 2.5 kwh are produced on the better days, the first week was nearly half that. On the other hand last year was a bit sunnier and producing a bit more

[Ian Smeeton]

What causes the shading?

 

Trees or buildings.

 

If trees then it will only get worse as time goes on

 

Regards

 

Ian

[hayfield]

16 hours ago, Ian Smeeton said:

What causes the shading?

 

Trees or buildings.

 

If trees then it will only get worse as time goes on

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

Ian

 

Mainly trees but one house for about a month or so, I take your point but thankfully these are mostly old trees or some lower growing species like a plum

 

One large conifer is more or less stopped shading, the largest is very old and probably reached its maximum and again having less of an effect. The third group is now the main issue and within a month to 6 weeks will have no affect

 

Its very difficult to see when the shading starts and stops, dur to weather conditions and its at a time when generation is at its lowest and affects a period of time where we produce about 10% of our total generated production.  (220 kwh out of 2400kwh) At worst I guess we loose less than 100kwh over 4 months. Not a reason not to have the system !!! 

 

As I have always said we were warned about the shading and the shallower than normal rake of the roof, Though this must help when the sun is high in the sky ? As far as the returns from the system so much better than we ever expected.

[hayfield]

I have had a chance of looking back at the inverters records (graphs) of daily production, it looks like I have another 2 or perhaps 3 weeks of reducing shading, where as there is evidence of shading in the last week of October.

 

In the main it seems November, December and January are the main months where shading affects production (better than I expected

 

I have also noticed even bad days in Jan are much better than December.  Over the past 2 years my daily production average has been in the region of 1.5 kwh a day, todays been cloudy but we still generated 1.1kwh, Not had a 3 kwh day this year though !! 

[hayfield]

20 hours ago, hayfield said:

 Not had a 3 kwh day this year though !! 

 

 

After saying this today my system generated 3.5 kwh, still chasing the previous 2 years production of 44 & 47 kwh, to date its up tp 35kwh this month with 5 days to go

[Metr0Land]

10.9kWh today!  Frustratingly had to dump 5kWh to the grid and I'm not on an export tariff.

 

Overnight I'd topped up the car (PHEV) and the Tesla powerwall had decided to fill up to 94pct, and the sun came up early.  I put the dishwasher on, and then a load of washing before I went out, but as I was out for sunniest part of day the system filled up and dumped excess...  on Octopus Intelligent Go that's only 38p I lost but it's always frustrating to see it going out....

 

As I've only had the powerwal since mid-Oct I've not had a chance to get consistent sun, otherwise I'd leave plugging the car into morning, use power from the powerwall and backfill with solar.

[Kris]

11.3 generated down in Cornwall today. Topped up the battery and exported a decent amount as the battery had been charged at a low rate tariff overnight.