Solar panels

[Ian Morgan]

5 minutes ago, Nick C said:

I've just done a quick count around the house, and come up with a total of 740W of lighting - but the majority of that comes from the handful of lamps that still have incandescent bulbs (things like the under stairs cupboard, the loft, etc, that are rarely used) - the commonly used rooms have just 140w between them, as they're all LED. Replacing a 60W incandescent with a 7W LED makes quite a difference!

 

I replaced all the bulbs in my house with LED equivalents a few years ago, and was amazed at the reduction in my electric bill. The worst offender was a fancy pendant light over the stairs that had 6 quartz halogen bulbs (G6) which were 35W each. So a total of 210W. I simply replaced the bulbs with 3W LED G6 bulbs, which produce the equivalent amount of light. Total now is 18W.

 

I also had three wall lights in the living room, each with a pair of 25W candle bulbs. Total 150W. I replaced the bulbs with 2W candle bulbs. Total now is 12W.

 

Simples.

 

[PaulCheffus]

1 hour ago, Ian Morgan said:

 

I replaced all the bulbs in my house with LED equivalents a few years ago, and was amazed at the reduction in my electric bill. The worst offender was a fancy pendant light over the stairs that had 6 quartz halogen bulbs (G6) which were 35W each. So a total of 210W. I simply replaced the bulbs with 3W LED G6 bulbs, which produce the equivalent amount of light. Total now is 18W.

 

I also had three wall lights in the living room, each with a pair of 25W candle bulbs. Total 150W. I replaced the bulbs with 2W candle bulbs. Total now is 12W.

 

Simples.

 

Hi

 

I did something similar my railway room which had 6 x 50w halogen spots which were replaced with 6 x 5w LED. I did the same with all the spots in the house which accounted for another 20 x 50w halogen spots.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Nick C said:

That's quite astonishing - What proportion of your lights are LED / CFL / Incandescant?

 

I've just done a quick count around the house, and come up with a total of 740W of lighting - but the majority of that comes from the handful of lamps that still have incandescent bulbs (things like the under stairs cupboard, the loft, etc, that are rarely used) - the commonly used rooms have just 140w between them, as they're all LED. Replacing a 60W incandescent with a 7W LED makes quite a difference!

Nick

 

I think most if not all are now LED, we had a large ground floor built and remodelled all of the downstairs, and upstairs has most if not all the light bulbs changed, one small thing was we changed the shower from electric to one fed from the gas boiler, but the electric shower was not that expensive. Plus the bulk of light bulbs have been LED for several years. What is interesting is that we may be slightly behind the anticipated solar production, but we have gone through winter, if I use the first and seventh months production as a guide and the next four and a half months is similar then we will be slightly above it

 

I doubt if it makes any difference but in September we moved from British Gas to Octopus, all the meters are the same, so I doubt this made no difference to our power consumption.

 

Part of it is timing all the projections used 16 p import and 3p export in the illustrations, from the start Octopus were paying me 5.5p per kwh and now pay 7.5p. All the time I have been on the standard rate.  I always had the impression the quotes erred on the conservative side, they reduced the efficiency due to the possibility of shading from trees (winter effect only at midday) plus our roof is not exactly due south (South being 180 degrees our house is facing 180 degrees) . It would be interesting to see what figures they now use in their projections

 

Some still make comments on its value, had my money still been with HSBC against inflation it would have dropped in spending power, pity I cant do a similar thing with my gas bill 

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, Nick C said:

've just done a quick count around the house, and come up with a total of 740W of lighting - but the majority of that comes from the handful of lamps that still have incandescent bulbs (things like the under stairs cupboard, the loft, etc, that are rarely used) - the commonly used rooms have just 140w between them, as they're all LED. Replacing a 60W incandescent with a 7W LED makes quite a difference!

Have you added up how much power your model railway uses?

Is our hobby rather than lighting going to become a significant part of our electricty costs?

 

I'm pretty sure my electric washing and cooking appliances are still significant, even though they're not switched on all the time.

 

I only use gas for heating & hot water.  It looks like we will all be forced to move away from gas as it becomes unaffordable before becoming completely unavailable.  On the other hand, electricity will continue to be available from the grid, even though the technology and economics of its production will have changed.

[Vistisen]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

Nick

 

I think most if not all are now LED, we had a large ground floor built and remodelled all of the downstairs, and upstairs has most if not all the light bulbs changed, one small thing was we changed the shower from electric to one fed from the gas boiler, but the electric shower was not that expensive. Plus the bulk of light bulbs have been LED for several years. What is interesting is that we may be slightly behind the anticipated solar production, but we have gone through winter, if I use the first and seventh months production as a guide and the next four and a half months is similar then we will be slightly above it

 

I doubt if it makes any difference but in September we moved from British Gas to Octopus, all the meters are the same, so I doubt this made no difference to our power consumption.

 

Part of it is timing all the projections used 16 p import and 3p export in the illustrations, from the start Octopus were paying me 5.5p per kwh and now pay 7.5p. All the time I have been on the standard rate.  I always had the impression the quotes erred on the conservative side, they reduced the efficiency due to the possibility of shading from trees (winter effect only at midday) plus our roof is not exactly due south (South being 180 degrees our house is facing 180 degrees) . It would be interesting to see what figures they now use in their projections

 

Some still make comments on its value, had my money still been with HSBC against inflation it would have dropped in spending power, pity I cant do a similar thing with my gas bill 

Can't you use a heat pump? That would reduce your gas bill.

[Nick C]

2 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Have you added up how much power your model railway uses?

Is our hobby rather than lighting going to become a significant part of our electricty costs?

 

I'm pretty sure my electric washing and cooking appliances are still significant, even though they're not switched on all the time.

 

I only use gas for heating & hot water.  It looks like we will all be forced to move away from gas as it becomes unaffordable before becoming completely unavailable.  On the other hand, electricity will continue to be available from the grid, even though the technology and economics of its production will have changed.

Model railway, very little - 25w controller PSU, the lights in the railway room are all LED. 

 

Most modern appliances are pretty good, they only run their heaters when they need to. It's generally things that generate heat that use the most - oven, kettle etc.

[SamThomas]

5 hours ago, Vistisen said:

Can't you use a heat pump? That would reduce your gas bill.

& increase your electric one.....................

[hayfield]

13 hours ago, Vistisen said:

Can't you use a heat pump? That would reduce your gas bill.

 

I had a chat with a friend who is an engineer on Tuesday (whilst traveling to the L&B coach workshop in Colchester) about this especially as I read something a few weeks ago about higher electrical energy costs makes heat pumps less cost effective

 

Apparently on new builds which are designed for heat pumps, there is a good case. But older houses with less effective insulation characteristics the numbers just do not add up. In other countries where homes have been better insulated the benefits may be greater !!

 

Perhaps the better solution is harnessing the heat from the panels themselves, but this is weather dependant and you do not necessarily get the heat when you want it 

[Vistisen]

6 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

I had a chat with a friend who is an engineer on Tuesday (whilst traveling to the L&B coach workshop in Colchester) about this especially as I read something a few weeks ago about higher electrical energy costs makes heat pumps less cost effective

 

Apparently on new builds which are designed for heat pumps, there is a good case. But older houses with less effective insulation characteristics the numbers just do not add up. In other countries where homes have been better insulated the benefits may be greater !!

 

Perhaps the better solution is harnessing the heat from the panels themselves, but this is weather dependant and you do not necessarily get the heat when you want it 

I’m sure your friend is correct. Almost all Danish houses built withing the last twenty years have underfloor heating (ours is built in 1973 and has it on the ground floor). In addition, outside walls are so thick that windows seats are in again. This means that even in very cold winters, you only need to heat water for the underfloor heating to about 32 C (about 90F). Hot water for bathing and cooking comes from a smaller very well insulated tank that is warmed up by electricity A lot of people have these fancy taps in the kitchen that provide boiling water on demand. (I’m afraid of them and don’t want one) Here heat pumps make a lot of sense. Especially as our government has said that if they are the primary heat source then you get quite a large rebate on the taxes on electricity.

[hayfield]

28 minutes ago, Vistisen said:

I’m sure your friend is correct. Almost all Danish houses built withing the last twenty years have underfloor heating (ours is built in 1973 and has it on the ground floor). In addition, outside walls are so thick that windows seats are in again. This means that even in very cold winters, you only need to heat water for the underfloor heating to about 32 C (about 90F). Hot water for bathing and cooking comes from a smaller very well insulated tank that is warmed up by electricity A lot of people have these fancy taps in the kitchen that provide boiling water on demand. (I’m afraid of them and don’t want one) Here heat pumps make a lot of sense. Especially as our government has said that if they are the primary heat source then you get quite a large rebate on the taxes on electricity.

 

Unless a person is commissioning the build themselves or by the better social housing companies, the build quality is the minimum the builders have to achieve in order to sell the property, traditionally when energy has been cheap insulation has not been on the top of buyers priority, I guess this will be changing. At the moment kitchens/family rooms plus the bathrooms are the sale clinchers, unless that is you are one of the diminishing group who buy a house to develop

 

I would assume home energy reports will gain some/more importance and solar panels will replace hot tubs on the wants list

 

There is also reports of community owned solar farms being set up and also a scheme where those who live close to energy generating installations will get discounted power

[PaulCheffus]

41 minutes ago, hayfield said:

Unless a person is commissioning the build themselves or by the better social housing companies, the build quality is the minimum the builders have to achieve in order to sell the property, traditionally when energy has been cheap insulation has not been on the top of buyers priority,

Hi

 

My son recently bought a new build and they hadn’t insulated the roof of his porch / downstairs toilet so the hall and toilet were extremely cold. All been corrected now but should have been picked up on the QA checks.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[hayfield]

30 minutes ago, PaulCheffus said:

Hi

 

My son recently bought a new build and they hadn’t insulated the roof of his porch / downstairs toilet so the hall and toilet were extremely cold. All been corrected now but should have been picked up on the QA checks.

 

Cheers

 

Paul

 

My niece has just bought a house from a large developer, I get the impression that these companies treat their buyers very poorly, one lady on the same development put her vase on the window sill on the day she moved in, only to find it stuck fast a few days later, the developer had painted the window sill the morning she moved in. Both my niece and this other person have long snagging lists which are taking months to resolve. This seems to be the norm. I think if we ever bought a new house I would insist my solicitor ketp a retainer which would be paid once the snagging had been completed

[hayfield]

Well my latest billing period ended two days ago and whilst the actual bill will take a couple of days the early signs are looking good. This month I have generated over 300kwh (nearly a third of what I have produced over the last 8 month)s. Energy production has really picked up.

 

My actual usage has remained much the same as previous months, what has changed is, I am both using more of what I produce and certainly exporting far more. I am anticipating a bill much the same as last month, but all of this period has been under the new rates and standing charges.  The net effect is that on average days my electric bill has halved on good days has reduced by 2/3rds. Needless to say I am very pleased with the returns

 

Gas is another story, by now previously I would be using less gas in £'s than I am paying monthly, this is not the case. My overall payments are keeping pace with my total energy usage, but its going to get expensive in the winter !! 

 

 

[hayfield]

Just had by bill in and it was much as anticipated, what is interesting is I bought 137.3 kwh this year against 266 kwh last year, last year I spent at the old rates £57.83 (from memory the rates were 18.08p per kwh), this year I was charged £44.43 (at 29.23 per kwh) which netted down to £28.42 after export payment was deducted

 

Two things have struck me, firstly Octopus has assumed that I will be paying £1064 for gas over the next year !!

Their assumption that I will be using £877 worth of electricity over the next year, I just cannot see how they arrive at this number, especially as export rates have increased by so much

 

Also under the new tariff I get a loyalty bonus off my standing charge of 13p per day, every little helps .

Edited April 27, 2022 by hayfield

[Tony_S]

We have imported very little electricity for the last month. Even on cloudy days we have generated enough electricity for our use and to charge our storage batteries to last in to the evenings. We exported loads but still haven’t received the contract we applied for from EonNext. May  take another month apparently. I have emailed Octopus to see if they can give me a contract quicker. They do accept exports from people they don’t supply. 
Tony

[Vistisen]

At last I've got a date for connecting these to the house. the 9th of May, 

[hayfield]

16 hours ago, Tony_S said:

We have imported very little electricity for the last month. Even on cloudy days we have generated enough electricity for our use and to charge our storage batteries to last in to the evenings. We exported loads but still haven’t received the contract we applied for from EonNext. May  take another month apparently. I have emailed Octopus to see if they can give me a contract quicker. They do accept exports from people they don’t supply. 
Tony

 

These energy suppliers mostly are a law to themselves and in my opinion do need further regulating on their export tariffs especially when you see the chart

https://solarenergyuk.org/resource/smart-export-guarantee/?cn-reloaded=1

 

I was advised that Octopus had the best ratings from Which for the past 5 years. I was with British gas and switched simply because they offered 5p per kwh against 3p per kwh which British Gas offered. BG still pay 3.2p per kwh despite the tariffs going up twice

Since being with Octopus my rate has gone up to 7.5kwh and it was effective the day after it was announced, there is no tie in and payments are made monthly, why is there such a big difference with many of the big players totally disinterested in paying decent rates ? plus doing anything within a reasonable period, I think I lost my first months export when BG was my supplier. Octopus has been brilliant

[hayfield]

The past couple of weeks have been a bit dull, but even on all but the very worst days production has been better than anticipated

 

I am still puzzled that since I have moved to Octopus despite just keeping the odd lights on for less time and turning the computer off quicker my total gross usage is still down 20% from when I used British Gas ? . Before anyone says it may bee the new meter, everything is the same. No meters were changed. The only thing that has changed is we had an electric shower, the shower now is supplied from our gas boiler, but would an electric shower use 50kwh over 30 days with 2 people having one shower each a day?

 

What is astonishing is the difference the the solar panels are making these past two accounting periods

 

                    Gross usage   Cost of imported elec  Export fees          Net cost

 

Feb/Mar       £58.46                 £36.76                             £11.08             £25.68              

Mar/Apr       £62.64                 £44.43                             £16.11             £28.32

 

If nothing else these savings will make up for the added cost of gas, though the gas price has dropped from its highest peak of $150 a barrel to $100, as expected the trends are that I am both using more of the electricity I produce and exporting more, this should (hopefully) will continue for a further 5 months. (7 very good months, 5 not so good

 

Longer term I may have to increase my DDI slightly, but this will depend on my gas usage over the next 5 months, however looking at the numbers it may be between £10  to £20 a month, nothing like the £60-£80 some are facing

 

Looking at the returns my panels are now producing and mortgage interest rates, given current rates I think it would be worth borrowing to fund an installation, certainly if you have cash in the bank its a no brainer, if you can get into one of these discounted schemes its well worth it, both in cost and peace of mind. Always take expert advice

Edited May 7, 2022 by hayfield

[Nick C]

54 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 but would an electric shower use 50kwh over 30 days with 2 people having one shower each a day?

Yes, it would! 50kWh over 60 showers is roughly 0.8 kWh per shower. Our old electric shower was 9kW, so would use 0.8kWh in about 5 minutes. 

[hayfield]

On 07/05/2022 at 09:57, Nick C said:

Yes, it would! 50kWh over 60 showers is roughly 0.8 kWh per shower. Our old electric shower was 9kW, so would use 0.8kWh in about 5 minutes. 

 

 

Mystery solved

[Vistisen]

Finally the day arrived where my panels are connected. The top box is the inverter which also will warm the utility room up niecely! The dog will be pleased. Underneath that, are 10wW of battery storage.The conection was turned on just after 1pm and since then has generated 30 kW. You can see the two small green circles where I decided to switch on the imersion heater rather than using our pellet boiller to heat hot water, and shortly after that where SWIMBO arrived home and plugged in her hybrid. That is now charged and we are filling the battery up again. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by Vistisen

[hayfield]

I don't quite understand much of the technical stuff, however at the end of the day if you are saving on the electricity you have to import its a real bonus

 

We spent the last two days at the in laws in Kent, our export of energy was more in £'s, than the cost of what we had imported, made a nice change. Whilst today has not been as bright as yesterday energy production has still been good.

[hayfield]

Whilst the weather has been a bit changeable this month the good weather over the past 2 days have taken the daily average to 10 kwh, which I am very pleased with and certainly justifies my expenditure

 

My initial goal simply was to make better use of our capital, as the only guarantee the banks give us is that the value of our savings will fall against inflation

 

Still the past month and a half show that even on all but the worst cloudy days levels of light still generate decent levels of power. The last 48 days have produced 477 kwh of power, I have used about 25% of this and exported the rest. Its the increase of exported power that is making a difference to my bills. By the end of winter I was of a mind that I may not reach the estimated production of 2200 kwh per year, if the next 3 months are on a par with the last 2 then it will be exceeded slightly (roll on a good summer) However the financial returns will be well and truly exceeded, simply because of the astronomical rise in prices

 

Given the era of cheap energy has long gone why are new houses not built with solar panels ? I don't think cost is now a reason. House builders can bulk buy and if the system is installed during the building process a basic system would hardly increase the build cost, certainly a minimal increase in sale price. But the benefits are immense both to the buyers/tenants and the country. New home buyers and social housing tenants are the groups who either have stretched them selves financially or in need of affordable housing.  Housing associations should be demanding these installations and mortgage lenders should be encouraging/incentivising borrowers to demand them. 

 

Apparently as a country the government has said we will be leaders in renewable energy systems, what better than enforcing this with making all new properties have one or more energy saving/making systems   

[hayfield]

At ten this morning, it was dull and raining and I had not even generated one KWH. I thought to myself I would be lucky to generate 6 kwh today,

 

Well I am still generating a small amount (18:30) but the system has produced just over 12 kwh. I guess I will import between 3 and 3.5 kwh and will export about 9 kwh, excluding the standing charge my net cost today will be between 30p and 40p, given that it rained in the morning far better that paying £2 had I not had solar panels 

[Tony_S]

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

At ten this morning, it was dull and raining and I had not even generated one KWH. I thought to myself I would be lucky to generate 6 kwh today,

 

Well I am still generating a small amount (18:30) but the system has produced just over 12 kwh. I guess I will import between 3 and 3.5 kwh and will export about 9 kwh, excluding the standing charge my net cost today will be between 30p and 40p, given that it rained in the morning far better that paying £2 had I not had solar panels 

The dull start did somewhat limit the days total but there was still just enough in our batteries to carry us through to when the sky cleared about noon. We were out for most of the day but it was sunny enough to charge the batteries fully, run whatever was needed, import nothing and still export 20kWh. We are at last on an export contract. We are probably on the lowest paying SEG contract in the universe but we will keep it for this year and change when it is up for renewal. 
Tony

Edited May 19, 2022 by Tony_S