sjp23480

On 01/10/2022 at 07:03, hayfield said:

Steve

 

Whilst we nearly face south (slightly south west)  owing to the design of our rear roof the maximum number of panels would have been 4, we have a large single story roof on our extension which can accept up to 8 panels, but its at a shallower angle than the main roof and is subject to a bit of shading, more so in the cooler months

 

The 29th I generated 8.6 kwh so given the issues only being a little behind you I am quite happy (it would have cost a lot more putting 4 panels on the main roof). Yesterday was about 3.5 kwh 

The past month has been quite cloudy for the second half, we are more East England.

 

But all in all I am very happy with the results

 

I am getting quite confused with what's happening, Octopus as of yet have not sent me an email with their latest tariffs. My account shows today electricity at 52.91p per kwh and gas at 14.74p per kwh. The BBC states electricity is capped at 34p per kwh and gas at 10.7p per kwh. Using the capped rates from the BBC and last 12 months usage my bill will rise by £490 this coming year.

I now have £400 coming from HMG, my export income (if I export the same and now get 15p per kwh ) its another £300pa and I am £500 in credit (which is more than this time last year) and my DDI has been the same for 24 mths

 

But Octopus has a new forecast tool, it states I should increase my payments by £90 pm but takes no account of my export income, this month just gone it forecast me paying twice the amount of the bill they sent, Money saving Expert was not much better in their forecast. I have increased my DDI by the amount they have reduced the collection owing to the governments £67 rebate, for me I would rather it supports my energy costs rather than my bank account. Lets wait and see what happens when the dust settles

@hayfield John,

Things are really up in the air right now, I just sent in my meter reading for September - as expected, I consumed 88kwh in September, vs 251kwh in August.  Although the Solar system say I imported 103kwh. 

I made a saving of 163kwh, or £46.13.  Had I been reimbursed for the exports that would generate 103kwh at 7p (Eon next) 7.21.  So total benefit of £53.14.

I need to figure out how to keep more of the generated power rather than exporting it to the grid, the exports more than offset the imports last month.

I am also a waiting for the paperwork to register for the export income, by the time it comes I suspect my exports will be negligible.

steve

@hayfield

According to my solar system, my seven panels generated 9.1kwh today (SE England) and 236kwh for the month.  We exported 103kwh

Total consumption was 251kwh for the month, but we imported 103kwh.  My electricity provider says I imported 84kwh.   Will do a meter reading tomorrow morning and submit it to see how it stacks up.

Steve

I have an opportunity to acquire the latest Hornby Flying Scotsman with the die cast running plate.

If I go ahead, it will replace my Hornby NRM special edition FS.  This is the factory weathered version, which I rather like as way too many FS models are too ex-works for my liking.

I appreciate that the new version is R/H drive, applicable to a fairly limited time frame - up to 1954 if I remember correctly, early crest and no smoke deflectors

The NRM version is L/H drive, late crest with German smoke deflectors but no die cast footplate.

What do the RMWeb cogniscenti think about how these two versions compare?

Many thanks

Steve

Moving the topic back to the 9F, I am interested to see some of the comments around cost.  

I feel the criticism is a little unfair.  The cost, given this is a new model with die cast footplate and boiler, is not significantly different to Bachmann's latest prices.

Their next 9F batch is £230, the recent V2 is £230, Standard class 4 and 5 are £210, the new 37 is £245 and the 47 £240; even the new batch of Class 40s will be £210 (we wait to see if they will receive a make over). 

Then I came across several continental models from Bachmann and they are £300+ 😲

Just now, Ian Hargrave said:

 
Given Hornby’s recent  awkwardness  over The Titfield Thunderbolt copyright etc. I had wondered that. But I don’t think any bones are broken here. At least,I hope not. 

Moi aussi!

On 16/09/2022 at 12:08, Ian Hargrave said:

 

Just noticed the box above for Evening Star. Are Hornby actually marketing this model in association with the NRM as has been the case in the past ?

@Ian Hargrave not sure if this has been answered?

I noticed that the logo is "Railway Museum", not "National Railway Museum".  So the answer (I guess) is no. 

I am quite surprised that Hornby is using this branding (including the two diagonal red stripes across the box).  Is this putting at risk what has (in the past) been quite a lucrative partnership, presumably.   Otherwise why use the branding on this model?

For what its worth, I am not anti-Hornby, I received 92167 today and I think its a very impressive model. 

Steve

Thanks @hayfield - will keep this thread posted on my progress!

32 minutes ago, hayfield said:

I had an email today from Octopus, I am expecting an announcement about next months tariff, but no export tariff are increasing from 7.5p per kwh to 15p per kwh, better still as of this morning

 

When I ordered/had installed my panels Octopus were offering 5p per kwh, when you have the big players like Shell, Eon, British Gas & SSE paying between 3p & 3.5p per kwh and EDF 1.5p per KWH   (https://solarenergyuk.org/resource/smart-export-guarantee/?cn-reloaded=1)

 

Well its 3 times more than when I started with Octopus, up to 5 x the other big players and ten times EDF, its well done Octopus and it looks like customers of the other big players are being short changed

 

OK we are getting into the slack period but I am earning 3 times  what I was being paid this time last year 

@hayfieldThat's great news.  

I am still waiting for the contractors to come back to fix the errors that I am getting.  The alarm continues to go off at least once a day, when it does the battery discharges to the grid until drained. 

Yesterday, I generated 12kwh and consumed 10kwh.  But, I only used 4kwh of what I had generated, exported 8kwh to the grid and imported 6kwh to make up the difference!  Doesn't feel quite right to me.

In the meantime, I am holding onto their invoice and still have the scaffolding on the house - now been there almost 6 weeks!  :-(

Steve

Thanks  @Delta_Who, @That Model Railway Guy and @GreatWesternFan220 

I have decided to part with my hard earned to get 92167. 

Did I need one? No, I have 4 Bachmann (including the NRM 92220 special) and the Hornby Railroad Crosti.  I could not resist after watching these videos and the pictures above.  With stock levels at those retailers that still have them dropping fast, I took the plunge!

Thanks guys!  Hornby should put you on commission.

Steve

On 03/09/2022 at 14:49, Ian Morgan said:

Please note the important difference between kW and kWh. Some posts seem to confuse the two.

 

kW (kiloWatt) is a measure of power at a particular instant in time.

 

kWh (kiloWatthour) is a measure of energy, power supplied or consumed over a period of time.

 

A 10 kWh battery could, in theory, supply 1kW of power to a cooker for 10 hours. Or it could light a 100W bulb for 100 hours, or a 5kW emersion heater for 2 hours.

 

My solar panels can produce a maximum of 4kW of power. If sunny enough to produce full power for long enough, with no other items in the house using power and super efficient charging, it could theoretically fully charge a 10kWh battery in two and a half hours (4kW x 2.5h = 10kWh).

 

Hope this helps.

Ian,

Thanks for the explanation.  I am guilty as charged!

Still not sure of when I should be using kw vs kwh, so bear with me!

Steve

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

The batteries we have are designed for rack mounting. Each one is 2.4kWh capacity. I don’t know how they would have mounted just one in our garage. They claim to have all kinds of heat overload protection anyway but having received the advice from our installers I looked at lithium battery fires on YouTube and ordered a Fireangel heat alarm! The YouTube videos were big industrial batteries not like ours but it was a good excuse to upgrade all the fire /smoke alarms in the house. 
 

@Tony_Sthanks Tony, I will investigate the alarm situation. 

Steve

12 hours ago, Vistisen said:

Another important factor is the size of your inverter. If you are using more power than it has the capacity to provide, it does not matter how much you have in the battery and/or are getting the solarpanels. Your will always be buying the extra Watts from the grid. This seems to an often-overlooked factor. When browsing forums, I see a lot of posts like ‘we have power in reserve, why are we still consuming electricity from the gird?’ This is especially the case when charging electric cars. 

This can be shown clearly here. We are charging a car, therfore using about 9.5kW. Our inverter can cope with 8.8Kw, så we are using 5.145 kW from the solar panels, 3.654 kW fronm the battery and buying the laste 0,758 kW from the grid.

 

@Vistisen

Thank you so much for posting this.  I had trawled the internet trying to find something to explain the issue. I shall now be reaching back to the installers and arrange a fourth visit to take a look!

Steve

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

Mine are in the garage next to the inverter and all the fuse boxes. 
The garage is a semi integral to the house type. We fitted a heat alarm above them as recommended by the installers. I had to fit a linked type alarm as we couldn’t hear it from the house. 

Still space for one more in the rack. 
Tony

@Tony_S

Interesting picture, my battery (I only have one) is not in a rack-it is just stood on the floor in the loft,like yours next to the inverter and the other circuitry.   The battery is unlikely to get moved, but should it be in a rack and the installers mentioned nothing about a heat alarm?

Steve

So last night I went to bed and the battery was >90% charged and had exported nothing to the grid.  By the time I checked this morning (8am), the battery was showing 15% charged, I had exported 3kwh to the grid and drawn 2kwh overnight from the grid.  Is this normal?  It looks like the battery discharged to the grid and then I had to draw 2kwh to make up the difference.  This makes no sense to me, I'd prefer the battery to retain the charge, not export and not draw from the grid - which was the case the night before.  I am a bit confused.

Today, my 7 panels produced 9kwh, I consumed 11kwh and the battery is only 20% charged as of now, so I will be drawing from the grid again tonight.

At one point today we were consuming 3kwh, but as far as I could see we did not have any appliances running, other than the fridge/freezer and other small stuff.  I couldn't understand why we were consuming so much power.  

I also keep getting persistent alarms about the inverter "MET_Comm_Fail" apparently and I need to restart the inverter and meter, but the installers haven't provided any instructions on this despite them saying they would send instructions.

The wife is also starting to get a bit wound up by my fixation, but I expect the novelty will wear off once the configuration is optimised.

Steve

@Ouroborus i hear you, one of mine has left home in the last year but the other one is still here and shows no sign of budging!

Batteries seem to run out at about £1000/kw, my 3.5kw cost just over £3000.  9kw will be quite expensive. 

One thing I noticed yesterday was that we ran a couple of appliances simultaneously last night, I assume the combined load exceeded the capacity of the battery.  So we started importing from the grid to cover the deficit, although the battery still had charge.  Lesson learned!

Not sure about the overnight charging, we don't have a "white meter", so I can't comment on the benefit.  Given the cost of the battery the return will hinge on the relative difference between the day and night rates.

Good luck,

Steve

3 hours ago, Ouroborus said:

A couple of questions to those in the know.

 

Is there any merit to having more batteries than the solar pv's can *normally* charge  (ie, avoid any exporting of energy)

What's the typical time to charge  a (eg) 9Kw battery

Best place for batteries to be sited - indoors or outdoors.

 

thanks

@Ouroborus

I think you might want to talk to an expert. 

I guess the charging time depends on the capacity of the battery and the number of panels feeding it.  

I suspect you should start by looking at your consumption data, that should determine the configuration you need.  Our advisor said it was not worth selling kwh to the grid, the best available rate is <10p/kwh.  So the payback is very slow.  

On average my daily consumption is <10kwh per day, so the system is configured to cover these needs.

The battery is in the loft space close to the inverter and related circuitry.

Steve

9 hours ago, hayfield said:

Steve

 

I guess your batteries were partly charged to start with, I have no way of recording exports as I have to rely on Octopus records. But with my own experience even on the worst days I use a decent percentage of what I produce

 

30th  produced  5.4 kwh used 2.1 kwh

31st  produced 10.8 kwh used 2.2 kwh

 

14 kwh is quite a high use, on a Sunday when we use both the oven for a roast plus the dishwasher 9/10 kwh is a high usage, Our normal weekly usage is about 50 kwh ranging between 45 at the lowest range to 55 at the top

 

One of the few details I do not record is total production weekly, at best I have topped 100 kwh per week, my worst was 20 kwh for last December, This January was not much better at 44 kwh. But these two months were one of the lowest on record for sunlight. Over an 8 day period last December I produced 1.8 kwh, some days barely registering 0.1 kwh for the day !!!

 

But like my monthly DDI I pay more than I need to in the summer to keep my winter payments lower, solar panels are much the same, the bulk of production is April to September 6 months. November through Feb (4 months) is very low (235 kwh). So looking at the whole year is a better measure on a cost benefit basis. This year the 4 winter months will be very expensive

 

Your estimation of 52p per kwh is quite frightening, if that's the case hopefully our export tariffs will rise pro rata (7.5p to 13.5P) but the margined between export and import rates is totally unfair on non commercial users, and I am with one of the better payers 

Hi John,

The 52p /kwh is not an estimate.  That is the new price cap from October 1st, but few outlets report the per kwh rate - less sensational than to say how many £000s households will be paying. 

Scarier still is the prediction that the per kwh rate will go up to 80p-92p range from January 1st 2023!

I found this article from ICAEW with the per kwh rates: https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2022/sept-2022/chart-of-the-week-energy-price-cap-update.

By way of an update, day two (so far) yielded 10kwh, I imported 1kwh, and used 9kwh, the 3.5kwh battery is 99% charged.

Steve

KJB Models have a few decent bargains, including the new Bachmann BR Black V2s for £165 and free postage, which is the cheapest I have seen them.  Worth a look: https://kjbmodels.co.uk/product-category/model-railways/bargain-basement-model-railways/

Steve

Hi John@hayfield

Interesting post. 

My installation was finally completed yesterday late afternoon.  So this my first full day generating power.

My 7 panels yielded 7kwh, but it was a really cloudy.  I exported 3kwh, the 3.5kw battery charged 100% - so I must have used 0.5kwh.

Total consumption was 14kwh and I imported 9kwh (dishwasher!), approximate cost of £2.60. (based on current unit rate £0.29/kwh).

Had I used 14kwh off grid, the cost would have been £4.06, saving £1.46.  That will increase to £2.60 saving on the new rate (£0.52/kwh)

Lets see how it goes tomorrow, but the system will not offset the increase in the cap - so I will have to figure out what my new DD should be.

Steve

On 01/08/2022 at 23:01, sjp23480 said:

Hi John@hayfield ,

 

Solar Together survey complete, and recommendations received:

 

7 panels

Shade optimised (so one inverter per panel)

3.2kWh battery

A new garage board, the current box doesn't have enough ports

Installation, including scaffolding with bridge over a porch which is extra)

 

Cost: £7153.

 

Annual consumption is estimated at approximately 3,000kWh

Total estimated production is 2,576kWh

 

50% of savings at 28p/kWh = £425pa.  My actual rate is 29.5p/kWh, which converts to a saving of £447.77. 16 years to payback, or 6.26% return on investment

 

80% of savings at 28p/kWh = £603pa.  Given my actual kWh rate, this is a saving of £635.30.  11.26 years to payback, or 8.88% return on investment

 

These numbers take no account of future increases in the energy cap - although I have been unable to find any predictions for the per kWh rate from October, or January 2023.  The price cap will be reviewed every 3 months after October.

 

Whilst the payback is longer than I had hoped, we have no plans to move house in the foreseeable future and the ROI of both scenarios are quite respectable compared to other investments. 

 

This was also a useful read:  https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/

 

Steve

 

 

 

@57xx - I think this probably answers your question, although I didn't need the garage board which reduced the cost by £150.

The new rate is £0.52 per kwh, which will shorten the ROI quite considerably.  If it goes up again in January and April, the ROI will be better still!  By my calculations based on the current rate:

At 50% efficiency the panels will save £670 per annum - a 10.5 year payback or 9.5% annual ROI

At 80% efficiency it is £1,070 per annum - a 6.5 year payback or 15.3% annual ROI

I just hope I am right!

Steve

Short update, my panels were installed two weeks back but are still not connected owing to a shortage of optimisers.  The battery also needs to be fitted.  The electrician is coming back Wednesday to finish the install.  Just in time for the price hike.  Keeping my fingers crossed that it will offset a decent proportion of my monthly bill!

Steve

One for all you Portuguese modellers, another Sudexpress engine has popped up on The Saleroom: https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/gildings-auctioneers/catalogue-id-srgil10316/lot-c4fa9519-09b1-4a3b-af09-aef600e3dbd6?queryId=60d319a81d4ad0f53f057ec4dbcbd4d7

Auction is on August 31st.

MY aunt and uncle lived in Vicarage Road, near the girls grammar school.  Leading to obligatory visits to Railmail if they were open. 

Happy days!

@AY Mod - hi Andy, thanks for reinstating it, but I think its gone again!!??

Steve

3 hours ago, Ian Morgan said:

My scaffolding went up just a couple of days before installation, but it was another 3 weeks before it was taken away again.

 

I guess they prefer to move it from one site to the next rather than taking it back to base.

 

Solar Together told me they won't instruct the scaffolders to remove it until the final payment has cleared into their account.