Solar panels , would you ?

PJ87

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September was awful

For what we have used we should have paid £50, we do get paid £7, so a saving of £57.
We only generated 117% of what we used, lowest since March.


When did the saving sessions start last year? Was it October?

Yeah about then because it's when people start ramping up the gas for heating

So if we can use less it helps

My use from the grid is up, was around 13kwh now we up to around 19kwh but because it's all at the night rate it's all good a whooping 42p
 

larmen

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I am just one lottery win away from getting one of those

The win would have to be big enough for a house with some space for it as well.


5kWh wind turbine which looks quite nice. But 40k € might not make it’s thing for the own garden, especially in our situation where we’re not free standing.
 

larmen

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Not received my bill yet, but I can see on the app that for mid September to mid October we actually paid for electricity. Roughly £4 plus the standing charge on top of it. Gas usage going up as well.


As for standing charges, it’s in the news today that Martin Lewis is getting offgen to really look into them.
 

PJ87

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Octopus running what they think is their last free electric hour until after winter today..

Demand for electric will rise with heating season ofc

Battery is 60% ATM waiting for the word to charge and wife just got home so her car is plugged in ready

Worked out well last time as I can request a charge they charge me 7p a unit and pay me back 22p a unit so I'll make £1.50 on top of free energy for an hour


All adds up

I've withdrawn £984 of my balance aswell from them to pay for my new irons! Happy days 🥳
 

larmen

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Just have a wash on and charging my bike to drain the house battery a little. Complete the charge and refill the battery in the free hour. Have to look in the freezer if something is worth putting in the oven for lunch.

Weird that they have a free hour on a day with virtually no solar generation.



I guess we are moving from free hour into energy saving scheme soon? That seemed better for people with battery storage.
 

PJ87

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Just have a wash on and charging my bike to drain the house battery a little. Complete the charge and refill the battery in the free hour. Have to look in the freezer if something is worth putting in the oven for lunch.

Weird that they have a free hour on a day with virtually no solar generation.



I guess we are moving from free hour into energy saving scheme soon? That seemed better for people with battery storage.

It's very windy today.. storm and that. Excess wind energy rather than solar

Energy saving scheme got me nothing as it was based on your use in those hours and my use is always 0 lol 🤣
 

larmen

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They did pay extra on export last year. It was worth it to fill the battery during the day and then dump at peak, getting paid peak rate and then £2.25 on top on a couple of those sessions.
 

PJ87

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They did pay extra on export last year. It was worth it to fill the battery during the day and then dump at peak, getting paid peak rate and then £2.25 on top on a couple of those sessions.

Ah yes. I can't figure out how to dump my battery, either the option hasn't been enabled by my installer or has been hidden away
 

cliveb

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Just have a wash on and charging my bike to drain the house battery a little. Complete the charge and refill the battery in the free hour. Have to look in the freezer if something is worth putting in the oven for lunch.
Rather than emptying your battery now so you can refill it for free, why not just run the appliances during the free period?
That way you wouldn't be needlessly doing extra charge/discharge cycles on your battery.
View attachment 55498

And rising as I've put on the upstairs air cons into heat mode for an hour just to literally use energy .. all done remotely from my phone I'm 25 miles away
You seem to be deliberately consuming energy for the sake of getting a bit more for free later on.
That doesn't sound like an environmentally friendly approach.
Are you embracing solar/batteries/EV/etc for purely economic reasons?

In any case, 15kW is about 60 amps. Are your batteries actually able to deliver that, or are you consuming from the grid while it isn't free? That would be ironic.
 

PJ87

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Rather than emptying your battery now so you can refill it for free, why not just run the appliances during the free period?
That way you wouldn't be needlessly doing extra charge/discharge cycles on your battery.

You seem to be deliberately consuming energy for the sake of getting a bit more for free later on.
That doesn't sound like an environmentally friendly approach.
Are you embracing solar/batteries/EV/etc for purely economic reasons?

In any case, 15kW is about 60 amps. Are your batteries actually able to deliver that, or are you consuming from the grid while it isn't free? That would be ironic.

octopus want this green energy to be used. otherwise its going to waste. its to save the turbines being turned off.

my battery is able to deliver 5kwh. alas I think you have jumped in missing the entire point. the battery is right now charging off the grid. as is the car (the car NEVER charges from the battery. that is inefficient) so during the free hour they will charge me 15kwh at 7ppkwh as i requested a charge , that will be billed to me at £1.05 , they will then credit it back to me at the day rate (26.72p) so thats £4.08 a clear £3 profit onto my account. It would be stupid not to take advantage of these sessions. (also worth noting I charge the wifes car once a month so why not do it now whilst its free? why would I do another time when I can do for free? thats stupid)

On top of that using the HVACs to heat upstairs stops the heating clicking in which saves gas.. which 1 saves cost and 2 saves fossil fuels

the uk right now is producing 20.32GW of energy from wind , if people werent using the excess the grid would be unbalanced so its managing demand.

happy to help.
 

larmen

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My bike uses about 3kWh, but I can charge the batteries at about 1.2 kWh. By starting early I can ‘borrow’ from the house battery and top that one back up again, parallel to charging the bike to full.

And washing is ongoing. Reds & whites. Who picks the colours for school uniforms?
 

Fade and Die

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Reminds me of two tower blocks we service near Mile End where the storage heating supply is included in the rent… people will literally open windows and walk about in pants rather than turn the heating down!
 

PJ87

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My bike uses about 3kWh, but I can charge the batteries at about 1.2 kWh. By starting early I can ‘borrow’ from the house battery and top that one back up again, parallel to charging the bike to full.

And washing is ongoing. Reds & whites. Who picks the colours for school uniforms?

the results are in

started with 54% battery on the house and 79% on the car

finished with 86% battery on the house and 89% on the car

Mrs had the tumble on at the same time for usual sunday washing

Total usage in the end was 14kwh

not bad, wifes car recharged to the normal level that I leave it at for free and house battery filled up a bit to save when it gets refilled tonight anyways

load shifting for the win

end of day I would have had to use this energy anyways just another time so might aswell do it when its free (or in this case paying me to)
 

cliveb

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my battery is able to deliver 5kwh. alas I think you have jumped in missing the entire point. the battery is right now charging off the grid. as is the car (the car NEVER charges from the battery. that is inefficient) so during the free hour they will charge me 15kwh at 7ppkwh as i requested a charge , that will be billed to me at £1.05 , they will then credit it back to me at the day rate (26.72p) so thats £4.08 a clear £3 profit onto my account. It would be stupid not to take advantage of these sessions. (also worth noting I charge the wifes car once a month so why not do it now whilst its free? why would I do another time when I can do for free? thats stupid)
Ah right, I did get the wrong end of the stick. I didn't get that what you're using now is in fact during the "free" period. I thought you were emptying your battery in preparation for a future free period. That's what post #867 seemed to be implying, and your post #872 seemed to be following up on that.

So sorry for misunderstanding what's going on.
 

PJ87

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Ah right, I did get the wrong end of the stick. I didn't get that what you're using now is in fact during the "free" period. I thought you were emptying your battery in preparation for a future free period. That's what post #867 seemed to be implying, and your post #872 seemed to be following up on that.

So sorry for misunderstanding what's going on.

Yes the free period was 13:00-1400

I asked the car for a charge at 12:30 to be ready for 14:30 which allowed for a little leeway, it started at 13:50 and ended 14:10 (I stopped it) but meant that the battery can take a couple mins to turn back to not drawing from grid when I have mucked about like this (manual charge isn't a button it's a trick in the settings)

Just makes sense to use it to fill up the wife's car as I'll only pay for it later in the month anyways and the house filling up not just reduces what will be filled up tonight so might aswell get it for free
 

PJ87

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What a beautiful sunny day. The washing from last night is almost tumbled.. the swimming stuff and pink wash is in the machine

So much solar that I'm exporting already

Decided to descale the kettle to make the most of the day aswell

Nice way to finish this month's billing cycle
 
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