Solar panels , would you ?

No really about solar panels - but just had my new British Gas Dual Fuel Standard Variable rate tariff. So I had a look at what Octopus would charge me on the same assumed usage as that used by BG. And the Octopus 14month tariff sees my saving £8.50/month. Maybe I can be bothered but that's not a great change...what else does Octopus offer?
 
They are good at customer service as they brag a lot about it in their awful radio ads.
They let you set your monthly payments. I don’t know what happens if you go too low, but so far they let me tell them what I wanted to pay.

And they are not British Gas who I will never ever deal with again. I rather go without energy than giving a single penny to that lot.


But as long as you don’t have any issues all energy companies are the same anyway.


Is it worth fixing? I haven’t done the math yet. Does fixing gas impact the electricity tariff? And export?
 
larmen said:
They are good at customer service as they brag a lot about it in their awful radio ads.
They let you set your monthly payments. I don’t know what happens if you go too low, but so far they let me tell them what I wanted to pay.

And they are not British Gas who I will never ever deal with again. I rather go without energy than giving a single penny to that lot.


But as long as you don’t have any issues all energy companies are the same anyway.


Is it worth fixing? I haven’t done the math yet. Does fixing gas impact the electricity tariff? And export?
Click to expand...

No. I have a fix for only my gas (well I fixed export for the solar until I could as was excellent rate but could move).

Doesn't effect my electric which is on variable but for EV
 
One thing about Octopus is that there's no penalty for exiting a fixed tariff. I think many other energy companies charge you for that.

One thing that has irritated me is that their formula for calculating the tracker tariff has been changed and is no longer such a good deal. I recently came off tracker and fixed for a year. Hasn't made any difference to the export rate, which remains 15p a unit.
 
cliveb said:
Crikey, we're only one day in. Let's not get carried away 😅
Click to expand...

Revisiting this after basically half the month

Exported every day so far in march , which considering it doesn't export until the battery is full I'll take that . Moved the dishwasher cycle to straight after dinner as we have the kWh in the battery and I can unload it before bed rather than in the morning

Winning
 
We installed in Feb 2024.. full production say from March. Here is how it looks

We have an EV that we charge at home. Dishwasher cycle after lunch + overnight. Clothes/Dryer is a mix of day and overnight cycles


1742289712507.png
 
New tariff out today. Octopus FLUX is paying 10p at daytime, charging me 16p at night time. Maybe it’s time to work out how much to charge up the battery at night to get us to sunrise instead of filling it up all the time.
On the positive side, standing charges dropped quite a bit.

Is anyone having an available tariff paying more that that?
 
larmen said:
New tariff out today. Octopus FLUX is paying 10p at daytime, charging me 16p at night time. Maybe it’s time to work out how much to charge up the battery at night to get us to sunrise instead of filling it up all the time.
On the positive side, standing charges dropped quite a bit.

Is anyone having an available tariff paying more that that?
Click to expand...

I'm still on 7p night paying out 15p day

However that's an EV tariff

Eon let you on theirs with just a battery apparently
 
March Figures in

Billed from octopus £47.83
export paid to me £13.73
total cost without system in place £185.52
savings this month £151.41

savings in year 3 (ends in may) £1777.26
savings total to date £5318

left to pay off system £10,003

on a side note this time of year (coming up to april 1st) is when i normally withdraw the excess in the account down to £0, I took it out early this year to buy some new irons.. I have managed to get it to 10p in the negative so thats not bad lol DD goes out on the 1st so will be £199.90 in credit but we are going on a few road trips in the next 2 months so will get some of that back in charging on the road.

by these predictions should be 5-6 more years until its paid off
 
Haven't done all the import/export yet as Octopus updates in a couple of days, and we still use this evening, but we generated 10.9 kWh a day this March. Last year was 7.4 kWh a day.
The awful February has been forgotten.
 
Yep, this month has been spectacular.
March 2024: 267kWh
March 2025: 406kWh (+52%!)

As for forgetting the awful February, I think you've forgotten how bad February was last year...
Feb 2024: 120kWh
Feb 2025: 141kWh (+17.5%)
 
cliveb said:
Yep, this month has been spectacular.
March 2024: 267kWh
March 2025: 406kWh (+52%!)

As for forgetting the awful February, I think you've forgotten how bad February was last year...
Feb 2024: 120kWh
Feb 2025: 141kWh (+17.5%)
Click to expand...

Remarkable how different march has been this year. Last year I had to cancel playing golf with my mate in Southampton as the courses were sodden where as this year everything is lovely
 
PJ87 said:
March Figures in

Billed from octopus £47.83
export paid to me £13.73
total cost without system in place £185.52
savings this month £151.41

savings in year 3 (ends in may) £1777.26
savings total to date £5318

left to pay off system £10,003

on a side note this time of year (coming up to april 1st) is when i normally withdraw the excess in the account down to £0, I took it out early this year to buy some new irons.. I have managed to get it to 10p in the negative so thats not bad lol DD goes out on the 1st so will be £199.90 in credit but we are going on a few road trips in the next 2 months so will get some of that back in charging on the road.

by these predictions should be 5-6 more years until its paid off
Click to expand...

Ever so slight change to the figures as octopus had missed one day of export which was credited this week £1.41 extra lol 🤣

More importantly woke up Thursday to the battery half charged for the first time in 2.5 years. Very odd. Managed to force a charge by charging the wife's car at same time. Anyways looks like Tesla have mucked with the software again and the trick we (owners) do to get it to override Tesla's want to leave space for solar in the battery doesn't work anymore. Luckily there is an app for that now! So at midnight everynight the NetZero app tells the powerwall to charge to 100% and at 5am it says you now may behave as normal. Took 10 mins to set up but gets around that

Pfft I'm not leaving room for solar in the battery , not when buying electric costs 7p and selling it gets me 15p it's in my interests to leave the battery as full as possible to maximise export
 
PJ87 said:
Anyways looks like Tesla have mucked with the software again and the trick we (owners) do to get it to override Tesla's want to leave space for solar in the battery doesn't work anymore. Luckily there is an app for that now! So at midnight everynight the NetZero app tells the powerwall to charge to 100% and at 5am it says you now may behave as normal. Took 10 mins to set up but gets around that
Click to expand...
To paraphrase an old advert: You know when you've been Musked.
Probably won't be long before Tesla block 3rd party apps so as to retain total control.

It's not just Tesla: the world is stealthily shifting towards companies getting more and more authoritarian over their customers. It all started with Apple many years ago.
 
cliveb said:
To paraphrase an old advert: You know when you've been Musked.
Probably won't be long before Tesla block 3rd party apps so as to retain total control.

It's not just Tesla: the world is stealthily shifting towards companies getting more and more authoritarian over their customers. It all started with Apple many years ago.
Click to expand...

I'm waiting for octopus to separate home usage from ev usage tbh..they have launched a tariff that's £20 a month extra on your bill, as much charging as you want anytime (fair usage) but it's only for your car. So they can do it.. for now they keeping the cheap overnight rates as it benefits the grid as many people as possible using the grid when it's got excess energy however I think the 7p 6 hours will disappear one day

But then eon have a 6.9 for 7 hours a night .. would go to them but octopus customer service much better . Had a missing export for another day I noticed this morning, messaged them on x.. 20 mins later it's on my meter readings . Can't knock that
 
cliveb said:
To paraphrase an old advert: You know when you've been Musked.
Probably won't be long before Tesla block 3rd party apps so as to retain total control.

It's not just Tesla: the world is stealthily shifting towards companies getting more and more authoritarian over their customers. It all started with Apple many years ago.
Click to expand...

Ive actually had a proper play around with the Tesla app today and found some interesting (for me) results

I've set up seasons now.. october to march it will hold onto all the solar until full then it will export

Rest of year at weekends it does that to allow for us to be home but weekdays it holds onto solar until 8am when the wife leaves for work and then 4pm she home so those hours it exports everything and the house is fed entirely by the battery .. that way I can keep make as much as possible from the solar. I believe it will work out how long the charge will last and hole onto the charge if it gets too slow
 
I’m not as savvy as you guys working out how much my 8 panels are performing but what I do know is we have just reduced our dd to under £40 per month.
 
Day 1 of the new approach has been interesting to say the least

At 0830 as programmed the system started to export all the solar to the grid rather than charge the battery

At 1530 it went back to charging the battery ..

As the battery was still at 75% I decided sod it I'll export it all today. Which I quickly changed (simple way to do I change the time period from "peak" to "mid peak" which peak it doesn't sell, mid peak it does)

Anyways 13.9kwh bought from grid at 7p a unit. Plus the standing charge of 48p

So far 14kwh exported at 15p a unit .. day completely covered and in credit

I'm hoping to have a month coming up of more money exported than paid out
 
PJ87 said:
Day 1 of the new approach has been interesting to say the least

At 0830 as programmed the system started to export all the solar to the grid rather than charge the battery

At 1530 it went back to charging the battery ..

As the battery was still at 75% I decided sod it I'll export it all today. Which I quickly changed (simple way to do I change the time period from "peak" to "mid peak" which peak it doesn't sell, mid peak it does)

Anyways 13.9kwh bought from grid at 7p a unit. Plus the standing charge of 48p

So far 14kwh exported at 15p a unit .. day completely covered and in credit

I'm hoping to have a month coming up of more money exported than paid out
Click to expand...

I admire your tenacity in trying to get the most out of your solar.

Me I only look a few times a month now.

What’s your view of how mine are performing? IMG_4039.png
 
Rlburnside said:
I admire your tenacity in trying to get the most out of your solar.

Me I only look a few times a month now.

What’s your view of how mine are performing? View attachment 57703
Click to expand...

Not familiar with the app tbh, what's the size of your system?

I've got 4.5kw system (12 panels) and this year apparently I've produced 892kwh which is just over double yours but that can be down to local area and of course size of system
 
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