Solar panels , would you ?

[Neilds]

Seems strange that some people on hear think a company is good if it sorts out problems quickly. Surely a good company wouldn't 'forget' days in the first place so you wouldn't need to contact them at all? Having to contact a company on a monthly basis as they have made a mistake shows poor service to me, not good service.

 

[Deleted member 21784]

Seems strange that some people on hear think a company is good if it sorts out problems quickly. Surely a good company wouldn't 'forget' days in the first place so you wouldn't need to contact them at all? Having to contact a company on a monthly basis as they have made a mistake shows poor service to me, not good service.

You clearly haven't dealt with energy companies

I contact them to fix My bill once a year because their systems want to move my electric at the same time as gas but I don't want to. Needs manually doing.

Octopus are by far the best energy company out there , nobody comes close for customer service

 

[Neilds]

You clearly haven't dealt with energy companies

I contact them to fix My bill once a year because their systems want to move my electric at the same time as gas but I don't want to. Needs manually doing.

Octopus are by far the best energy company out there , nobody comes close for customer service

you have actually just proved my point in your comment. I haven't dealt with my energy provider because they are doing exactly what I want them to do, provide energy at a reasonable cost. In my eyes, this makes them better than Octopus as they do it right first time without me needing to constantly get in touch.



(or I am a better customer than you who doesn't want the moon on a stick at no cost )

 

[Deleted member 21784]

you have actually just proved my point in your comment. I haven't dealt with my energy provider because they are doing exactly what I want them to do, provide energy at a reasonable cost. In my eyes, this makes them better than Octopus as they do it right first time without me needing to constantly get in touch.



(or I am a better customer than you who doesn't want the moon on a stick at no cost )

@cliveb will explain it..if you have any issues with smart meters (which happens , some people get more issues than others) for example mines fine but others meters need a nudge

This isn't energy suppliers faults

However how the deal with it when you contact them is the making of company

Where as others will just let you rack up a huge bill without knowing

Little bit of understanding of others issues goes a long way eh?

 

[larmen]

Octopus is quite good and it has now been rectified.
Before I was with Bulb and they were fine as well. Before that I was with various nationally owned(?) suppliers which I will each not touch again for various reasons. BG, EFF, Scottish Power. All customer service related.

When we moved to a smart meter Bulb sent me a £12,000 gas bill because the meter turned backwards over 0 on the 1st day, the owner himself was chasing the resolution for me.
Similar size billing issue on BG and they had debt collectors dropping stuff in my letterbox while I was clearly home. You weren't there, this is your last warning stuff .... Repeatedly.
EDF had ridiculous high monthly estimates which they didn't allow me to lower. Scottish I can't remember, but they are on my list.

Bulb and Octopus seem to be the ones that do try and rectify if something is off.

 

[Deleted member 21784]

Octopus is quite good and it has now been rectified.
Before I was with Bulb and they were fine as well. Before that I was with various nationally owned(?) suppliers which I will each not touch again for various reasons. BG, EFF, Scottish Power. All customer service related.

When we moved to a smart meter Bulb sent me a £12,000 gas bill because the meter turned backwards over 0 on the 1st day, the owner himself was chasing the resolution for me.
Similar size billing issue on BG and they had debt collectors dropping stuff in my letterbox while I was clearly home. You weren't there, this is your last warning stuff .... Repeatedly.
EDF had ridiculous high monthly estimates which they didn't allow me to lower. Scottish I can't remember, but they are on my list.

Bulb and Octopus seem to be the ones that do try and rectify if something is off.

Every year I want to renew my gas. But my electric is with go which is in beta so if I try and renew online it's tries to lock my electric to standard

Quick message to them on twitter and I'm locked in again for a year on gas with my electric left alone

Only other time I really get in touch is for missing meter readings if I notice I'm missing one and they ping My meter and there it is.


Comms issues aren't their fault . Happens.

Whilst I'm here

Currently £22 in the black this month for export after import is taken off

Gas bill stands at £15

Few days left of the billing cycle

Need one charge of the car (not much but I need 100% that day)

At present I'm forecasting to cover my electric, gas and have £5 or so credit on top

 

[Deleted member 21784]

Well this was the best month so far

Bill £49.49
Export £74.51
Gas bill £19.10

Gas bill only put in there to show I have actually covered the lot

Savings this month £202 compared to a cost of £177 for the month to run without the system

£9532 left until system paid off

Below octopus account



This one's a good visual, imported from the grid less than I exported and produced more solar overall than I used total for the month

 

[Deleted member 21784]

June's figures are in

Bill from octopus. £59.31
Export from octopus. £78.50
(Side note gas bill £19.72 so total off my balance £0.53)

Total usage this month 741.9 kWh (up from last month, air con is in full swing)

Cost without the system (based on flexible tariff) would have been £217.52

Savings this month £236.71

Year 4 saving £438.95
Total saving £5961.14

Cost left to break even £9360.64

Rough estimate of 5 years left to break even



As above I produced more this month than last (1 more day in billing period mind) exported more but imported a fair size more than last.

 

[Mudball]

I have a full battery... My panels are blazing hot and pumping.
So i decided, it may be ok to plug the EV in.... surely shoudl be free.

Nope... it starts pulling from the grid!!! I am sure there is some setting that requires me to drain the battery during the day... Anyways that was just a rant..

 

[Deleted member 21784]

I have a full battery... My panels are blazing hot and pumping.
So i decided, it may be ok to plug the EV in.... surely shoudl be free.

Nope... it starts pulling from the grid!!! I am sure there is some setting that requires me to drain the battery during the day... Anyways that was just a rant..

Why would you waste it charging? Export everything to the grid. Max out your return. Don't even bother filling my battery I just export as much as I can

Import is 7p export is 15p

So don't put it in your car!! Charge at night!!

 

[Deleted member 21784]

So a few months ago Tesla rolled out an annoying update of their algorithms for the powerwall. I used to be able to trick it to charge all night and discharge in day..no matter what the solar prediction (so was set to say electric was 1p night and £1 in day this tricked it for 3 years) however they mucked around with it and even with it knowing electric at night is dirt cheap (7p) and export is 15p it tries to leave space to store the solar.. no thank you. Sell everything.

I did some research and found the "NetZero" app which is a 3rd party powerwall app that gives you the control I want. I set it to midnight tell the powerwall to charge to 100% then at 5am say it can act as normal .. bingo. Right what I wanted. I then played around with the powerwall tariffs and told it that during the day between 0830 and 1800 selling it was worth money so please do. Fantastic, last 3 months exports have smashed last year's

Of course a spanner gets thrown in. NetZero, after being free for years, £6.99 per month or £69.99 a year. Researched again. Without going full home assistant (£200 for set up) it's just worth paying that a year for the returns I get. That starts august 1st .. what I have managed to do tho is play around with it even more to maximise my return. So now powerwall wants to send everything back to the grid from the panels between 0830-1800 however sometimes (if we been doing lots of washing or the air con been on a lot) we can run the battery down and have to touch the day rate around 9pm for 2 hours. Not a big deal only costing about 50p a day on average but every penny counts with this set up.. so now between 0900:1130 if the battery drops past 70% tell the system to hold the solar and divert to battery ... If it then gets back up to 80% fine .. between 1130-1500 if it gets to 65% tell it to hold.. if back to 80% sell again.. then 1500-1800 if it gets to 50% hold.. unless it gets back to 60% then sell again. This makes sure I have enough on average to see me through until 2330 when the night rate kicks back in. At 18:05 it puts the powerwall back into normal mode but the tariff says don't sell anyways so it just feeds the house until 2330.

That's the April to sept setting. Oct to march it's told to not sell solar unless the battery is full. Winter mode basically

So far tho it's really worked well

April 335 kWh exported out of 547 produced
May 500kwh exported out of 600
June 527 kWh exported out of 655

Comparing that to same periods last year

April 220 export out of 520
May 293 export out of 606
June 217 exported out of 512

roughly adding them up thats already covered the cost of NetZero app with July August sept or exports still to go.

I still run my system to pay my direct debit £200 a month and then come April width drawn it back to £0 which at current predicted numbers will be £1400 in there, minus £70 got netzero and that's a tidy sum to put aside.

 

[Neilds]

So a few months ago Tesla rolled out an annoying update of their algorithms for the powerwall. I used to be able to trick it to charge all night and discharge in day..no matter what the solar prediction (so was set to say electric was 1p night and £1 in day this tricked it for 3 years) however they mucked around with it and even with it knowing electric at night is dirt cheap (7p) and export is 15p it tries to leave space to store the solar.. no thank you. Sell everything.

I did some research and found the "NetZero" app which is a 3rd party powerwall app that gives you the control I want. I set it to midnight tell the powerwall to charge to 100% then at 5am say it can act as normal .. bingo. Right what I wanted. I then played around with the powerwall tariffs and told it that during the day between 0830 and 1800 selling it was worth money so please do. Fantastic, last 3 months exports have smashed last year's

Of course a spanner gets thrown in. NetZero, after being free for years, £6.99 per month or £69.99 a year. Researched again. Without going full home assistant (£200 for set up) it's just worth paying that a year for the returns I get. That starts august 1st .. what I have managed to do tho is play around with it even more to maximise my return. So now powerwall wants to send everything back to the grid from the panels between 0830-1800 however sometimes (if we been doing lots of washing or the air con been on a lot) we can run the battery down and have to touch the day rate around 9pm for 2 hours. Not a big deal only costing about 50p a day on average but every penny counts with this set up.. so now between 0900:1130 if the battery drops past 70% tell the system to hold the solar and divert to battery ... If it then gets back up to 80% fine .. between 1130-1500 if it gets to 65% tell it to hold.. if back to 80% sell again.. then 1500-1800 if it gets to 50% hold.. unless it gets back to 60% then sell again. This makes sure I have enough on average to see me through until 2330 when the night rate kicks back in. At 18:05 it puts the powerwall back into normal mode but the tariff says don't sell anyways so it just feeds the house until 2330.

That's the April to sept setting. Oct to march it's told to not sell solar unless the battery is full. Winter mode basically

So far tho it's really worked well

April 335 kWh exported out of 547 produced
May 500kwh exported out of 600
June 527 kWh exported out of 655

Comparing that to same periods last year

April 220 export out of 520
May 293 export out of 606
June 217 exported out of 512

roughly adding them up thats already covered the cost of NetZero app with July August sept or exports still to go.

I still run my system to pay my direct debit £200 a month and then come April width drawn it back to £0 which at current predicted numbers will be £1400 in there, minus £70 got netzero and that's a tidy sum to put aside.

£200 a month with all the gadgets you have? And paying that into a 0% interest account? I thought you were financially savvy but doubting it now

 

[Deleted member 21784]

£200 a month with all the gadgets you have? And paying that into a 0% interest account? I thought you were financially savvy but doubting it now

I like a bit of redundancy built into my direct debit. Incase we charge on the go, incase a harsh winter and we use more gas , or if I had to charge the car in the day for some reason

Reset every year and put the money in the golf bag

It stems back to before the system when I was fixed very cheap and Ukraine happened. Kept it high to have a fund for the following year to have me used to high bills incase making sure was all affordable

 

[Neilds]

I like a bit of redundancy built into my direct debit. Incase we charge on the go, incase a harsh winter and we use more gas , or if I had to charge the car in the day for some reason

Reset every year and put the money in the golf bag

It stems back to before the system when I was fixed very cheap and Ukraine happened. Kept it high to have a fund for the following year to have me used to high bills incase making sure was all affordable

£1400 redundancy for a harsh winter is planning for another ice age - haven’t you heard that winters are getting milder? Cut the DD and put the balance in a savings account if you are that worried.

 

[Deleted member 21784]

£1400 redundancy for a harsh winter is planning for another ice age - haven’t you heard that winters are getting milder? Cut the DD and put the balance in a savings account if you are that worried.

Last year I had to pay 60% on my savings interest due to the nationwide fair share policy putting me over the limit so prefer this way

(There was a year a couple years ago before the kids went school where I managed my AVCs and overtime just right to not go over the threshold to lose my childcare hours, as interest earnings counts as income so it helped there aswell)

 

[cliveb]

Last year I had to pay 60% on my savings interest due to the nationwide fair share policy putting me over the limit so prefer this way

I'm sorry, but since when has there been a 60% tax rate on savings interest? AFAIK 45% is the top marginal tax rate.
And if you're on that rate, none of us on here will have much sympathy for you

In any case, it would still make sense to get some interest instead of leaving it to sit earning nothing.
You get some of it, and the government gets its cut to (hopefully) do something useful with it.

And finally, haven't Octopus been in touch to tell you you're paying too much?
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from them saying they are reducing my DD from £120 to £37.
I didn't have to ask them, they just did it.

 

[Deleted member 21784]

I'm sorry, but since when has there been a 60% tax rate on savings interest? AFAIK 45% is the top marginal tax rate.
And if you're on that rate, none of us on here will have much sympathy for you

In any case, it would still make sense to get some interest instead of leaving it to sit earning nothing.
You get some of it, and the government gets its cut to (hopefully) do something useful with it.

And finally, haven't Octopus been in touch to tell you you're paying too much?
A couple of weeks ago I got an email from them saying they are reducing my DD from £120 to £37.
I didn't have to ask them, they just did it.

When you go over 100k you lose your personal allowance £1 for every £2 over which makes earnings between 100 and 125 taxed at 60%

Savings interest is £500 free for 40% tax payers however once over that it's charged at your interest rate and it counts as income .

What is the 60% tax trap & how can you legally avoid it? | Unbiased https://share.google/iJven1VkdRCT1THyl

Plus as I explained to you before I save enough, pay enough into pension and enough into over paying my mortgage im not worried about a tiny bit of lost interest for the sake of it .

Also when I started this interest was like 0.5%, not looking for sympathy im just happy with my system of working for now. Maybe in the future I'll change it but I CBA. I have it as redundancy, say my bills go up £50 a month I know I have £50 I could just change my DD if I wanted

Octopus have tried to change it before but I always put it back up. They are happy for me to pay £0

 

[cliveb]

When you go over 100k you lose your personal allowance £1 for every £2 over which makes earnings between 100 and 125 taxed at 60%

Ah right, so you earn over £100k. Definitely no sympathy!

 

[Deleted member 21784]

Ah right, so you earn over £100k. Definitely no sympathy!

Only with overtime, which is why I salary sacrifice, Avcs and try to reduce my overtime in January- march. Last year I sailed past 110 and owe the tax man a lump sum as I reset my personal allowance. However with salary sacrifice this year I will limbo under once more plus I've curbed the weekend working to play more golf (plus last year was because 2023 and 2024 pay rise were paid in the same tax year)

 

[Mudball]

i tried the Octopus flexi gas ... it is one of their market linked model and this winter it blew a hole in my trousers. I went from being summer leccy surplus to 800 quid in deficit. couple of months ago, went to fixed. Too much trouble. Though their solar is pretty good.