Solar things

WiParson said:
I'm thinking about alternative energy usage all the time. Especially taking into account all bills number I get each month...
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Any question feel free to fire away, so far I'm tracking reasonably well against the 3750kwh per year estimates per month data I had in this post:

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Solar things

Following on from my post in the stuff bought thread, I wanted to post more detail without horribly de-railing the main thread. This is primarily for @Geriatric hedgehog but info/discussion welcome with anyone. Hope you have a nice cuppa tea (I'd highly recommend Twinings Strong English...
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According to my inverter, I've generated the following per month:

September: 375 kWh
October: 313 kWh
November: 150 kWh
December (so far): 86.9 kWh

My generation later in the year is a little impaired because I get some shading on the panels from the nearby houses as the sun is so low. I expect decent figures for the months in the middle of the year as this shading element won't exist, and where it does the days are shorter anyway so the impact is less. On a decent sunny day I can still pull in good enough figures to tide me over combined with off-peak battery charge with Octopus Go.

One thing to be wary of here is that this system won't help with the gas bills really, especially as you get less sun when you need the heating the most, it will mainly only really help offset usage on an average basis across electric + gas combined for the whole year.

Even if you had spare electric to use most heating sources for electric are only 1:1 efficiency with kWh spent and output, unless you have an air source heat pump or air conditioning setup where they can be up to 400-500% efficient depending on conditions.
 
Solar stuff going well, but on the subject of energy, it's possible to somewhat beat the prices with Octopus lately.

They do a tracker tariff that is currently about 25-30% cheaper per kWh for both gas and electric than the SVR.

The rate changes daily, but for the last month or so this has been true. Need to keep an eye on prices but if they shoot up you can always switch back to SVR penalty free.

Smart Meter not required but without one must submit a monthly read, and you then get charged a blended average of the entire month pricing and units used. With a smart meter you pay for usage on the day at the rate that was set.

7.17p/kWh for gas today vs 10.4p/kWh when I was on the SVR tariff:

rGXXDep.png


Additionally to this Ripple looks interesting but it's hard to say if it's worth it or not, I am undecided. Website if people want to see what it's about: rippleenergy.com

You buy a share of a wind-farm and then get paid for generation.

Long re-pay time though I think! I like the concept though.
 
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If anyone is interested, I have stats from a whole year worth of solar info, including what I paid each month and things, all in a nice table. I flipped from Go to Flux in spring as it paid better for exporting, which was partly why my bills were going negative then.

This is start of September 22 - end of August 23, so a full calendar year.

solar.png

There is lots of interesting points across the data in the sums, but the key breakdown is on the final column, the Grand Cost.

For a whole year my total cost for all gas and electric was £695. Which is amazing because I am a pretty heavy electric user. You can see this from the 6329 kWh I used of electric for the year, which is an average of 17.4 kWh per day.

Once I take off the credits we had, and other incentives, I think this actually went negative! This figure does not include:
  • Gov £400 we had last winter
  • £100 I earnt from Octopus saving sessions
  • £50 per referral to Octopus energy (you split £50 each when you refer someone). I had a few of these, more than the 4 required to get £200 which would put me cost neutral.
I'm still really liking Octopus in general, their email support is garbage, but I generally find them pretty good when I call them or DM them on Twitter for help, which is pretty rare.

For electric the smart tariffs are good, but for gas there isn't much choice. I'm currently on the tracker still for that, and have been since Feb. So far there hasn't been a single day when I paid more than the SVR price that most people are paying, it could change in the depths of Winter but I think on balance it should be cheaper than SVR rates for the foreseeable.

I'm considering adding more panels even but need to validate it, I have space on the E facing roof where I could put 2.5 kW or so of panels I think. Checking costs.
 
Geriatric hedgehog said:
That is absolutely amazing! That's my bill in one quarter😔 alone. We use a similar amount of leki but twice as much gas and the latter is what batters us so I guess solar wouldn't help much. Really helpful to have that breakdown though, thanks for sharing.
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It doesn't no, not even for me really, on a good/sunny day I can use some excess solar to power the aircon on heating mode, but tbh at the times when you need it the most, there isn't as much solar to go around so that is a really limited use case.

I'm on the gas tracker with Octopus which has been cheaper than SVR 100% of the time since I moved to it in Feb. Not gone above SVR on any single day since I started on it in Feb.

This is the data from the last month, SVR is currently 7p/kWh, so for the last month it has been cheaper than 7, usually 5.5 or less. It's not earth shattering figures but it does add up. The only issue with trackers is they need a smart meter and the price isn't capped, so a shock to the energy market could send the prices much higher than SVR.

Good news? you can switch away penalty free back to SVR so limited risk.

There is also an electric tracker, which is usually less than 20p/kWh or so lately.

If you're interested in switching to Octopus DM me if you want, there is a switching bonus I can share with you, but I would not recommend them unless I truly backed them, and I think they're the best supplier in the UK currently so have no issue in doing so.

Gas tracker data:

gas.png
 
Lordhippos said:
It doesn't no, not even for me really, on a good/sunny day I can use some excess solar to power the aircon on heating mode, but tbh at the times when you need it the most, there isn't as much solar to go around so that is a really limited use case.

I'm on the gas tracker with Octopus which has been cheaper than SVR 100% of the time since I moved to it in Feb. Not gone above SVR on any single day since I started on it in Feb.

This is the data from the last month, SVR is currently 7p/kWh, so for the last month it has been cheaper than 7, usually 5.5 or less. It's not earth shattering figures but it does add up. The only issue with trackers is they need a smart meter and the price isn't capped, so a shock to the energy market could send the prices much higher than SVR.

Good news? you can switch away penalty free back to SVR so limited risk.

There is also an electric tracker, which is usually less than 20p/kWh or so lately.

If you're interested in switching to Octopus DM me if you want, there is a switching bonus I can share with you, but I would not recommend them unless I truly backed them, and I think they're the best supplier in the UK currently so have no issue in doing so.

Gas tracker data:

View attachment 31370
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Thanks dude; I am also already a fellow octopus user myself and very happy with them too. They don't seem like your usual money grabby corporate types so relatively refreshing. I've been meaning to look into picking the best deal suited to our use with them, but don't have a smart meter so am limited there. Should probably get over my paranoia about the man wanting to screw me over and just get one I guess.
 
Side benefit, nice not to have to take meter readings as you get accurate data in, in my case 30 minute intervals. It's also handy to see what usage is like at different times of the day (if you get a bill for more than you expect, you can see if a certain time of day has higher than expected usage).

With a lot of the better Octopus tariffs the smart tariff is necessary, you'd probably do pretty well on the tracker for both gas and electric vs staying on SVR, without really changing anything about what you do.

Definitely a personal decision, though I think they'll force everyone to have a smart meter eventually.
 
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