|
|
Post by technoish on Mar 25, 2022 1:08:31 GMT
My contract gives a rating for the batteries of 20 years (IE how much they will lose in capacity over time, it's 12kwh/year, based on starting with 768kwh/year, so after 20 years it would be at 528kwh/year 768 kWh / year is only around 2 kWh per day, though. Isn't that a pretty small battery? Or is that estimated use per day and the battery capacity is way higher? 2 kWh is really nothing, that's an electric heater running for 1 hour. It's a 4.6kwh battery, but the 768kwh is the total for the yearz and I expect in winter little will go into the battery. |
|
|
|
Post by blizeh on Mar 25, 2022 5:45:05 GMT
Looks like we spend about £100 a month on electricity, so £1200 a year. The estimates are that we will get 50% from the solar, so that is a £600 saving annually. So that makes it about a 12 year pay back. Mind that this is before the energy price increases (which are like 50%) and also doesn't take into account what we sell back to grid (estimated at about 17% of our own energy usage). I expect we will actually use more energy ourselves and not sell as much back due to home working, but this increases how much solar we use as a proportion of total. And of course, now I can take off the VAT, so that knocks a bit more off also. Above all though, this is also about reducing carbon emissions, which definitely makes it worthwhile! Sorry if I’m wrong but I didn’t realise you could still send it to the grid? We currently have panels but I’m hoping to move ASAP. We had an electric car charger fitted yesterday and it got me thinking how much I’ll miss that small but somewhat reliable FiT income |
|
|
|
Post by dfunked on Mar 25, 2022 7:44:22 GMT
At 40p per unit of electricity and rising that's not exactly an insignificant amount of electricity.
|
|
|
|
Post by technoish on Mar 25, 2022 8:21:58 GMT
The feed in tariff is gone indeed, but you can still get paid for exporting back. There is no generation tariff and the export rate is supposed to be lower than it was under FiT where it was set by gvt.
I don't know what the current going rate is, but would assume a fair bit below what you pay in the other direction.
|
|
geefe
Full Member
Short for Zangief
Posts: 8,323
|
Post by geefe on Mar 25, 2022 8:53:09 GMT
I gather it's about 6p
|
|
Psiloc
Junior Member
Posts: 1,566
|
Post by Psiloc on Mar 25, 2022 11:24:15 GMT
I think 6p is at the higher end. But you can shop around, you basically sell it directly to an energy company (doesn't have to be the same company that provides your electricity) so the market will dictate the price. I guess in theory as energy gets more valuable that 6p should go up. It will always be more economical to use the energy yourself - unless you're really just turning shit on for the sake of it.
Anyway boys and girls, I've just learned about "portable power stations" which are basically plug in batteries meaning in theory I can use one with my leased solar panels. Gonna do some maths.
|
|
Psiloc
Junior Member
Posts: 1,566
|
Post by Psiloc on Mar 25, 2022 11:30:27 GMT
By the way, the old feed in tariff, is that running indefinitely for people who managed to sign up before it ended? So they continue to get the same deal for now right?
The solar panels were installed at our house in 2012 apparently and I'm pretty sure the leasing company were on that deal that paid out per unit of energy generated regardless of whether it was used or not. So win/win for everybody. If they're suddenly made to only get paid for the exported energy, and I'm here with my immersion controller and batteries using every last drop, what are the chances of them knocking on the door and hassling me?
|
|
Psiloc
Junior Member
Posts: 1,566
|
Post by Psiloc on Mar 25, 2022 13:37:31 GMT
Anyway boys and girls, I've just learned about "portable power stations" which are basically plug in batteries meaning in theory I can use one with my leased solar panels. Gonna do some maths. A 1kwh battery for £1,000. What do we think? EDIT: Oh shite. I shouldn't have clicked on this video. |
|
Psiloc
Junior Member
Posts: 1,566
|
Post by Psiloc on Feb 27, 2023 11:25:22 GMT
Woohoo I think IFTTT is going to work. Bit fucking random but I can do an IFTTT alert based on whether an Android device is charging or not. So I can get a junk old phone out of my drawer and plug it in to the plug socket permanently and IFTTT will tell me whether it's charging or not, i.e. whether there is spare solar. I can then control a smart plug based on that Incidentally IFTTT is way easier to use than I thought it would be I prefer the idea of this potentially wobbly power supply being used with a USB charger anyway now that I think about it. This proved too clumsy in the end and I recently came up with a better solution. (For background, I was trying to get a plug socket to turn itself on if and when there is spare solar going to waste, and turn itself off otherwise. I can't install a battery or mess with the equipment at all as it is leased). The solution is the Shelly line of products which are cool as hell. They do an energy monitor, Shelly EM, that works by putting a CT clamp around your main electricity cable and one around the solar cable by the fuse box. Dead easy to install. You then have a smart meter on your phone for both the grid and the solar. Since the Shelly app supports "scenes" (routines) you can get it to do stuff when the solar input exceeds the current demand of the house. This includes telling Alexa to do stuff like turn on my radiator. All good and much more robust than the IFTTT thing. I went further though and bought a few of the Shelly 1PM units. They're sort of smart plugs except you wire them in yourself, the idea being that you can make any dumb device "smart". I've wired one into my immersion controller, so I now have energy monitoring on that as well, but I also wired one inside an extension lead. This means that rather than a smart plug, the extension lead itself is smart and I can carry it around and plug whatever I want into it to use on solar power only. The 1PM is also rated for full mains power and since it doesn't need to go through IFTTT or Alexa or anything like that it feels much more robust. Incidentally, and wrong thread at this point I know, but they also do a unit that wires into the back of light switches to turn them smart so you can use voice commands as well as continue to use the original switch, i.e. not one of those ugly dedicated smart ones. They don't always need a neutral wire either. |
|
Psiloc
Junior Member
Posts: 1,566
|
Post by Psiloc on Feb 27, 2023 11:27:05 GMT
I could I guess use the spare solar switch to charge an off-the-shelf battery of some sort, if I could figure out how to then have the battery feed the house wiring... EDIT: I've decided to bite the bullet and get some proper solar batteries. I used this product and installation company: lr-renewables.co.uk/product/growatt-3-3kw-battery-storage-bundle-installation-included/Can highly recommend both. Exactly as predicted I now immediately want a bigger battery though, but part of the beauty is I can expand this pretty much as far as I want when I need to without one massive upfront cost. Apparently there is currently huge demand for batteries from people who don't even have solar or any sort of renewables just so they can charge it overnight off-peak. Which reassures me with the rent-a-roof people as the battery feels completely independent of any of the solar stuff. |
|
|
|
Post by johnno on Feb 27, 2023 15:19:13 GMT
Anyone know of a solar consultant or independent expert service.
I’ve got 3x quotes for a solar install, they’re all pretty similar cost wise but use different equipment and I’d love an expert to just tell me what to go for. My annual usage is 5,800 kWh so I’m looking at about 13 panels with 5kw battery, so about £12.5k total. Looks like around a 7-8year pay back.
|
|
Psiloc
Junior Member
Posts: 1,566
|
Post by Psiloc on Feb 27, 2023 16:00:35 GMT
I've never heard of such services I'm afraid. Best I can say is ask on one of the solar reddits or do some research based on the brands you've been quoted.
Feel free to post details here in the off chance I'm familiar with any of it.
£12.5k sounds about right on the face of it. EVs notwithstanding, with that spec you'd probably be near energy independent between Spring and Autumn.
|
|
