Renewables: "talking 'bout my generation"

Martyn1981 · 1 March at 9:18AM

February results.

Poor but Ok* month with 57% of target. Big spread, with 51% for the ESE/SSW and 93% for the WNW.

Generated 181kWh (20.74 O's).
Imported 686kWh.
Exported 14kWh.
Total consumption 853kWh.
Gas was ~100kWh. [DHW & oven.]

Consumption reasonable(ish). BEV charging was mostly cheap rate, but some PV towards the end of the month. GCH is still off, and fingers crossed, will remain so.

Poor Feb but good reasons.

*I'm using A2A units for heating, mostly run off cheap rate import. My batts are DC side, so the import winds the TGM backwards. So when I use that leccy the meter winds forward, but less due to battery losses. This is only an issue for months with battery charging from the grid. The last week of Feb I didn't import to charge the batts at all, thanks to higher PV gen. Hopefully minimal for Mch, not sure I've crossed the point for all BEV charging off PV quite yet.

Looks like this Feb is about 350kWh of leccy higher than usual, but no GCH, so gas about 950kWh lower than Feb 2024. Leccy bill actually lower than last year, since almost all import was cheap rate (about 25kWh day rate).

My cheap rate leccy is ~7p/kWh whilst gas is ~6.5p/kWh. So allowing for boiler efficiency, I'd suggest gas and leccy are the same cost for resistive heating**, and of course leccy cheaper for all A2A heating thanks to the COP. So looks like I'm replacing roughly 3 units of gas with one unit of leccy, given that this year was a bit colder.

**Second half of Feb, resistive heating was minimal, with most upstairs heat coming from the two downstairs A2A units.

Thought I might add on bills with a running total for the year (doesn't include any export/FiT monies, nor Ripple income):

Leccy £126.94 + SC £33.69 = £168.66
Gas £11.62 + SC £16.16 = £27.78
Petrol .... £0.00

KevinG · 1 March at 10:37AM

A good finish to the month with 4.29 Os, putting me a mere 18% under PVGIS for the month.

NedS · 1 March at 4:59PM

Alnat1 said:

February saved the best till last with 3.14 O's but it didn't make up for it being a very poor month.

Wow, what a roller coaster Feb was. Ended the month with 179.45kW of generation (99% of PVGIS), but half of it came in 6 of the last 7 days. The first 3 weeks were a damp squib. Judging by how poorly others did, I'm delighted to have broken (near) even for the month.

Best day was yesterday with 5.33 O's, and we achieved 49.23 O's overall for the month.

Hey, Spring is now officially with us, so lets hope for some better O's

Coastalwatch · 1 March at 5:34PM

Well done Ned with an Hawaii so early in the season, great to achieve. Can't compete with that but a 3.8 O's today to start March off will do nicely thank you.