Solar installed and n power says my reading is less than last year??

Martyn1981

Toddy wrote: »

Hi all, many thanks for the feedback. Just thinking out loud, my system is a 3.5 kW and without doing the sums I don't suppose its possible then to generate more than I use hence a true reading of less than last year? I don't think its that good at generating.

Hiya Toddy, having a negative year on year reading will depend on the size of the system but also consumption. My systems generate around 4,250kWh pa (looking like 4,600 this year) but my consumption is about 3,000kWh. So it would be a combination of generation and consumption.

Toddy wrote: »

Also, reading the threads on ere, once I have the stop fitted they seem to monitor your ussage over the next 6 weeks and do their calculations. Hardly fair now winter is upon us. Would it be an idea to delay until next summer for example?

Thanks again,

Toddy

I don't know if that's what they'll do, but it could work in your favour. If they did come after you for 'deleted' units, then this time of year you'll be generating less, and possibly consuming slightly more, so the exported units will be less per day, probably, than in the summer.

Calculating what was exported is very hard to do, without year on year figures to compare, and until you have a 'proper' meter and it's been a year, it'll be tricky to guess.

Also, do you know if your meter is a free backspinner, or like many the units dial can't go back past zero (I think it's zero). This changes things a lot. Imagine starting the morning of a very sunny day with the meter reading xxxxxx1, you export 15kWh let's say, but the meter only goes backward to xxxxxx0 before locking, removing 1kWh. What if the meter started on xxxxxx9, your export would have removed 9kWh ..... and so on, and in neither example did it remove the full 15kWh you exported.

You should be able to work out if it was recording all export. Compare import from the year before PV, to the year with PV. If all exported units are clocking backwards then the reading should be approximately lower by an amount equal to the years generation ..... assuming your consumption pattern hasn't changed much, perhaps shifting nightime E7 dishwasher to sunny midday.

For me, I export about 70%* of what I generate, but get paid (export) for 50%. So a starting point in negotiating (if they try to reclaim monies) may be to say, "if you assume/deem that I only export 50%, then that's all I should have to pay for".

* I can estimate that by comparing year on year import from before (3,000kWh) and after PV (1,600kWh). A backwards meter would prevent any such comparison.

No idea if any of this helps you. Sorry.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Andy_WSM wrote: »

your generation meter should only record outgoing power.

The TGM records total generation, not export.

Mart.

Andy_WSM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

The TGM records total generation, not export.

Mart.

Yes, my bad. Poor wording on my part.

I have my own system

Martyn1981

Andy_WSM wrote: »

Yes, my bad. Poor wording on my part.

I have my own system

Sorry Andy, that was very short of me, should have realised it was a mistake, just a bit sensitive as 'misterbarlow' had said it yesterday.

Mart.

Andy_WSM

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Sorry Andy, that was very short of me, should have realised it was a mistake, just a bit sensitive as 'misterbarlow' had said it yesterday.

Mart.

You were right to point it out. I could well have confused the issue totally if the Op thought the generation meter was supposed to measure export!

Martyn1981

Andy_WSM wrote: »

You were right to point it out. I could well have confused the issue totally if the Op thought the generation meter was supposed to measure export!

Maybe the subject is bringing out the worst in me. It was discussed in this thread a week or so back:

British Gas meter mystery

with one poster repeatedly claiming that it's easy/simple to calculate what export would have been ...... right up to the point I asked them to show how!

Mart.

misterbarlow

I thought that was how it worked.. and stand corrected...
apologies for any confusion caused then!!