Smart meter and solar panels

thisreallyisme

I am considering having a smart.
The only advantage that I can see is that a smart will allow me to switch easily from a standard contract to cheap overnight energy and back again if I choose. The alternative would be to have an economy 7 meter fitted which I am then stuck with.

EricMears

ASavvyBuyer wrote: »

We are quite happy with having a smart meter, which allowed us to go onto the Octopus Go tariff that only charges 5p/kWh for 4 hours every night. The average cost of all the electricity we need to import is now only about 7.5p/kWh (depending on how much we need for charging the car and using it for other things overnight).
Originaly, I was not keen on getting one, but if it allows you to go on a tariff that works out a lot cheaper, why not.

I've just looked at the Octopus site with a view to getting a 'Go' quotation.

Site says that they'd only accept first 1000 applicants for the tariff and that in any case you'd first need to apply for an 'interim' tariff (with no guarantee that you'd actually be able to join the 'Go' scheme.

But I carried on and got a quote anyway. Their E7 rates would cost me at least £10 a month more than current supplier and when I pretended to have a smart meter already I found (not unexpectedly !) that they couldn't use my existing meter and would still need an interim tariff until they could fit theirs - the interim rate in this case would have been at least £20 a month more than my current supplier.

There's another possible snag for EV owners. The 5p rate is only available for 4 hours per night which would allow me to put approx. 26kWh into the car. Admittedly it's very rare that I want my full 40kWh but I do quite often need more than 26. I didn't get as far as finding out how much the extra 14kWh would cost but imagine it would be at least 15p each (and probably even more). That would put my average ppu for a full charge up to 8.5 which is more than my present supplier charges for E7 units.

EV battery sizes are expected to rise. Anyone with next year's Leaf (60kWh battery) would find the average for a full charge to be over 10ppu. I believe Tesla's batteries are more like 100 kWh and if so their average ppu could be 12.5.

Needless to say, I haven't applied for an Octopus deal !

thisreallyisme

If Octopus Go finished soon, I wonder about Octopus Agile, but it might just be a bit too much 'attending to my electricity use' could well develop into an obsession!

ASavvyBuyer

EricMears wrote: »

I've just looked at the Octopus site with a view to getting a 'Go' quotation.

Site says that they'd only accept first 1000 applicants for the tariff and that in any case you'd first need to apply for an 'interim' tariff (with no guarantee that you'd actually be able to join the 'Go' scheme.

The "first 1000 applicants" is for those that wanted a "smart Zappi charge point" at a reduced price, as part of the switch to Octopus Go.

If you just want the tariff, you can switch just your electric to Octopus.

We find the 4 hours a night is ample for most days, if we need a bit more, it is only 14p/kWh for our region.

They work out an average cost for each kWh, based on the % used at 5p compared to 14p, so the more you use during the 4 hours, the lower the average rate.

Since we switched to it, our average rate for all the electric we use is about 7.5p/kWh.

So it works out cheaper than most Economy 7 rates.

EricMears

ASavvyBuyer wrote: »

The "first 1000 applicants" is for those that wanted a "smart Zappi charge point" at a reduced price, as part of the switch to Octopus Go.

If you just want the tariff, you can switch just your electric to Octopus.

We find the 4 hours a night is ample for most days, if we need a bit more, it is only 14p/kWh for our region.

They work out an average cost for each kWh, based on the % used at 5p compared to 14p, so the more you use during the 4 hours, the lower the average rate.

Since we switched to it, our average rate for all the electric we use is about 7.5p/kWh.

So it works out cheaper than most Economy 7 rates.

I've looked again at the Octopus website https://octopus.energy/go
and agree that if you know the restriction applies only to the 'Zappi deal' you can interpret it thus.
However, the page is very badly written and there's no clear indication what the statement 'Only available to the first 1,000 customers' refers to.

Incidentally, to get an average figure of 7.5p you'd need to use more than 70% of your electricity within those 4 hours. My E7 usage is only 58% which the Octopus website described as well above average

ASavvyBuyer

EricMears wrote: »

Incidentally, to get an average figure of 7.5p you'd need to use more than 70% of your electricity within those 4 hours. My E7 usage is only 58% which the Octopus website described as well above average

Just had our statement for November from Octopus. Average rate of 7.18p/kWh plus VAT for all our electric. With having an EV charging, plus water heating etc, during the 4 hours, our % at the 5p rate is just over 71%.

EricMears

ASavvyBuyer wrote: »

Just had our statement for November from Octopus. Average rate of 7.18p/kWh plus VAT for all our electric. With having an EV charging, plus water heating etc, during the 4 hours, our % at the 5p rate is just over 71%.

I wasn't doubting that ASB could use over 70% within the 4 hr 'window'. Just pointing out that very few people could hope to emulate that.

Dave_Fowler

EricMears wrote: »

I wasn't doubting that ASB could use over 70% within the 4 hr 'window'. Just pointing out that very few people could hope to emulate that.

At this time of the year, I'm probably pushing 70% on to our E7 - charging the EV at night and using the washing machine and dishwasher timed to come on during the E7 hours as well. However during the Spring, Summer and Autumn, the Solar panels are used to charge the car, run the dishwasher and washing machine. In the summer the E7 hardly gets used at all unless there are several days of dull weather. The water is heated as the priority output of my proportional controller and any surplus is used to charge the car. Admittedly, I only drive around 5000 miles a year in the EV, so the car charging is not a very significant part of my electricity usage.

Dave F

EricMears

Dave_Fowler wrote: »

At this time of the year, I'm probably pushing 70% on to our E7 - charging the EV at night and using the washing machine and dishwasher timed to come on during the E7 hours as well. However during the Spring, Summer and Autumn, the Solar panels are used to charge the car, run the dishwasher and washing machine. In the summer the E7 hardly gets used at all unless there are several days of dull weather. The water is heated as the priority output of my proportional controller and any surplus is used to charge the car. Admittedly, I only drive around 5000 miles a year in the EV, so the car charging is not a very significant part of my electricity usage.

Dave F

Similar sort of things happen here. My 58% is an annual average.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

hilbil21 wrote: »

Quite a simple question but something nobody at won seems to be able to give me a straight answer on.

Can I have an eon smart meter with solar panels?

Thank you

Hello hilbil21 and sorry for the late reply. Just spotted your question.

As Exiled Tyke says and provided the property is eligible, you can have smart meters with solar panels. They're optional and will only be used for measuring the amount of imported electricity.

Although there are certain features relating to solar generation built in to most types of smart meter, the meter itself isn’t programmed to make use of this data. The information isn't accurate. We don't yet have the software available to turn this raw data into anything meaningful in terms of electricity exported to the Grid. As it's not a true reflection, we don't currently use smart technology to record and administer exported electricity.

Our smart meters are fine for accurately recording imported electricity even where customers are generating their own power.

Also, like all suppliers, we need to follow strict guidelines and rules when looking after our FIT customers. Our current smart meters aren't compliant with present industry requirements when it comes to measuring exported electricity. This is another reason why we don't use them for this purpose.

Similarly with the In-Home Displays that come with our smart meters. Whilst these, too, have features associated with exported electricity, the information isn't accurate and shouldn't be relied on. Again, they should only be used in relation to imported electricity.

This is the situation as far as we're concerned and it might be different for other suppliers. Also, we're developing our smart technology all the time so this could change further down the line. For the time being, our smart meters are only used for recording the amount of electricity imported from the Grid.

Sorry again for the late reply hilbil21and hope this answers your question.

Malc