A year with home Batteries (and more solar and an EV)

silverwhistle

Solarchaser said:

But if you have a quieter house, or are retired/ work from home or any number of other configurations, where you can time shift, then i think you would struggle to make it cost effective considering the TOU tarrifs you mentioned.

I'm in that situation and on a TOU tariff. As I type I'm still exporting although have just turned down the slow cooker to low. :-)

In my case a better investment might be some extra panels on the outhouse oriented west to bridge the gap from 16.00 when the hourly rate goes up. 

I'm putting back getting an EV until the current situation settles down, and then it will be all change again!

Martyn1981

silverwhistle said:

I'm putting back getting an EV until the current situation settles down, and then it will be all change again!

Oh yeah definitely. For me it has completely changed the picture, which combined with DNO refusal on any batteries as I'm already at my export limit, sets me down the extra PV route, like you mentioned, to 'gap fill'. The EV opens the door to E7 being viable, which in turn opens the door to nighttime heat pump use, which in turns open the door to another A/C unit, and more PV especially for winter and shoulder month heating consumption, and the E7 also reduces some of the imported leccy costs that PV can't 'attack' but a battery would, thus reducing the benefits of a battery. Very volatile situation still that makes for tricky decisions and investments.

But ..... the geek factor is still something that I'll sorely miss enjoying. But then there is the Octupus Tesla deal for leccy, car, and battery owners ..... maybe if the Powerwall gets G100 compliance ....... maybe, maybe, maybe's!

joefizz

ChopperST said:

Would you have installed the batteries if TOU tariffs like Octopus Agile were around when you installed. 

The only reason I started looking at solar and then batteries was that my supplier went from guaranteed 100% renewable (I know its not totally accurate etc) to normal NI mix.

Was happy just paying whatever it cost and cutting my usage down to what I could get away with.

As posted on the battery thread, the solar and battery allow me to do much much more (as well as backup). Would never have considered running 4 freezers 2 years ago, right now with whats about to happen thats probably worth more to me now than the system cost.