How low can you go...Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Whatever... electricity grid import

Alnat1

I had my solar and battery installed on 3rd March and was with Scottish Power at the time. They won't pay for anything I generate, their reasoning, as I have a hybrid inverter I might import "brown energy" to them.

I completed the switch to Octopus on 21st April, flexible (capped rate) tariffs for my gas and electricity supply and Outgoing Agile for the excess I generate. I believe the Agile payments will show on the bill each time I request an energy statement.

Spies

Alnat1 said:

I had my solar and battery installed on 3rd March and was with Scottish Power at the time. They won't pay for anything I generate, their reasoning, as I have a hybrid inverter I might import "brown energy" to them.

Haha what on earth. 

mickyduck55

Get ready boys and girls we should have some good numbers this month?

QrizB

mickyduck55 said:

Get ready boys and girls we should have some good numbers this month?

We can certainly try; I expect there are plenty of people with bigger batteries than me who will do better than this!

QrizB said:

QrizB said:

How was March? It got off to a slow start - the first fortnight was well behind PVGIS - but picked up nicely.

• (e) January 2021 - 406kWh imported, 65kWh generated
  
• (e) February - 376kWh imported, 97kWh generated
  
• (e) March - 268kWh imported, 224kWh generated
  
• (e) April - 158kWh imported, 351kWh generated
  
• May - 105kWh imported, 324kWh generated export N/A (meter not fitted).
• June - 92kWh imported, 272kWh generated, export N/A
• July - 99kWh imported, 319kWh generated, 43kWh exported (from 26/06 smart meter installation).
• August - 62kWh imported, 256kWh generated, 183kWh exported (battery commissioned 16/08).
• September  - 75kWh imported, 238kWh generated, 146kWh exported.
• October - 130kWh imported, 171kWh generated, 50kWh exported
• November - 200kWh imported, 94kWh generated, 24kWh exported.
• December - 258kWh imported, 41kWh generated, 7kWh exported.
• January 2022 - 219kWh imported, 84kWh generated, 17kWh exported.
• February - 169kWh imported, 142kWh generated, 51kWh exported.
• March - 146kWh imported, 246kWh generated, 99kWh exported.

April is now behind us (where is the year going) and here are the scores on the doors:

• April - 132kWh imported, 300kWh generated (105% of PVGIS), 179kWh exported (60% of generation).

And now for May, when we're well into the swing of things and PVGIS is predicting more than 100 O's per month..

• May - 106kWh imported, 335kWh generated (123.3 O's, 111% of PVGIS), 171kWh exported (51% of generation).

Import is down to 3.4kWh/day. I've continued to use off-peak Go to heat water when the weather forecast has made me doubt whether I'd get enough solar to do the job. (Weather forecasts have proved rather fickle but that's another matter!)

Self-consumption of 164kWh (5.3kWh/day) is much better than last month but even so, since installation of my smart meter total export is running at 49% of generation so my 12-month export total is almost certain to be over the 50% deemed figure. I might need to switch to metered export after all.

Compared to last May I've imported 1kWh more (noise!) and have generated 11kWh more (good, but thanks to Apollo and his chariot, not me).

My latest Octopus Go statement shows May-ish consumption of ~76kWh off-peak and ~36kWh peak, for an average price of 8.2p/kWh, which is not quite as good as last month (most of the reduction in consumption is nght rate).

Finally, I have (today!) replaced my dodgy 60/50Ah LFP cells with some much more convincing-seeming 100Ah ones. I'm hopeful these will let me get down to <1kWh/day import at least occasionally during June. We'll all find out in due course!

mickyduck55

May another good month for me, 5% over PVGIS ...

Every months so far this year has exceeded PVGIS





303 kWh Total used
6.29  kWh imported (I will never get to zero even if in theory I should because of response times from the inverter) 
533 kWh generated
218  kWh exported

65% of generation used... 

PVGIS 505
Best day 26.74 kWh
Worse day 7.32 kWh

Gas usage almost zero... 0.895 m3

Waywardmike

This is the first month that I've had the battery installed for the entirety, not a big battery but it's working very well!

I switched monitoring software mid way through so have added the totals from both. Generation and import are from meters the rest from CT clamps, so probably highly inaccurate.

432.6 kWh total used
48 kWh imported (From meter). Looking at meter history, last year we imported 239 kWh.
544 kWh generated (From meter)
97.4  kWh exported

Generation 114% of PVGIS
Best day 28.7 kWh
Worse day 6.78 kWh

Magnitio

The results for May:

Generated 813.6 kWh

Imported 3.44 kWh

Consumed 301.11 kWh

Exported 474.96 kWh

System losses 40.97 kWh

Gas 29.4kWh

First month with no battery charging from grid, so import was just to cover the very rare usage over 5.5kW and inverter reaction to changing load/generation.

Heating was on for first few days of May and some additional gas for boosting hot water on odd occassions. The rest of the hot water was from immersion (121.57 kWh)

Switched during May to Agile Outgoing Octopus and income from export looks to be just over £53.

mickyduck55

Magnitio said:

The results for May:

Generated 813.6 kWh

Imported 3.44 kWh

Consumed 301.11 kWh

Exported 474.96 kWh

System losses 40.97 kWh

Gas 29.4kWh

First month with no battery charging from grid, so import was just to cover the very rare usage over 5.5kW and inverter reaction to changing load/generation.

Heating was on for first few days of May and some additional gas for boosting hot water on odd occassions. The rest of the hot water was from immersion (121.57 kWh)

Switched during May to Agile Outgoing Octopus and income from export looks to be just over £53.

3.34 import.. brilliant, as you say probably due to having 5.5 kWh on demand I'm limited to 3.5 (I think).  Im pleased with my numbers as there is minimal modification to my usage,  e.g. I do try to not have the toaster and kettle on at the same time but it does happen!

Spies

Pretty mediocre month

May

Generated: 396.1kWh (84% of PVGIS)
Self Use: 162.9kWh (41%)
Imported: 180.6kWh
Cost saving (@28p/kWh): £45.61
SEG: £32.09 (avg 13.7p/kWh)

Cost savings+SEG to date since install £290.80

Magnitio

Spies said:

Pretty mediocre month

April

Was May any better?