Solar panels questions

Apodemus

Deleted_User,  thanks for the explanation.  I see that you live in the SW of England, where the climate is much more benign than it is for me in the North of Scotland.  If we turned our heating on at 15C, it would be on for most of the year, so no way you would use as little gas around here!  Actually, you wouldn't be able to use gas at all, as there is no mains supply - which in turn means that there are no dual-fuel tariffs available, so no cheap deals.  Since my total energy bill (electricity + oil) comes to about £2,700 a year, you can understand why I find it hard to get my head around a figure of £400 per annum! 

ComicGeek

Deleted_User said:

Muttleythefrog said:

Deleted_User said:

Apodemus said:

If the OP's total annual energy cost really is only £400 (and I find that hard to comprehend, unless heating and hot water is by free wood fuel), then that comes to roughly 6kWh per day, so the amount of battery back-up needed to cope with grid fluctuations wouldn't need to be huge.  It wouldn't necessarily be financially worth it and it most likely wouldn't reduce the OP's carbon footprint.  I have a 1kW UPS that would easily cover a couple of hours of the OPs average annual consumption of 250 watts per hour!

It Is only £400 pa dual fuel
I don't understand how some bills are £1000+
We are not miserly and have a full gas CH system which we run when it gets cold (15 degrees or so) we don't leave it running 24/7 as some do
We have an electric oven and hobs
We have a fridge freezer 

You are doing well... we'd struggle to match that... our bill is double yours basically and we do get free electricity with solar PV system and I would say lifestyle is miserly although also to factor in we are almost exclusively housebound and so running things like computers most the day. I'd say you are doing remarkably well and especially if more than one of you. I imagine that in domestic setting big drivers of difference are those things which require significant power over longer periods (the sort of things Solar PV generation can be useful to reduce grid demand regarding) and I'm thinking washing machines, tumble driers, cookers, showers/baths, heating. I would assume you are relatively low users on key things like that... and certainly regarding heating it looks likely if prepared to drop that low for temperature. 

As it happens I'm in the process of selling my house... to show how effectively you are at keeping bills low... in the last 3 months nobody has been living in my house... we have used precisely zero gas (as no hot water being used and thermostat set at 14C) and we are using less than1kWh of electricity a day running some things like fridges and freezers and hardware for works/gardening... yet our bills are still around £20 a month essentially from standing charges. So I imagine our bills would be in excess of £300 with nobody living there over the course of a year including winter for some basic heating.

We do have a washing machine and use it perhaps 4 times a week
Our standing charge is 1/3 of our bill..gas and elect 

That does sound really low. In comparison our annual energy bill for a 4 bed detached house with reasonable insulation, good windows, LED lighting throughout, efficient gas boiler, smart heating controls etc is £1200. We do work from home so there is extra heating on during winter (although the house holds heat really well, so isn't running constantly), and a higher electrical load for a couple of new computers and small server. We probably use more than half your total energy bill just heating the hot water cylinder for 2 adults and 1 child, never mind everything else!

We do get more than £1800 each year from our PV FITs, so overall don't pay anything for energy/water across the year.

[Deleted User]

ComicGeek said:

Deleted_User said:

Muttleythefrog said:

Deleted_User said:

Apodemus said:

If the OP's total annual energy cost really is only £400 (and I find that hard to comprehend, unless heating and hot water is by free wood fuel), then that comes to roughly 6kWh per day, so the amount of battery back-up needed to cope with grid fluctuations wouldn't need to be huge.  It wouldn't necessarily be financially worth it and it most likely wouldn't reduce the OP's carbon footprint.  I have a 1kW UPS that would easily cover a couple of hours of the OPs average annual consumption of 250 watts per hour!

It Is only £400 pa dual fuel
I don't understand how some bills are £1000+
We are not miserly and have a full gas CH system which we run when it gets cold (15 degrees or so) we don't leave it running 24/7 as some do
We have an electric oven and hobs
We have a fridge freezer 

You are doing well... we'd struggle to match that... our bill is double yours basically and we do get free electricity with solar PV system and I would say lifestyle is miserly although also to factor in we are almost exclusively housebound and so running things like computers most the day. I'd say you are doing remarkably well and especially if more than one of you. I imagine that in domestic setting big drivers of difference are those things which require significant power over longer periods (the sort of things Solar PV generation can be useful to reduce grid demand regarding) and I'm thinking washing machines, tumble driers, cookers, showers/baths, heating. I would assume you are relatively low users on key things like that... and certainly regarding heating it looks likely if prepared to drop that low for temperature. 

As it happens I'm in the process of selling my house... to show how effectively you are at keeping bills low... in the last 3 months nobody has been living in my house... we have used precisely zero gas (as no hot water being used and thermostat set at 14C) and we are using less than1kWh of electricity a day running some things like fridges and freezers and hardware for works/gardening... yet our bills are still around £20 a month essentially from standing charges. So I imagine our bills would be in excess of £300 with nobody living there over the course of a year including winter for some basic heating.

We do have a washing machine and use it perhaps 4 times a week
Our standing charge is 1/3 of our bill..gas and elect 

That does sound really low. In comparison our annual energy bill for a 4 bed detached house with reasonable insulation, good windows, LED lighting throughout, efficient gas boiler, smart heating controls etc is £1200. We do work from home so there is extra heating on during winter (although the house holds heat really well, so isn't running constantly), and a higher electrical load for a couple of new computers and small server. We probably use more than half your total energy bill just heating the hot water cylinder for 2 adults and 1 child, never mind everything else!

We do get more than £1800 each year from our PV FITs, so overall don't pay anything for energy/water across the year.

According to our smart meter display - a 5 minute shower costs just 3 or 4p - so that's cheap  !

We dont use heating until late October and not after late March - but dont have radiator thermostats - the heatnig gets manually switched off

Muttleythefrog

Deleted_User said:

Muttleythefrog said:

Deleted_User said:

Apodemus said:

If the OP's total annual energy cost really is only £400 (and I find that hard to comprehend, unless heating and hot water is by free wood fuel), then that comes to roughly 6kWh per day, so the amount of battery back-up needed to cope with grid fluctuations wouldn't need to be huge.  It wouldn't necessarily be financially worth it and it most likely wouldn't reduce the OP's carbon footprint.  I have a 1kW UPS that would easily cover a couple of hours of the OPs average annual consumption of 250 watts per hour!

It Is only £400 pa dual fuel
I don't understand how some bills are £1000+
We are not miserly and have a full gas CH system which we run when it gets cold (15 degrees or so) we don't leave it running 24/7 as some do
We have an electric oven and hobs
We have a fridge freezer 

You are doing well... we'd struggle to match that... our bill is double yours basically and we do get free electricity with solar PV system and I would say lifestyle is miserly although also to factor in we are almost exclusively housebound and so running things like computers most the day. I'd say you are doing remarkably well and especially if more than one of you. I imagine that in domestic setting big drivers of difference are those things which require significant power over longer periods (the sort of things Solar PV generation can be useful to reduce grid demand regarding) and I'm thinking washing machines, tumble driers, cookers, showers/baths, heating. I would assume you are relatively low users on key things like that... and certainly regarding heating it looks likely if prepared to drop that low for temperature. 

As it happens I'm in the process of selling my house... to show how effectively you are at keeping bills low... in the last 3 months nobody has been living in my house... we have used precisely zero gas (as no hot water being used and thermostat set at 14C) and we are using less than1kWh of electricity a day running some things like fridges and freezers and hardware for works/gardening... yet our bills are still around £20 a month essentially from standing charges. So I imagine our bills would be in excess of £300 with nobody living there over the course of a year including winter for some basic heating.

We do have a washing machine and use it perhaps 4 times a week
Our standing charge is 1/3 of our bill..gas and elect 

Then I'm even more impressed...lol.. as that's 4 times as much as me.

QrizB

Deleted_User said:

Yes - that is correct (gas and electricity) and I am with octopus on renewables already !

Sorry, coming to this thread late.

If you're with Octopus and not on Go/Go Faster you can sign up to Octopus Outgoing Agile (OOA). This pays a variable rate of SEG for export, typically around 7p/kWh but currently closer to 10p/kWh during daytime (which is when you're generating your solar power).

A 4kWp system generating 4000kWh/yr would therefore be worth £400pa even if you didn't self-consume a single kWh.

(OOA is a beta tariff and obviously varies, depending on wholesale electricity prices.)

There's a thread discussing various export options here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6269406/export-tariffs-fit-seg-octopus-outgoing-agile