PV benefit in the day / cold months

Petriix

I find there's plenty of benefit from timing the appliances going on. I've learnt the timing of the heating element use on various cycles so that I can run the washing machine and dishwasher simultaneously without them heating at the same time.

The biggest issue I have is waiting for the washing machine to finish before putting the clothes in the dryer. My Givenergy battery will make it all a little easier, but it's still more efficient to use what you're generating at the time as much as possible.

jimjames

I guess the answer to the question also depends on the quantity of panels/generation you have. You may have a reasonable output even in winter with 7kW for example but with 2kW the spare might be tiny if any.

Exiled_Tyke

jimjames said:

I guess the answer to the question also depends on the quantity of panels/generation you have. You may have a reasonable output even in winter with 7kW for example but with 2kW the spare might be tiny if any.

My system does really well to get 1kWh a day in December.  So even doubling up to your suggested 7kW would still go no where near meeting my daily needs.  I probably need >20kW of panels to only average my daily Dec needs - which of course means there would still be many days where output will not enough. 

NoobSolar

I have never had a more exhaustive or informative set of responses. I am hugely grateful to all of you. My installer alleges we are going to get 6kw on there and each panel will have optimisers. I don't know whether they are likely to help matters?

Spies

Optimisers help with shading as far as I know, unsure if they help with sun angle at all. 

I didn't look into them too much because it would make the system a lot more expensive and increase the payback period considerably, if I had the kind of money to spend on optimisers I'd think it would be better used towards a home storage battery.

But that again, depends on if you qualify for the octopus Go tariff! Otherwise the battery may never ROI.