How to "use" the solar panels on my house?

AJ84

Hi all,

I've been lazy.... 7 years of lazy.
In short, we moved into a new build (first owners) back in 2015 and on the roof were solar panels.  At the time, they had issues connecting them up, found they were installed upside down a few other issues.
All rectified however other priorities took place and we just forgot about them.

So the question really is...how do we use them/ the energy they produce?

What do we know?

3 Large-ish panels in roof
In the loft, there is a large box connected to the panels which is a Solis-mini-1000
Downstairs is a Landis Gyr+ E110 which ticks along 

Documents-wise, we have a MCS installation certificate which states interesting stats such as

Total Installed Capacity (kW) 1.35

Declared Net Capacity (kW) 1.22

Estimated Annual Generation (kWh) 945

If true, would be very annoying as this potentially would be enough to power my car for free!

And apart from this, thats it - we have no idea if it generates and feeds back into the house to use, if it goes to the grid, or it collects and gets rid because it has not been setup to go anywhere.

Any help would be appreciated!

QrizB

When the sun shines, your panels will generate electricity. This is DC so the Solis inverter will convert it to AC. From there it will pass through a generation meter and into your consumer unit via a dedicated circuit.

(This generation meter should be counting every kWh your panels produce.)

What happens then will depend on the circumstances.

If your house is drawing more power from the grid than the panels are generating, the power from the panels will feed part of your domestic demand and the amount you draw from the grid will fall.

If your house is drawing less power than the panels are generating, all your domestic demand will be met by the panels and the surplus will be exported to the grid. (There will be a register on your smart meter that measures this.)

You can see from this that the difference between the number of kWh on the generation meter and the export reading on your smart meter will be the amount of electricity that your house has used from the panels, and the amount that you have been saved from buying.

1.35kWp is quite a small array and so your savings are unlikely to be huge.

Benny2020

Basically stick power hungry stuff on when the sun is shining and don't put multiple items on at the same time, do them sequentially.
If you use 2 items that take 1kw and you are generating 1kw then you will still take the second kw from the grid but if you use each item in sequnce then you will draw no power from the grid.
With only 3 panels and 1.35 kw you will generate maybe up to 1.25kw at peak.

Benny2020

Actually if they were installed in 2015 then who is getting the FIT payments? 
Mine were installed in 2015 and i get 17p for every kwh produced so where is your money going?

Verdigris

If true, would be very annoying as this potentially would be enough to power my car for free!

To put things in perspective, the output you quote will only take your car about 300 miles. It is unlikely you'll be able to capture all the output, unless you only ever drive at night.

Benny2020

Does anyone ever ask you for a reading from the generation meter? were you asked to register for FIT payments?
Someone should be getting £200 a year ish from the generation.

[Deleted User]

Benny2020 said:

Actually if they were installed in 2015 then who is getting the FIT payments? 
Mine were installed in 2015 and i get 17p for every kwh produced so where is your money going?

Were they ever registered? It is worth checking the FIT Register. That said, it is too late if this hasn’t taken place.

AJ84

Thanks all for the responses - many of which I've asked myself the same question/s the more I think about it.

In order of responses:

@QrizB: Fully understand up to the point of of counting every kWh which it does do.

I've never seen a difference on the bill but more importantly, while the house initially had a SMETS1 meter, it was recently changed to a SMETS2 and nothing was ever asked about the solars.

We do use a LOT of electricity averaging around 30kw a day with it doubling when the car is charging so we will never be in a situation of it drawing less power than the panels.

@Benny2020:

Thanks - we are due to be on Octopus Go soon so the car + power hungry will end up going into the lower cost band.

During the day, we have a fair bit on idle such as the fridge and a lot of smart devices from sensors to alexas/googles

As for FIT payments - no idea!

I think this really is the main question - EON at the time sent forms over and we filled them in/sent back but thats as far as we seem to have got to.

As for reading from generation meter - never.

Our main meter is outside so at best, that reading may have been taken without us knowing but the generation meter is indoor.

Is there a way to find out where it has been going?

@Verdigris:

This could still work as during the day I tend to charge at the office.

@Dolor:

I wonder if this is what EON were meant to do but never happened.

Having just searched my emails, I found the application form from EON back in August 2018 and while I can see a bar stating the email was replied to, I can't find any sort of response but then again I remember talking to them back in 2016 too so who knows!

I suppose the next question is even if I write off (probably no choice now) 6 years of sunny weather, how do I proceed going forward?

Thanks again

Greatgimp

Phone Eon.Next and ask them if you are registered with them. You will need the meter number.

Benny2020

Are the panels yours? Or did the builders register them and collect the FIT payments?

QrizB

AJ84 said:

Thanks all for the responses - many of which I've asked myself the same question/s the more I think about it.
I wonder if this is what EON were meant to do but never happened.

Having just searched my emails, I found the application form from EON back in August 2018 and while I can see a bar stating the email was replied to, I can't find any sort of response but then again I remember talking to them back in 2016 too so who knows!

I suppose the next question is even if I write off (probably no choice now) 6 years of sunny weather, how do I proceed going forward?

If E.ON registered your system and everything then worked as intended, you would have been prompted quarterly to provide generation meter readings. You would also have had recent comunications from them to say that your FIT account was being moved to E.ON Next (along with everyone else who had FITs with E.ON and nPower).

It sounds to me as though E.ON never completed the registration. Depending on exactly how far through the process they got, you might be really lucky and find that you can get paid for the missing years - but it's more likely that your system wasn't registered, you've missed the FIT scheme and all you can hope for is to get SEG payments for any future export.

Do you have a recent reading from your generation meter? Have you ever read the export register on your current SMETS2 smart meter?