Off Grid living

[Deleted User]

Good afternoon

I wonder if some of you wise folks can help. We are already off grid for water and heating (we just use woodburners for heat, and our water comes from a spring).

In an effort to go off grid for electricity we had a chap out to quote us for solar panels. I quite naively did not realise that even with solar panels you have to pay the daily standing charge to the electric company. I genuinely didn’t know this was the case. He told us it’s basically impossible to be totally off the grid for electric. 

I feel quite disheartened. Is anyone here fully off grid for electric and if so do you have any advice?

Many thanks 

Ectophile

If you really want to be off grid, you would have the electricity supply disconnected.  Once you have done that, you won't have to pay standing charges to anybody.  But all the time the meter is connected, you pay the standing charge.

Going completely off-grid with solar requires some planning - you need to estimate how much you'll generate in winter (not much), and what batteries you're going to need.  And probably something as a backup to top up the batteries if we get a long spell of grey weather.

Rattusnorvegicus

solar panels, and the daily standing charge have nothing to do with each other. The standing charge is for connection to the premises, and a meter, for which the energy company is responsible.

Naturally you can instruct your provider to remove the meter at a heavy financial cost, however the better plan is to find a company that offers no daily standing charge, and an increased cost for units used (0 used=0 cost).

The company probably assumed supply from both energy company AND solar panels.

Your essentially becoming your own electricity provider, so you need a friend whos a competent qualified sparky (that wont burn your house down, and takes the risk of full compliance with regs seriously)...AND an understanding of the supply installed. Just having one installed, doesnt cover knowing the risks, and whether they are accounted for.

Nor does it cover maintenance costs, or awareness of the subject matter. So educating yourselves makes a big difference.

But from my point of view I wouldnt recommend going off grid based on your post. I get quite scared when people talk casually about an alternative 40+ amp 240V AC supply without being electrically minded.

Spend a couple of years learning about the subject through courses, and books. It'll make the chat with your sparky much more productive. Then come back, and consider it. Theres more to it, than just having a chap out for a quote...

Best wishes on your journey. A solid, well-designed off-grid system is a worthy goal.

mmmmikey

Hi

A bog standard solar panel setup like the one you have been quoted for needs a connection to the grid so the washing machine or whatever keeps going when the sun goes behind a cloud, and so the lights work overnight when there's no solar power. It is also possible to supplement the solar panels with a battery system to provide continuity of power when the sun goes in. The panels charge the batteries when the sun is shining and the various electrical stuff then runs off the batteries when the sun goes in. But.....

In the UK, we have wide differences in solar panel output between summer and winter. For instance, my solar panels might generate 20kWh of energy in the summer, but today have generated less than 2kWh. With a grid connected system (whether that has batteries or not) that's not too much of an issue because you can sell any spare power in the summer and buy in anything extra in the winter. Without the grid connection, you'd either need to size the panels to provide enough energy in the winter (which makes it expensive and hugely wasteful as you'll have power you don't need and can't sell in the summer). Or you size it for summer use, in which case you need another source of electricity in the winter (which again makes it expensive but for different reasons). Of course, you also have lots of options in between, but the bottom line is going off grid is likely to cost so much that you'd never recover the cost.

Which leads to the question, what is driving you to go off grid? If you're looking to save money, then you probably won't. If you just like the idea of complete independence then great, but it's going to be expensive. If you want to survive a power cut, then there are in between options where you have solar panels and batteries in what is called "island mode" where the system will keep functioning without the grid connection until the batteries go flat.

There are lots of different options so too soon to give up the idea yet. If you post a bit more information on what you're trying to achieve, I'm sure someone here will be able to help.

Mstty

It sounds like you have your heat and hot water sorted with the log/multi fuel burners.

So you really need to measure your electricity draw for the appliances/devices you want to run. Have you done this?.

When considering this ourselves as a but of fun we said we would need solar with a a decent sized 5kWh batter. A Diesel generator (you can run this on cheaper red diesel at £1.20 per litre) and a wind turbine.

When we looked at whether to be detached from the grid it wasn't worth it as the payback for selling excess electricity in the summer far outweighed the standing charges.

jimjames

Deleted_User said:

I feel quite disheartened. Is anyone here fully off grid for electric and if so do you have any advice?

Many thanks 

The reality is that it's very difficult to be completely off grid for electricity unless you are spending a huge amount of money on batteries to power when there is no sun. If you're prepared to just have no electricity when it's dark or dull then that's fine but it means things like fridges and freezers won't have power over a lot of the winter months. You can still use solar to generate and use as much as possible but still need that connection for the rest of the time.

Rattusnorvegicus

mmmmikey put it better than me... get some panels... treat yourself to a nice discount on your bill...and remain connected to the grid.

Be happy, and live your life. A good read around the subject matter still helps

Qyburn

And you need the right sort of invertor. Standard solar and wind invertors expect to synchronise to the existing supply, so don't work if the power is off.

QrizB

Deleted_User said:

I feel quite disheartened. Is anyone here fully off grid for electric and if so do you have any advice?

HertsLad is very nearly off-grid and has a thread about it here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6334957/should-i-go-off-grid

You'll see from that thread (and his other one) that his lifestyle is unconventional and quite 19th Century in some aspects.

Mstty said:

When considering this ourselves as a but of fun we said we would need solar with a a decent sized 5kWh batter. A Diesel generator (you can run this on cheaper red diesel at £1.20 per litre) and a wind turbine.
When we looked at whether to be detached from the grid it wasn't worth it as the payback for selling excess electricity in the summer far outweighed the standing charges.

Financially, as Mstty says the cost of providing your own back-up generation and/or multi-day battery backup is likely to exceed the saving from not paying £200/yr on the standing charge. You also miss out on the ability so sell back to the grid, which (in itself) can easily earn you more than the standing charge for many solar PV systems.

[Deleted User]

Thank you very much to everyone who has responded - lots to think about. 

In response to a couple of questions - the driver is independence, not financial gain. We only use electricity very reluctantly for those things we absolutely need it for, eg charging phones, fridge freezer. Most of our cooking is done on the wood burner, water is boiled on there etc. 

I am going to do more reading and come back again to the thread very soon. Thank you again x

Sterlingtimes

The house value may be considerably impacted by going off the grid for electricity, gas, telecommunications, clean water and sewerage. Perhaps  petrol or bottled gas generator could be used alongside batteries.