New Octopus tariff for solar and battery users - Octopus Flux

Ron-ski

slewis1972 said:

At the moment I get down to 30%/40% approx at night ( kids with fans on etc )  but then is 100% by lunchtime. 

I assume I leave as is at the moment ? And excess auto goes into grid?

Regards

What if the weather is bad, and you go into morning with only 30%, hence charging the batteries in the off peak 2am to 5am period.

Come the 1 July it will cost me 18.54p per kWh to import between 2am and 5am, and once the sun is up (if it comes up) then I export at 19.899p per kWh.

Some is probably lost in efficiencies losses, so basically you're not making anything, BUT you have a full battery should it be a bad solar day, so don't end up importing at 30.899p, and you really want to avoid importing at peak which for me is 43.259p.

As for how your system works, I have no idea, sorry, some are easy to setup up, some are difficult.

Grandad2b

Everyone's usage pattern is different: since 1 May the most electricity I've used in a day is just shy of 9kWh. On that basis I'd want to charge my battery, if I had one, to 9kWh before dawn.
Then I'd be looking at the weather forecast and trying to guess how much generation I'd get during the day and seeing if I couldn't reduce that figure. The most I've imported on a single day in the same period is just shy of 5.5kWh which was on a reasonably good generation day (go figure) so I guess I'd risk charging to 5.5kWh until the end of August. But this is purely theoretical - I don't have a battery and I'm waiting to see how my numbers stack up over the year before I attempt to make any decision on getting one.

pensionpawn

Or just wait for this technology to become commercially available and buy a battery that can take you to the shops and back and then power your house over night! https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/16/solaredge-unveils-bidirectional-ev-charger/

ed110220

I've just moved over to Flux today so I'm still trying to work out how is best to use it. I've got 4.8 kW of PV and 6 kWh of batts, since the spring we've imported very little (and then it's almost always been because we've drawn more than the 3 kW that the batts can supply, say oven + hob on at the same time, rather than the batts being empty). I think it might take a bit of getting used to balancing avoiding paying for imports with maximising export earnings, after getting used to just avoiding imports.

Ron-ski

pensionpawn said:

Or just wait for this technology to become commercially available and buy a battery that can take you to the shops and back and then power your house over night! https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/16/solaredge-unveils-bidirectional-ev-charger/

I'd be waiting a very long time, as I've absolutely no plans to massively increase my motoring costs. There's also the fact that the car would be at work, and not get charged off the solar, a major problem with your use case for a lot of people.

JKenH

Ron-ski said:

pensionpawn said:

Or just wait for this technology to become commercially available and buy a battery that can take you to the shops and back and then power your house over night! https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/16/solaredge-unveils-bidirectional-ev-charger/

I'd be waiting a very long time, as I've absolutely no plans to massively increase my motoring costs. There's also the fact that the car would be at work, and not get charged off the solar, a major problem with your use case for a lot of people.

Yes, exactly the problem my son has. He has a V2H (and solar panel) set up with his 40kWh Nissan Leaf but 4 days a week he gets home just as tea has finished cooking. You need a minimum level of input (around 1.4kW) to charge the car battery and I believe the car will only deliver a minimum 1.5kW so it isn’t as practical a solution as it might seem. 

Screwdriva

pensionpawn said:

Or just wait for this technology to become commercially available and buy a battery that can take you to the shops and back and then power your house over night! https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/16/solaredge-unveils-bidirectional-ev-charger/

This is quite interesting. If I understand this correctly, this bi-directional charger will allow for V2H, bypassing the need for a battery entirely? 

"The new charger will enable solar-powered vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services. It will become commercially available in the second half of 2024.

V2G applications allow automatic charging and discharging of the EV battery based on dynamic utility prices. This enables homeowners to receive payments from their electricity supplier by discharging stored EV battery power back to the grid during demand response events.

Additionally, users can use the EV battery to back up their homes during outages, demonstrating a V2H application.."

scubajoe

Screwdriva said:

pensionpawn said:

Or just wait for this technology to become commercially available and buy a battery that can take you to the shops and back and then power your house over night! https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/16/solaredge-unveils-bidirectional-ev-charger/

This is quite interesting. If I understand this correctly, this bi-directional charger will allow for V2H, bypassing the need for a battery entirely? 

"The new charger will enable solar-powered vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services. It will become commercially available in the second half of 2024.

V2G applications allow automatic charging and discharging of the EV battery based on dynamic utility prices. This enables homeowners to receive payments from their electricity supplier by discharging stored EV battery power back to the grid during demand response events.

Additionally, users can use the EV battery to back up their homes during outages, demonstrating a V2H application.."

Bear in mind that this is only for SolarEdge systems and is controlled by a SolarEdge Home Hub Inverter. It isn't standalone. 

Screwdriva

scubajoe said:

Bear in mind that this is only for SolarEdge systems and is controlled by a SolarEdge Home Hub Inverter. It isn't standalone. 

We have invested in a SE system and the prospect is quite exciting! The money we would have spent on a battery will now subsidize an EV purchase in a couple years

scubajoe

Screwdriva said:

scubajoe said:

Bear in mind that this is only for SolarEdge systems and is controlled by a SolarEdge Home Hub Inverter. It isn't standalone. 

We have invested in a SE system and the prospect is quite exciting! The money we would have spent on a battery will now subsidize an EV purchase in a couple years

Exactly what I was thinking! Hopefully not that far away, I'm looking for a used BMW i3 which should be perfect for our needs.