Solar Exporting

matt_drummer

Reed_Richards said:

matt_drummer said:

Nobody has profited from your exported electricity as nobody has been able to to charge it to a customer.

Surely it went to the neighbours' houses and it went in through their electricity meters.  So their suppliers will charge them for it, despite having paid nothing for it themselves. 

If you can put an extension lead over to your neighbour, put a meter on the circuit and charge them half price for the electricity they use, then you are always liable to be better off than exporting the electricity to the grid.

The energy companies pay for everything they sell, they will have to have bought it from somewhere to sell it.

Electricity exported from generation that is not paid for is just lost, nobody can charge for it.

Reed_Richards

Sorry, you've lost me here. 

Presumably the only way they electricity companies can tell how much electricity they have actually supplied is to add together the meter readings from all their customers.  Electricity companies have contracts with their suppliers, the actual generators of electricity.  Do they contract for exactly how much is actually used or do they contract for a fixed amount and top this up should it prove necessary when more electricity is used than had been estimated?  The former option (which seems unlikely) would cause the suppliers to benefit from exported electricity that is not paid for.  The latter would mean that nobody benefits financially provided domestic solar electricity remains a tiny fraction of the total generation.  Is that what you are trying to tell me?      

CSI_Yorkshire

An extremely simplified explanation:

They buy how much they think they are going to supply for each 30 minute period.

What is actually used might be different.  When it is, National Grid (the ESO part) either buys enough extra to cover what is short, or pays generators to turn down when it is long.  The suppliers then have to pay for this service at whatever price NG needs to cover it.

QrizB

Reed_Richards said:

Presumably the only way they electricity companies can tell how much electricity they have actually supplied is to add together the meter readings from all their customers.

Yes, which they then buy from generators, from SEG customers, or on the balancing market.

Because the OP's supplier hasn't purchased that 1500kWh from them, they will have to purchase an equivalent amount elsewhere when use is reconciled.

The OP's neighbours haven't purchased it from the OP either, although their meters will have measured its use. Their suppliers will also have to buy it elsewhere.

What does change slightly is the discrepancy between what is fed into the grid and what is taken out - ie. grid losses will seem to be smaller.

tldkid1

Overall, my recommendation is that if you like your  neighbours, share your solar with them by extension lead until such time as your energy company gets round to export metering you.  They are pretty quick to up their prices and really slow to drop then and definitely very foot draggy to process your application.  You have to wait a month to get your installation certificate and 2 months to process your application is just silly.

DougMLancs

British Gas drag their feet with most things to be honest. 3 weeks from installation to earning on an export tariff with 🐙 and most of that was the DNO. Still, at least you’re not with Scottish Power, the number of posts on here of people waiting 9 months+ for the export to be set up!

tripled

I applied to British Gas SEG at the beginning of April. Nearly 5 months on now I have a formal complaint open with them as they have still not set up the account. I am persisting with it partly because they offer the highest SEG available to me on an EV import tariff (6.4p/kWh while I was on Octopus Go, and now 15p/kWh on the BG EV tariff), and partly because I have made it crystal clear in my complaint that I expect them to pay me from the original opening meter reading. If they don't, I'll escalate it to the Ombudsman.

QrizB

tldkid1 said:

Overall, my recommendation is that if you like your  neighbours, share your solar with them by extension lead ...

Do be very careful if you do this. Besides all the obvious problems, your neighbours might be on a different phase to you and there might be earth potential complications.

chris_n

QrizB said:

tldkid1 said:

Overall, my recommendation is that if you like your  neighbours, share your solar with them by extension lead ...

Do be very careful if you do this. Besides all the obvious problems, your neighbours might be on a different phase to you and there might be earth potential complications.

There will also be 415V between the live of the extension and the live of the house!

Reed_Richards

Maybe, but if it's a normal extension lead you would just plug some appliances into it; I can't picture the scenario where you come anywhere near the live of the house.  If their earth was at a different potential to your earth that could give rise to problems but wouldn't touching an earthed outside tap whilst standing on wet ground be equally bad?