Solar Panels and Heat Pump fitted but savings not as suggested.

jaynexxx_2

QrizB said:

£800-worth of LPG at 68p/l is roughly 8200kWh of heat, which will take roughly 2700kWh of electricity to replace.

Your total electricity demand for the year will therefore be about 6300kWh, not 9000.

Net of solar self-use, you might need to buy 4500kWh from the grid at a cost of £1350.

Hopefully that's a bit more reasonable!

As part of your solar PV installation you should have been fitted with a generation meter (that measures all the electricity your solar panels produce). You should also have a smart meter which will be measuring how much electricity you export. If you compare those readings you can work out how much solar electricity you have used in your house.

Do you know where to find those numbers? Could you share them here?

Also, have you signed up yet with an electricity supplier to pay you for your exported electricity?

Thank you. Yes we have a solar meter which tells us how much solar energy we are producing this is between 6 and 24 kwh per day (depending on the weather) We do have a smart meter but have only just received the in home display and I am still waiting for it to be activated, so can't yet see what I am exporting. I have looked on the app but that only shows what we are using from the grid. I have also signed up for an outgoing tariff but still waiting for the process to complete 

QrizB

jaynexxx_2 said:

 Thank you. Yes we have a solar meter which tells us how much solar energy we are producing this is between 6 and 24 kwh per day (depending on the weather) We do have a smart meter but have only just received the in home display and I am still waiting for it to be activated, so can't yet see what I am exporting.

24kWh per day is good, and shows that your panels are working well.

Your in-home display is unlikely to give you any useful information regarding export. (It's likely to only display import, and to read zero while you are exporting). To see how much electricity you have exported you will have to press some buttons on your smart meter itself.

If you tell us what model of smart meter, we should be able to help you with which buttons to press!

paul991

an easy way is to get a shelly em then you can the info straight to your phone

QrizB

paul991 said:

an easy way is to get a shelly em then you can the info straight to your phone

That's only true for certain values of "easy".

It's also not cheap, particularly if you aren't confident (and competent!) working on household electrics and end up employing an electrician to fit it.

jaynexxx_2

QrizB said:

jaynexxx_2 said:

 Thank you. Yes we have a solar meter which tells us how much solar energy we are producing this is between 6 and 24 kwh per day (depending on the weather) We do have a smart meter but have only just received the in home display and I am still waiting for it to be activated, so can't yet see what I am exporting.

24kWh per day is good, and shows that your panels are working well.

Your in-home display is unlikely to give you any useful information regarding export. (It's likely to only display import, and to read zero while you are exporting). To see how much electricity you have exported you will have to press some buttons on your smart meter itself.

If you tell us what model of smart meter, we should be able to help you with which buttons to press!

I think it's a SMETS2 meter. Says Toshiba on it. It has a green A button on it and a white B button. 

QrizB

jaynexxx_2 said:

QrizB said:

jaynexxx_2 said:

 Thank you. Yes we have a solar meter which tells us how much solar energy we are producing this is between 6 and 24 kwh per day (depending on the weather) We do have a smart meter but have only just received the in home display and I am still waiting for it to be activated, so can't yet see what I am exporting.

24kWh per day is good, and shows that your panels are working well.

Your in-home display is unlikely to give you any useful information regarding export. (It's likely to only display import, and to read zero while you are exporting). To see how much electricity you have exported you will have to press some buttons on your smart meter itself.

If you tell us what model of smart meter, we should be able to help you with which buttons to press!

I think it's a SMETS2 meter. Says Toshiba on it. It has a green A button on it and a white B button. 

I don't think there's a Toshiba smart meter in the UK, but there are a number of Toshiba comms hubs. Might you have got the name from the hub (sits on the top of your electricity meter)?

Green A and white B sounds a bit like a Landis & Gyr meter. Does it look like this? (The connectors at the top will be covered by the comms hub).

jaynexxx_2

QrizB said:

jaynexxx_2 said:

QrizB said:

jaynexxx_2 said:

 Thank you. Yes we have a solar meter which tells us how much solar energy we are producing this is between 6 and 24 kwh per day (depending on the weather) We do have a smart meter but have only just received the in home display and I am still waiting for it to be activated, so can't yet see what I am exporting.

24kWh per day is good, and shows that your panels are working well.

Your in-home display is unlikely to give you any useful information regarding export. (It's likely to only display import, and to read zero while you are exporting). To see how much electricity you have exported you will have to press some buttons on your smart meter itself.

If you tell us what model of smart meter, we should be able to help you with which buttons to press!

I think it's a SMETS2 meter. Says Toshiba on it. It has a green A button on it and a white B button. 

I don't think there's a Toshiba smart meter in the UK, but there are a number of Toshiba comms hubs. Might you have got the name from the hub (sits on the top of your electricity meter)?

Green A and white B sounds a bit like a Landis & Gyr meter. Does it look like this? (The connectors at the top will be covered by the comms hub).

Yes sorry it is that one. I have pressed the green button a few times now and got the export figure. In the last month we have generated 533 kwh and exported 391. So we have used 142 kwh of the energy we have generated. So an average of 5 kwh per day. Does that sound about right? 

QrizB

Yes, that sounds plausible. So it definitely looks like the panels are working. Your next step is to optimise your heat pump.

There are some very knowledgeable heat pump owners here (not me!) and I expect they will be able to give you some good advice.

Reed_Richards

The best way to optimise your heat pump for water heating is to heat your water when your solar panels are generating the most power.  Then, if you can, turn off your water heating until the same time the following day.  Heating the cylinder once a day will only work if you don't use too much hot water and your cylinder is well-enough insulated.  You might need to heat the cylinder to a slightly higher temperature than you have been using to achieve this. Or it might not be possible, it depends on your circumstances.

The best way to optimise your heat pump for space heating is to make sure you use the Weather Compensation feature.  This may go under a different name and setting the right parameter can take some time by trial and error but you'll have to wait until it starts to get cold out for that.    

jaynexxx_2

QrizB said:

Yes, that sounds plausible. So it definitely looks like the panels are working. Your next step is to optimise your heat pump.

There are some very knowledgeable heat pump owners here (not me!) and I expect they will be able to give you some good advice.

Thanks for all your advice, least I understand it a bit better now.  Having looked at the heat pump usage I can see it is using around 2 - 2.5 kwh per day at the moment which is just for hot water so that's not too bad. I guess I was just expecting the solar to power most of our electricity during the day, which may have been unrealistic. Once the export tariff is complete this should go towards paying for what we are still importing. Once again thanks for your help