Solar panels but increased energy usage?

born_again

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Rodders53 said:

November????  9 days in!  Do you mean October? 

Anyway damp, grey, short days.  Solar not much help?  Reducing output less export, anyway.

ASHP used for heating rather than Kerosene = more electric used. But no oil is burnt!

You are trying to compare eggs with mushrooms.

Do ASHP use more electricity than oil fuel burners? I'm guessing they must use a lot more, going on these figures, if that's the reason for the higher unit usage.

What powers your ASHP? Electricity 👍

Certainly not oil that you were using to heat house last year. For which the boiler will not have been using much electric to power the pump..
How much did the oil cost last year?

Not being funny, but did you do any research on the change & costs?

teaselMay

Think, very approximately, as an air source heat pump being a fridge in reverse. It uses electricity to extract heat from the air and pump it around your house. It will use more electricity than the oil boiler did, but it won't use any kerosene. How much did you spend last year on Kerosene?

Tiger_greeneyes

teaselMay said:

Think, very approximately, as an air source heat pump being a fridge in reverse. It uses electricity to extract heat from the air and pump it around your house. It will use more electricity than the oil boiler did, but it won't use any kerosene. How much did you spend last year on Kerosene?

We used around £40 per month of kerosene?

Reed_Richards

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

As others have said at this time of year solar panel production starts to decline massively as we head towards winter.  My production at the low of winter is about a tenth of what it is for the best early summer months.  On top of that the last couple of weeks have been incredibly dull for most of us. I've had next to zero production. 

On the heating side my ASHP is using around 500 kWh (or units) each month at the moment . But that has saved me a substantially higher amount of gas compared to last year.   If you are only 70 units up I think you are doing pretty well   

500 units per month seems very high considering they're meant to be so much more energy efficient. Our old boiler was 97% efficient but it was 15 years old and we got the chance to upgrade. Looking back over the old bills, it must have cost peanuts to run, just the price of the kerosene.

Swings and roundabouts.  Heat pumps are about 3 times more efficient than oil boilers (a bit more hopefully).  Electricity is about 3 times more expensive than kerosene per kWh.  So whatever you used to pay for your kerosene will now be about how much extra you have to pay on your electricity bill.

    

Newbie_John

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

As others have said at this time of year solar panel production starts to decline massively as we head towards winter.  My production at the low of winter is about a tenth of what it is for the best early summer months.  On top of that the last couple of weeks have been incredibly dull for most of us. I've had next to zero production. 

On the heating side my ASHP is using around 500 kWh (or units) each month at the moment . But that has saved me a substantially higher amount of gas compared to last year.   If you are only 70 units up I think you are doing pretty well   

500 units per month seems very high considering they're meant to be so much more energy efficient. Our old boiler was 97% efficient but it was 15 years old and we got the chance to upgrade. Looking back over the old bills, it must have cost peanuts to run, just the price of the kerosene.

Heat pump is 400% efficient - so 4x times better (efficiency wise).

Spies

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Spies said:

My advice is realise that a ASHP uses electricity and we have had very little to no solar so far this month...

We've had a good number of bright days where I am, the ASHP isn't on every day and when it is on, it's set to 16c which means it doesn't come on all that much. It's a small, well insulated house. Looking back, we didn't have the heating on on the bright days as our living room faces south and has big windows. We've had the windows open pretty much daily, if anything.

What was the point of getting a heatpump of you're going to run at such a low internal temperature?

They design the systems around MCS guidance which is heating the living areas to 21c, bedrooms to 18-19c and bathroom to 22c.

Its probably cycling loads trying to maintain such a low flow temperature.

Qyburn

Tiger_greeneyes said:

teaselMay said:

Think, very approximately, as an air source heat pump being a fridge in reverse. It uses electricity to extract heat from the air and pump it around your house. It will use more electricity than the oil boiler did, but it won't use any kerosene. How much did you spend last year on Kerosene?

We used around £40 per month of kerosene?

Around 800kWh of oil, depending on the price you were paying. Plus something like 15kWh of electricity to run the pump and boiler.

Heedtheadvice

Trying to keep things simple....

Forget solar for the moment. As has been writ above very low generation this time of year so just ignore for the moment.

You paid, for an average of £40 per month kerosene, that is £480 per annum.

You do not have  an average yet for the electricity consumed by the heat pump but lets assume your Nov bill is typical and is your average. The extra the Heat pump  has used (again an assumption) is 328 - 257 =71 units (this Nov minus last Nov consumption shown on your bills).

71 units will cost you a nominal £0.30 per unit ( in very round figures.) So that is £21 per month or £255 for a year.

So lots of assumptions in there and not enough information to do a full comparison but if the assumptions are in the correct ball park it could be costing you £200 less a year....?

As written earlier electricity ( currenty!) Is more expensive than both oil and gas by about 4 times but if Air Source Heat Pump was running efficiently it would consume less power and therefore cost a similar amount.

As the weather has been different to last October (November's billing period) and you are not heating to a high temperature much and having  windows open a lot it is difficult at the moment to do a comparison but your current running costs di not seem excessive compared with last year.

Best thing is to do a comparison after  lengthy period say over the year.

However I would add having a small house , well insulated, will not save you much if you heat whilst having the windows open!! Ventilation is essential but it is a good idea to close up before heat just goes out the window!

badmemory

Well I don't know anything about heat pumps,  But my 18 panels of solar have averaged less than 2kWh per day for November so far, which when put against my normal usage of 20 a day is interesting to say the least, but then back in August I was exporting around the 20.  

It is my night time usage which I realise has climbed as I can see from the monitor.  My freezer appears to be on virtually 24/7.  I see a replacement in my future as it is certainly using more in 24 hours than it was when I checked it last year.

I realise that this rambliing doesn't answer you but I wondered if it would give you some thoughts.

Exiled_Tyke

Newbie_John said:

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

As others have said at this time of year solar panel production starts to decline massively as we head towards winter.  My production at the low of winter is about a tenth of what it is for the best early summer months.  On top of that the last couple of weeks have been incredibly dull for most of us. I've had next to zero production. 

On the heating side my ASHP is using around 500 kWh (or units) each month at the moment . But that has saved me a substantially higher amount of gas compared to last year.   If you are only 70 units up I think you are doing pretty well   

500 units per month seems very high considering they're meant to be so much more energy efficient. Our old boiler was 97% efficient but it was 15 years old and we got the chance to upgrade. Looking back over the old bills, it must have cost peanuts to run, just the price of the kerosene.

Heat pump is 400% efficient - so 4x times better (efficiency wise).

Actually I have over estimated here as I forget the impact of the change in car as well.   However the figures aren't too far off. I was using around 20,000kWh per year of gas perviously.